My novel is available for preorder!

After months of research, years of writing & rewriting,
two years of searching for a publisher, 
it's finally here: the novel is available for preorder 
directly from Black Rose Writing.

For a 15% discount, use the code 
PREORDER2018 at check out. Thank you! 

Feeling a little flush

Today we sign the state application for our septic system design, confirming we are the land owners and that the commissioned paperwork meets our building needs. While this may not be earth shattering to anyone else, it represents a huge step forward in our plans and preparations to build a home for our newly expanded family of four adults--my husband and me, his step father, and my mother. Onward. Upward. I wonder if this is how King Arthur felt when he envisioned Camelot.

Juggling buoys

We're moving. We think. We're actually mostly waiting to see the forthcoming building quote, hoping we can even afford to do this thing that we've already set in motion.

While we wait, our own home is undergoing an upgrade. New siding. A broken window fixed. Painting. A repaired faucet, a replaced lamp shade. A new sliding glass door, a new roof for an outbuilding, several replaced lighting fixtures. Upgrade this, tighten that. And all the while help the dogs cope with loud noises and new people in our daily lives.

A buoy sculpture, Cliff Island, ME.(Photo: JP Myskowski)

We're fortunate we can [kind of] afford to build and move. It's not our first choice--mostly since we have recently paid off the mortgage on our home. But it's not our last choice either, since it is all rather exciting.

When we purchased this home in a lovely cul-de-sac neighborhood on an oval about the size of a high school track with an open field in the center for the neighbors to enjoy, we did so as a temporary house. It was too small for our young family.

But over the years, as you sometimes do, we turned a one-car garage into a master bedroom suite, and finished the basement for an at-home office and an entertainment room for the teens. We planted gardens, fruit trees, bushes, a Japanese Maple. Two sheds were added--one to hold what the too small one-car garage once housed, and one to keep the wood dry for our stove. Privacy fencing popped up along the northwest side of the house to help enclose the backyard, creating a secret garden where laundry hangs and we hide from the morning sun.

Now we are four humans under one roof again. But this time it is two in-laws who have joined us. One from his side, one from mine. They'd never met before. I actually only met my step father-in-law once over our 30+ years of marriage.

Our buoys hanging from one of our peach trees.

And again we find the accommodations a bit too snug. And not at all private enough.

So we wait for the quote to come in to see if we can build our new home on a bit of land we purchased earlier this summer up the road apiece in a nearby town. In the meantime, we improve that land a little at a time--clearing brush, removing dead timber, paying for a septic design--while we daydream about living there, in our slightly downsized home, with just the right touch of privacy and separate spaces.

I've been sorting through decades of memories and the stuff you accumulate when you sit still for 17 years. My rule is: if we haven't used it in a year, it goes to the town's swap shop. If it's an item that conjures a memory, I weigh whether or not it brings enough joy to lug around any longer, or whether one of my children might want it. I'm growing surprisingly better at cutting stuff--35-year-old yearbooks from the three high schools I attended in Oklahoma, New York, and Massachusetts included.

If it's something that both my hubby and I have a history with, we decide together. Currently our challenge is trying to decide which buoys to keep. They represent nearly 17 years of going to the seashore as a family. But my husband's not quite as fond of them as I am, which has made me sour on them too just a bit. Should they stay or should they go? Only time, and whether or not we can even afford this venture, will tell.