I Am Here

     Here I am, at my computer, writing.  This is one of the things I truly love to do.  It's right up there with riding (horses); I love writing and riding (that's easier written than said out loud).  I am a writer, although I haven't sold anything I've written in a long, long time.  I do have a small library of rejection notices.  We used to say "slips," but now we get electronic apologies.  I'm proud to have some from places like the New Yorker.  Silly, huh.
      I take full responsibility for this state of non-production; I have simply chosen to do other things.  Whenever I do something, I go whole-hog (you'll forgive me, my kids bought me a calendar of country sayings for Christmas and our sentences now are full of back-woods boy-howdy).  My father was pointing out my fanaticism to me the other day, when I was describing to him some new interest with which I was toying (I forget exactly what, but my difficulties with short-term memory are a whole 'nother blog).  He said, be careful what you start because, knowing you, you'll dive head-over-heels and get lost in it.  That's pretty much how I roll, and for most of my life I've immersed myself in my Mom Side.  I've poured myself into creating an environment that often feels as much like a library, school, resource center, or science lab as it does a home.  I've been passionate about home schooling, specifically, and education in general, and I've been lucky enough to have the financial wherewithall to not have an outside job a great deal of the time.  Although even my hobbies or passtimes become work--not the dirty four-letter word "work," the word Voltaire was talking about, that thing that gives meaning to life (that was Voltaire, wasn't it?)  Even my love for horses has somehow become giving riding lessons.
     Now my life is shifting, after almost 40 years of home schooling.  My youngest, who just happens to be my granddaughter, has decided to broaden her experience with formal schooling, and so, at precisely 8:10 this morning, I dropped her off at the local school for a trial day.  She hopes to be enrolled full-time by next fall.  She is very excited.
     So am I.
     I have a plan.
     I am about to dive into it.
     Here it is:  I will write for no less than 2 hours every morning as soon as I get Kaela to school.  My launching pad will be this blog.  This is my space for reflection, musing, sharing, venting.  Projects will emerge.  Two hours of writing will be just the beginning; soon there will be additional time required for research and manuscript solicitations.  I will join the writer's group at my local bookstore, and take a writing class either online or through the college, to get all the juices flowing good again.
     I like this plan!  I'm excited about it.  I will carve a writing space into my kid/family/horse/ranch life.  It's time.
     I started this blog almost a year ago, and have made exactly 2 entries in that year, with the last being 10 months ago.  Every day I've thought of blogging and other projects, writing in my head as I'm mucking stalls or trail riding or taking care of my family.  It feels like what I'm about to do is semi-retire.  I'm putting the job I've always done into other hands, or letting it take second place, to finally put my main energy into something in which I've only allowed myself to dabble thus far.
     I like my new plan so much that I'm not even going to wait until Kaela is fully enrolled in school in the fall.  I'm going to start now.  Today.  There's no better time.  I won't be able to spend 2 hours while I'm still homeschooling her, so my current routine--I'll call it my pre-plan goal--will be to write this blog every day.  That way, I can take as much time as I can, but still have plenty of time to work with her on things she really needs me for now:  math and STAR testing prep.  This will be a baby step, but a good beginning.
     And so I sit here this morning at my dining room table, thinking, dreaming, planning and writing, and it's a very, very good place to be.  My two wood stoves are humming with warmth at either end of this big old ranch house.  Three big dogs cluster around one hearth, two chihuahuas curl up together on the other.  Outside the big picture window opposite I see the bare black oak trees silhouetted against a leaden sky, reminding me of last night's terrible wind-storm and all the fallen branches I found lying everywhere when I went out to feed goats and horses shortly after dawn.  I'll need to take the quad and trailer and pick them up, and also clean out that back pasture.  Beyond the trees I see the barn, and my paint mare in her purple plaid blanket; she's enjoying the little bit of sunshine that occasionally breaks through the clouds.  Stalls need cleaned, and last night's wind filled my hay barn with leaves and it needs swept out.  I need to get a couple of black felt cowboy hats in to the Boot Barn for cleaning and shaping; the rodeo kids will be out here on Saturday to have their drill team pictures taken, and they've got to look their best.  I've got the rest of the day to deal with my old job, but this morning my life started in a new (old) direction (again), and that's a wonderful thing.