Wrapped Up.

Hello all, it’s been awhile. Life has taken off full steam ahead and I’ve lost the time to just sit of late, but I guess it’s time for an “End of Year, wrap up.” I’m not complaining, it’s a beautiful thing to have things to do and things that must get done. Mike and I have made a move, in fact, I’ve just finished cleaning up from our house warming/Christmas party last weekend. We have a beautiful little townhouse. The dogs are settling in well. We’re almost done unpacking.

Work is chaotic but fun and a bit of a challenge, I’m moving quickly through the ranks and can’t wait to see what the next few months bring. It will be interesting to say the least. 

After a trip through the South, life seemed to go into overdrive. Halloween, packing, moving, Thanksgiving, and now Christmas is just around the corner. It has been a fun little adventure. Today is the first day I think I’ve just sat in awhile. The house is clean, there’s a ton of food in the fridge, sounds like a lazy day.

I keep marveling that I’m in Chicagoland and it is 60 degrees in December and back in Oregon, where 60 degrees is somewhat normal, it’s flooded and there is snow on the ground. I think I brought Oregon weather with me and traded it for Illinois not-so-fun weather! We’ve had a couple snow days though, and I love it. The idea of having snow on the ground all season makes me smile. Even if it makes getting to and from places kinda crappy. The rest is fine, I wanna bundle up, have a snow ball fight and build a snow man. My opportunity will come I’m sure, likely in abundance too.

Right now I’m sitting at a new dining room table, this morning I painted two pieces as part of an annual gift give-away I do. I take my Christmas card list, select a couple cards and send them a personalized piece of my art. This year I selected a friend I’ve had since we were about 4 years old. Pleases me to do so and is so refreshing to be able to create something with someone else in mind.

I’m not much of a fan of Christmas. The commercialized greed bothers me. My family and I don’t do much in the way of presents. The children of the family get small things, but for the most part it’s about having a good meal together, maybe playing outside a bit, usually testing out shot guns and in general enjoying each others company. This year will be different though. Since leaving Oregon, I am in part starting new traditions and in part learning about how everyone else does it.

I had a nice Thanksgiving with my Loves family. Laughing and chatting with his parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins while eating WAY to much and still finding time for dessert. It really was a nice affair and I appreciated not having to cook a full meal the same week as moving. We moved into our new home a couple days before Thanksgiving. I like it here. The dogs are comfortable, we have plenty of room and nice neighbors. However, we got quite a shock and nasty surprise last night.

With a busy work week, I quite simply wanted to relax. I planned a simple night, Mike had a Bruin’s game on, so I was gonna take a nice long bath and read my book in the tub. Decompress a bit, un-wind.

Well, life had other plans. As I began to fill the tub, I poured my bath salts and got my book out. And no sooner did my big toe touch the water did Mike come upstairs. Uh oh. Nothing “good” ever came from a man knocking on a bathroom door with an, “Uh, honey…”

I opened the door to see Mike, a tentative look as he told me I needed to turn the water off and drain the tub. There was water cascading from our living room ceiling, directly below my bathroom. Womp Womp. It seems the complex might have forgot to mention something. There’s a crack somewhere in the tubs piping. They’ll have to come by in the next day or so to fix it. We now have a 6×7 foot ruined piece of sheet rock underneath the bathroom as well as soggy carpet, wet couches and a broken tub. I spent a good part of the morning going through everything with our complex maintenance. Not quite the evening I pictured and one Hell of a mess. There are blowers on it right now. We’ve got to get it dried out enough that contractors can work on it Monday. Nothing like a bathtub falling through your ceiling.

Bizarre incidents aside, I like the place. At least the tub incident happened after our housewarming. We invited several people over last weekend for a nice get together. Drinks and food, plenty of good conversation and some laughs made for a good night. We showed off some of our personal art as well as some collector pieces we have hanging. I was proud to display my Innsmouth art at the gathering. Joshua Hoffine out did himself with the piece and it’s always nice to see Anthony Kosar’s work. As I take classes at his Atelier, I’m quite familiar, but something about owning a piece is just different. There is a special honor in that, I think. The hard work and long hours held in your hand account for much of an artists life and it will always amaze me. I was please to have the final Innsmouth photo piece autographed by Joshua Hoffine, Anthony Kosar and the amazing creature actor Doug Jones, portrayed in the photo. I stare at it constantly, it really is a marvel and to know the many artists that contributed to the piece is beyond lucky. I feel blessed to have met and engaged with so many incredible people this year.

I’ve also seen myself grow incredibly as an artist this year and I can’t wait to dig in and create more now that we have a room just for art. Mike himself is an artist. I love the creativity he possesses and can’t wait to work side by side with him. We’re both writers, but to have two painters in one household is so much fun. I’m sure we’ll come up with some exciting pieces in the future.

We have a lot planned for next year. Trips on the horizon will take us to my former home. It will be interesting for him to see where I come from. Life here really is day and night to Oregon’s slow pace and wide open space.  Mike has never seen the Pacific Northwest, so off to Oregon and Washington we shall go. Neither of us have been to Alaska, so we’ll spend some time up there as well, seeing the rest of my family. It’ll be good. After traveling through the South for 10 days, I know it’ll be a blast. As long as we don’t have to deal with any racoons. I think we’ll walk away smiling. There are a lot of things I’d like Mike to see. I’m hoping I’ve let enough time pass before trying to go back. The memories were suffocating, and though I miss my family and my best friend, I just can’t be there, not right now. Lord knows I was losing it a bit by the time I left in April.

I’ve thought about Mom a lot in the last few weeks. I think about her every day, but some things are harder to deal with than others. I stopped watching football, I can’t watch the Niner’s play just because I can hear her. Every touchdown I can hear her hoot and holler and it hurts. She’s not here and it still hurts. I had a rough time on Thanksgiving. Someone, not sure who really, but someone texted me to tell Mom happy Thanksgiving. It about ripped my heart out to text them back and say thank you, but she’s no longer with us.We’ll see how Christmas goes. I already bought her favorite: Anne’s cherries; I’ll have to have a couple in her honor.

Today is my big brothers birthday. He’s 47 today. It was always a hard day for Mom. Her biggest regret and I carry that with me. Sometimes decisions that are difficult but necessary have to be made. We don’t get second chances in life. That’s an impossible thing to deal with some days.

This year was full of a lot of changes, a massive amount of growing and some pretty amazing things to go along with the heartbreak. I moved 2200 miles, met the man of my dreams, landed a fantastic job with growing potential, had several incredible vacations, learned 100s of new artistic techniques, met famous and fabulous people, made new friends and in general, I did exactly what I set out to do in February. Losing everything was excruciating, but has given me such a step up in life. New perspective, new goals and a new will to live.

I still have bad days. Really its 50/50, but I’m making it through the days. I’m not working to live anymore. I’m living for my work and for my life and I couldn’t be happier. I still have those bad days, but now I’m blessed to not have to deal with them alone. I couldn’t ask for more than that. Although in a way, I already have. This is a heartfelt goodbye to 2015. Loss of loved ones, friends, jobs, memories. I can’t wait to see what 2016 brings. Somehow, I think it’s going to be a great year. I finally found my place. I still can’t really believe I took the leap of faith I did, but I’m proud of myself and now I know for sure, if I don’t have faith in anything else, at least I’ll always have my own back.

So, cheers and good riddance to 2015. Best wishes to everyone in this new year approaching. I’ll hope it’s as fruitful for everyone reading as my prospects seem to be. I’m a lucky girl, hope it passes to you too.