I woke up to snow today. I imagined it would snow and it did. YAy me. Yay the weather...

Some news on the exciting front...

In March we head up to Saturday Night fever event and it will be a doozy, all the people I adore will be there. And..even more exciting is my C&I master and his wife will be there OMG ladies and gentlenmen am I ever hyped. It's going to be SOOOOO much fun and the best bit aside from all the other best bits is we don't have to do the crash space thing...*bounce bounce bounce*

and on another note, I am thinking of switching this blog over to blogger. Tblog's format is driving me crazy and in all honestly it is one of the hardest to deal with in terms of posting ease, spam protection, , html changes and so on...  

will see if how I feel when tblog sorts some of it's issues out....but feel free to comment on this!

I guess Andrew will have some thing to say about this idea *grin* I just wish tere was a way to collectively retrieve my archives...

yeah,.

until then be excellent to each other!

I got super hero stamps on two envelopes sent to me. They are the coolest things!

Oh... Have an awesome day!

The Day After Tomorrow...

followed by An Inconvinient Truth...

going to bed now...good that the bears are there.

The server crashed

so far life without M sucks.

So I don't have access to any English book shops for browsing purposes and I have no idea what's good any more...Amazon is just far too vast...

 So, in the realm of Sci-Fi and fantasy does anyone have any good suggestions?

In other genres?

Just so folks know I've read, recently, the devil wears prada ( liked it but it was fluffy) and Stephen King's Cell, well it's a king book and I read it on a plane...

suggestions ??? any one...anything that's really inspiring? Anything erotic and sensual well written and easiy to escape into???

*sigh*

Okay, so my writings here have not exactly been cheery as of late. But honestly can you blame me? I mean have you watched the news? The world is going to hell in a handcart, oh wait THIS IS HELL. Hmmmmmmm..then again maybe not.

As I watche the RTL podcast this morning and listened to the gloom and doom report on the weird warm weather ( spring in winter) that has been goingon in Germany ( It was 16 degree C in dresden) I knew a real sense of oh oh... All the talk of war, nuclear bombs, executions, soldiers being blown to smitherines, child porn, kiddies being abducted, school shootings, embassy bombings greedy oil barons is not nearly as frightening as knowing that we, boys and girls, are on the downslide when it comes to the environment. I asked my husband as we watched the news cast if this weird weather stuff scared him as much as it scared me and he said. "I've been scared about this since the 80's when I did my work on climate and environmental studies and predictions and climate models and prognosis..."  I have to tell you this didn't make me feel any better.

There is no snow here, not even on the big mountain we see from the balcony. No snow in the winter means less water in the summer. No snow means the weather is too warm, too warm means the perma frost is melting and this means the mountains become unstable and fall down. And before anyone laughs there were peopel killed just outside of the Gotthard tunnel last year when a hugs chunk of the mountain fell on them. Why did this happen? The previously frozen bits that held it together were no longer frozen and the water that was ice is moving... ( close enough)

I try to maintain some sense of optimism but fail miserably and the only thing I really am grateful for is that we don't have kids ( no offense to those of you who do) because the world we are leaving for them is a fucking mess.Somehow our attempts to recycle, use energy saving lightbulbs, drive less, turn the heat down, conserve water do not seem like enough. I don't know what enough is, I do know that I am worried. I am also betting that winter, when it does come is going to be mean and in a hell of a mood.

Is it that at a certain age one starts to consider one's place cause and effect in the world? That mid life thing? Or do I just spend entirely far too much time on my own? Are other people's alarm bells ringing too? I used to laugh about Switzerland's law about every house and town having a bunker / bomb shelter...now before then ext month or two is out I am hoping we actually stop using ours as a junk shelter and get it kitted out, water, tinned food, chem toilet bunks the works... the truth of the matter is, I'm scared I just don't know what of. Of course that's the media's fear mongering at its best isn't it.

How did Moff Tarkin put it...'Fear will keep the locals in line..."

not very uplifting, is it.

I don't have any uplifting news. Okay maybe 1 bit of uplifting news. In Feb one of my oldest ( as in has known me the longest) and dearest friends comes to hang-out. I can't wait. Not sure what we will do in the back of beyond but I can't wait never the less.  So see, that's good news.

On the down side, as of Thursday I am on my own for 6 days. Ugh. As if being alone during the day wasn't enough... the upshot of this is that I get to eat all the tuna I can stuff into my face with cheeze! I get to write 24/7 and I can sleep in. The down side is my companion and best friend isn't here to keep me company, or bring me coffee in the morning, or laugh with me about stupid stuff....or worst of all cook for and with me ( and boy can he cook) and no offense to the bears in the house, but I miss my man when he goes away.

There is a comet flying around though, you can see it in the horizon of the eastern sky, all we see here today is clouds and I think the mountains will get in the way but it's cool. I like comets.

Inthe meantime I have a ton of revision to do on my book, fixing up the 2nd rate wordiness and trying to clean it up some. I hope this year goes a bit better writing wise, I struggled last year with the 2nd book, not so much for lack of ideas more like too many personal interruptions...but I feel the niggle of ideas shoving their way forewards in my brain for book 3 so hang on to your hats kids, we're not done yet. I have to keep reminding myself that , really, it's a hell of an accomplishment to actually write books, even if no one buys them, even if they are web published. The very fact that I did it, saw the project through and that people read and seem to enjoy is a HUGE thing. I spend a lot of time selling myself short, but I always did so there's nothing new there.

in the mean time... I am trying to find my optimism...it's in a box somewhere, get on with the 2nd book, be a better house-wife and combat my own personal demons... Ain't life grand?

Until then, be excellent to each other!!!

I suppose it was only natural to expect that things would change suddenly, get better somehow, be fixed.... but when the problem is firmly rooted in one's own head that's not very likely to happen is it?

We got back home after Christmas in Germany and for the first few days everything was good. I woke feeling fine, no angst, no nothing actually and life toodled on at its usual pace, but then Marcus went back to work and the cycle of worry worry worry started up again. And the weird thing is worry isn't the right word, it's more like a non specific niggle in the back of my brain whispering that not all is kosher in denmark...(so to speak). The actual panic attacks have subsided considerably but the echoes of them linger. I *know* it's there which is what makes this sensation even worse. I also know it's me that's doing this so it's me that can stop it as well. But it's a hard cycle to bust.

I hold my breath, my solar plexus clenches and I hold my breath..now you gotta ask why? It's crazy to run around holding one's breath. But this is the..it feels as though I am waiting for something...aspect of it all. We have been 'on hold' now for a year, circling in a holding pattern in sleepy little Bedano, town of what 100 people give or take??? My unanswered question is what am I waiting for, what are we waiting for? I know this is a stop gap, we're not staying here, at least this is how it feels. Switzerland is a nice country but it's sooooooooo sleepy. While we were in Hamburg we spent as much time in the city as possible and it was glorious. I fed off the energy like crazy, craving the busyness of it all, the crush of people, lights, shops, things to look at and stimulate the brain. It wasn't even as if we bought everything in sight, actually in terms of consumerism we did very little, but we feasted on the city itself.

I miss that and face to face human contact more than I ever thought possible. What I find even more disturbing is that two years have gone by since we moved and I am still telling people we only just got here. It's a time sink hole this place. As though te rest of the world is flying by and we are stuck in the singular moment. Of course given the shop opening times and how things seem to work here, as well as the radio stations and their odd play lists I think that Switzerland in general is caught in a weird backwards time vortex. I half expect to wake up and see horse and buggies out my window. No offense, it's a lovely place to live but so strange. Kinda of like a Neil Gaimen story actually, beautiful but slighty twisted.

I go from boiling hot to freezing cold, stripping off layers, adding them back on. My desire for coffee has flown right out of the window and tastes like ashes in my mouth. I craved sweet milky tea this morning...usually something that the mere thought of makes me sick at and a whole bunch of other things that seem to be adding to my topsy turvy world.   

In the SCA world, all is quiet from where I stand. Scribes do their work, I parcel out assignments and watch the clock tick as I wind down my second term, okay I have a year but damned if a year doesn't go by fast. Apart from that there isn't much else to say. A new Crown steps up this weekend just past and life goes on. from where I sit nothing much changes. I get assignments, I hand them out...

I am also bound and determined this year to get out of the house more, I started walking every day, the little portable mp3 player helps this. Once I get going I don't want to stop and once I do go home and stop I want to sleep for a 1000 years. Today is on hold since I am waiting for the oil dudes.. listening out for the sound of the truck trying to back its way up our slender driveway.

in between all of this personal crap I am still trying to write, get that pesky 2nd book done so I can slog onto the 3rd and say hey I did it!

It's a monday, it's gloomy and grey outside. I am waiting for the oil dudes to come and doing my best not to be neurotic, but old habits are hard to dump. Surprisingly enough I feel good right now, except my hands are blocks of ice...

until then, be excellent to each other.

At the thresh-hold.

So here we are...3 days into the new year. Saddam is dead but it accomplished nothing except to make him a martyr in the yes of some and a relife in the yes of some others and to most of the western world a shrug of the shoulder and one more name they don't have to hear on the news any more.  He was hung, a sneak video showed his last moments were not pleasant and that the hang men were just as cruel as he was. Humans never change. Given every oppertunity to shine , we fail. Our darkside comes out. That nasty lurky dark side that whispers in our brains telling us that greed is a good thing, that who cares if the other guy is down and out on his luck, what does it matter that we are running out of oil, heating up the planet and systematically wiping out species after species.

The do as I say not as I do policy of the political leaders has us all disillusioned. It's not about democray it's about avarice. I gotta ask you, after the first million how much money do you really need?

I lose my hope when I watch the news.

Until then, be excellent to each other.

So we opened the door of our house, we let out the old year and let in he new. Fireworks boomed around the hills and moutains about us and the flashes of light and colour could be seen reflected on the clouds.

2006 was an odd year. Lots of nice things, new friends discovered and old friends lost. In 2006 two of my friends passed away. In 2006 I met Florence and the Captain who became a part of my virtual family. I discovered that being alone and lonliness are not good things, that confronting one's fears is a bit more tricky than books let on, that having a good, no amazing partner is indescribable. That Switzerland is the sleepiest, most back in time country I have ever lived in.No offence meant but honestly...one only has to listen to Swiss radio to understand what I am talking about...*yawn* That Hamburg had somehow become home but I never noticed until I moved away.

2006 - I turned 40 and began that life pondering crap that seems to happen at 40. The what have I done with my life ennui crap that I couldn't seem to shake off.

2006 - I missed my mum a lot. And for the first time in as long as I can remember my sister said 'I love you' first during a phone call. It made me cry. We never got along all that well but I miss her and I am proud of her.

2006- Italian lessons progressed slowly...

2006 - The house we rent is slowly falling apart.

2006 - I slogged on with my 2nd book in the dote series and hope to clue that up soon.

2006 - panic attacks put a nasty little monkey wrench in my life.

2006 - found a great dentist, and a great obgyns. ( big things when you know me and how I am about doctors and dentists.

2006 - was a shakey unsettling year and I am glad it's over.

lets see what happens next.

So where ever you are in the world, I hope that your year ahead is a good one. I hope that the world learns it's lessons, that we start to take care of this planet.

until then, be excellent to each other.