50 and trying to meet goals!

These pictures aren't in order but they should be "walking dogs 1-4"

Then my fabulous writing companions, Trace, Max, Mutts, and Rosie

Boulder Falls Our secret writing place above 8,000 ft.

I turned 50 this week and realized I had not met the goals that I had set up so long ago. I wanted to be published by a traditional publisher (I'm not counting articles in the papers or magazines) with my children's stories and a novel well on the way. I do have the traditional "novel under the bed" -the one you write while learning what you're supposed to do, so that's a good thing, I did self-publish a series of children's Bible story tapes that were sold at Barnes and Noble, I did progress in the artist-author-speaker-guild member-genre at that time. So those are all positive things. But now I reached a milestone and do not have a children's book published by a traditional author, haven't illustrated many books or manuscripts except my own, haven't shown art in a gallery since the 80's and I don't know what happened. I have not been idle. I have been writing my fingers to the bone! I have several fantastic children stories, sketches, (not many paintings) several outlines for a great novel series, and my husband and I are working on a young adult series now. In fact we drove to the mountain and worked on the story line while I picked wild mountain raspberries and panned for gold. Of course all of that was during breaks.

Since Sunday, I have reset my goals, adjusted my attitude, will have surgery next week on my neck, begun multi media graphic classes at college and tried to give up saying I just want to stay home and bake bread, cookies and brownies and be an old hippie!

I must say it is getting a little easier to put your heart out in a manuscript or illustration and then be crushed by rejection. It seems like everything I put out this year was rejected, at least the grandkids love it! That makes it worth everything!

I am blessed to live in such a wonderful, beautiful area that is extremely inspiring for the creative person. The Rocky Mountains seem to stir those creative juices and make that tingling feeling in the end of the fingers that makes you know it's time to work!

Time, kids, dogs, pain, and where it all goes

AaBi and Roy Benny & Jacob in the window BoBo fishing

Jacob fishing & Continental Divide

I understand that is a very weird title, but so much has happened since my last post. To bring you up to date, our little bitty baby is now up to 15 lbs. and so healthy and happy! Thank you God for answering prayers. Our other little granddaughter, Clyr is growing fast and now saying MaMa and Dada. We had a visit over the 4th of July from the boys, AaBi and Roy. We tried so hard to go camping but something came up all week and "we still didn't get to go camping!" That ended up being the motto for our entire week! It was chaotic, the house looked like it threw-up, and the 4th became a day to try to forget! Our son, Jon, was involved in the Kansas floods and had to flee as his house became submerged, he arrived here on the fourth with what he could put in his car and a dog and cat. Thankfully he works at WalMart and was able to transfer to Colorado. So at the present he is living with us until he can get back on his feet. So at one point during this chaotic week we had six adults, two children, and six animals living in our small home. The blessing was having two bathrooms - and the washer ran non-stop! Benny, our littlest grandson ate some meds and spent two days at the emergency room, the transmission went out on the kids car so they ended up staying a couple of days longer, our air-conditioner went out; the list is just to long to continue...plus I want to forget part of it!

But all-in-all, we had a wonderful time together and finally at the end of the week we managed to get to the mountains and go fishing, geocaching, and even had a bear encounter. I will add some pictures on a new blog tomorrow and expand on our bear encounter (and snake).

The time just flew by and I really wasn't ready for them all to leave, I seem to never get enough hugs and love from the kids. I desperately miss living by them and watching the boys grow up. If I had my way (see MomMo's Cobb house story) we would all live together on a working communal farm. Can you tell I grew up in the 60's??? HaHa!

I have been in a lot of pain recently, so part of the time they were here, I was a bit crabby. I'll admit it. (Does that make you laugh, AaBi?) I am having surgery on my cervical spine in Sept. so I am in a soft neck brace to stop further damage and support my neck. The doctor is going to fuse two vertebra together and try to fix another vertebra that is pressing on my spinal column and causing extreme pain in my neck, head, arm and even leg. I have had so many tests and MRI's that I am just ready to get this over with. The good news is...they did find a brain when I had a brain MRI and there wasn't a stroke! This is actually forcing me to use the headset at work when I answer the phone and my Blue tooth device with my cell phone. The scary thing is if I fall, had a wreck, or somehow damaged my neck further (before surgery) I could become paralyzed. I pray my angels are working overtime to help me not be so klutzy! My good friend from work (who's job I took over) had the very same problem and her surgery was on the 6Th of August. She is doing well. I do believe our work (station, ergonomically disastrous desk, lack of headphones and hundreds of calls a day contributed to this problem!) is responsible for where we are today. I am now a headset advocate for everyone at the college. I tell them they do not want to be a little old lady like me someday. Right now they are young and can cradle that phone and type or write when calls come into their department, but it will get you!!!

My 50th birthday is in a couple of weeks and I know I have been blogging about mortality and how fast time goes. Live each day to the fullest and be full of joy. Life is too short not to enjoy yourself. Laugh every day!