The Time I Occupy: Enter Me

I like getting the new year's calendars from our bank, and hardware store. You get what you get. But our bank puts out images from people who have gone out to our parks, and afield. There are also sayings to go with them, quotes from famous poets or writers. I like this one:

"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
~Muriel Strode

This week was our 27th wedding anniversary. As a tradition we always talk about the memory of our first date, for it was there that it all began, and it is this one night, March 1st in 1986 when our life really began. Thirty years will have passed coming up this coming March 1st. We have always been together, save for two times. Once, when I was in the hospital, and once when he tried to do OTR driving. We realized we could not be apart for that long. Not even for a night, and certainly not for weeks at a time. 

My husband likes to remark upon how unique I am. I did not/do not follow others. Not in the styles of dress, I wear what I like, and ignore fashion of the day. In fact, I've been a step ahead of fashion, to be downright truthful. Also I don't act the way other women act--emotionally, nor do I like to talk about others like they do. I don't go to any "hen parties". Those would just bore me to tears. Most men, who don't know me, probably are a little confused at first, but they come to grasp that I am an individual. That is what attracted my husband to me. He did not want the same type of woman to be involved with again. He'd gone "through hell". I won't get into that, as it is very personal.

On our second date, remember it was March, we went to a state park. There was still a lot of snow down, yet it got to 60 degrees then. (He can remember exactly what I wore, and that my feet got wet and we had to go back to my house to get me some dry shoes and socks.) In this white pine very hilly park, we traversed steep, rocky trails overlooking the river way below. I following him like a sheep, and he was amazed at how I adapted to such adverse conditions.He found out I was very outdoorsy, a hardy country girl. (He would later find out just how tough I was when he asked me to marry him and come out to Colorado with him. We enjoyed camping in several western states, in which it rained nearly the whole time.)

Dennis had already made up his mind to leave for Colorado by the time we'd met. He was working 2 jobs in order to leave. One week he put in nearly 100 hours in both the school bus driving (where we met), and the pizza place. He was very depressed and lonely. The last thing he expected was for his prayers to be answered.

Enter Me. 

I, meantime, was taking classes at NIU, but I wasn't really into my studies--art history. I would have worked toward some sort of degree. But I had been divorced, thankfully childless, and had had several boy friends in the years between and found no one that was similar in thought, likes, and especially someone who actually loved me.

I too had prayed. I didn't expect my prayers to be answered. 

But they were.

Of course, once I met Dennis, I was--how shall I put it? Extremely distracted. Needless to say, I didn't go any further with my studies. His proposal was one of those he popped the question: "

Today we put up our tree and decorated it. We haven't celebrated Christmas in a long time. Especially putting up the tree. I think this year of changes, with a lot of depression stemming over someone else getting a job he wanted, had his emotions in a real tangle. I helped him through, but he did it himself. Maybe he prayed again. At any rate, he took 2 weeks off after the park job ended and before he came back to driving the bus (transit) with me. He did a lot of walking. I think he did some soul searching. I told him it would help. I know it did.

"A friend is a second self."

~Aristotle

We lean on each other a lot. We know we are similar to those "misfit toys" in that Christmas cartoon you see every year when it comes on. Members of his family call us "black sheep". Whatever.

We are friends first. A friendship, it is said, will outlast romantic love every time. You never want to hurt your friend, nor stay mad at him. I've know women who want to hurt their husbands, or get even with them, make them buy them something expensive to "make up" for whatever they did.
I'm not like that. Neither is he. We don't hurt one another emotionally.

Not that there isn't, or wasn't romance in our relationship. Dennis was the most romantic guy I've ever known. He always thinks of me, in many ways, showing it in the things he does. He lets me do my thing, while he does laundry and does most of the cooking. He'll let me take time off from work in the summer.
Flowers in a vase, I've told him, only last a few days. It's our love that lasts forever.

This is from a wonderful anniversary card sent to us by his father:

"When you find the one

who moves in step with you,

sets the pace with you,

and looks forward to the same bright future...

...then you know you

have truly found your soulmate.

Lunch in Taos 2010

It's Official -- Vampire Ascending Is Now Published!

I just thought it was a moment of celebration, and decided to not paste the book's cover up here--because there's such a thing as overkill--so placed an ice-cold butterbeer sorbet, or whatever that is.

Anyway. I was notified yesterday, actually, that my book was published, and the first print copy is being sent to me. So, I'll be holding it in my hand, all 320 pages. My husband said this first one is his to read. So, I guess I'll have to buy my own!

I've added the publisher's web site to the picture of book on the right hand side of my blog, here, but just in case, I'll post it here, should any of you really need to get your hands on one of my books!

At the moment, tonight is our official anniversary kick-off, so I'm just posting this quickly. I'll be gone rest of the weekend, but will be back next week with Sumiko's Reads, an interview with Jamie Wasserman, plus a little surprise that I hope you'll all enjoy.

Have a great weekend. See you all when I get back!

A Weekend Get Away

My husband and I celebrate 22 years of marriage on the 3rd of December. We've made reservations to stay in a cabin during this coming weekend--and these photos are what the cabins look like, inside and out. Nestled in the beautiful, very mature White Pines State Park, outside of Oregon, Illinois, it is a nice break away from what we are so used to around us--dormant fields, and the park next to us which we've had for 16 years. You just need a change of scenery. And White Pines Inn was perfect. It was one of the places where Dennis and I had gone on a date, and learned that we enjoyed the outdoors. We had stayed once about 17 years ago, but had never gone to the dinner/theater, and had been wanting to revisit and add the dinner/theater. We'll be enjoying the comedy "Scrooge" which has audience participation.

The cabins, as you can see, are real log cabins, built in 1929 by the C.C.C.'s. They used to have actual working fireplaces. When we visited the first time, they had closed them off. But now they have either a gas or electric fireplace. A romantic get away, for sure. Nothing like having someplace warm and cozy to enjoy on a cold December night. We have been looking forward to it since we made the reservations back in October--finding they had only 3 cabins left (I think they have 20)

Also, on the 3rd, I've been told my book, Vampire Ascending, is to have a first print copy. I'm to get this copy, I suppose, and another is to be sent to a reviewer. So, all that going on this coming weekend, I've got a lot of celebrating to do.

It's been a while since I've had a book out. Oddly enough, the first one came out in November of 2008. I had a book signing in December. With all that is going on, my work schedule and so forth (not quite knowing when my book will be available to be ordered by a bookstore), I'm thinking about all the rushing around during this time, worrying about this stuff, I think I'm going to hang back and have a book signing in January instead. I know that people get gift certificates for the bookstores for Christmas gifts, so I'm going to do it this way. That way, while I'm down (no work) for 3 weeks, I can get my interviews done, and arrangements for the book signing as well, and I won't drive myself nuts trying to organize it all before Christmas--which falls on Saturday, and thus so does New Years Eve.

So, I'm not going to be around this weekend. I'm not going to have to cook, wash dishes, and we might take a few hikes into the woods, clean out our lungs and refresh our minds with the peacefulness surrounding us.