Write Early, Write Often…Write Something!

when Bayley was in high school an upper classmen  [or is it class woman since she was in an all girls school? do they even use that term today?] said that all cute dogs are always puppies. And so they are.

Our puppies, well, the three we have now, Grady having given us amazing joy, are worth their weight in fun and games. Sammy, that little rat terrier in the front, can not imagine a dog too big, a challenge to hefty, a chair too high. He’s up for it all. And if he doesn’t get enough face time then he appears and barks until it happens.

Missy, the coon hound on the right, really just want to have her twenty two hours of sleep daily. She’s not fussy. It can be on the grass, in a chair, on the deck, on the sidewalk or when too hot, on the tile floor in the bathroom! She is annoyed by thunder storms and anyone trying to feed her Denta sticks. Nope, she will turn up her nose at a treat if it is not in the appropriate form.

And Marcus. Never should have been named Marcus. We should have named him Eeyore. He’s afraid of everything, has a tail that could wipe out thousands and the softest coat, just like a Gunn bear. Soft.

I don’t often give them credit for what they add to our lives. So. Thanks,  guys.

Wow! Powerful stuff, the LAST day of the year. And what a year! Two weddings. So different. Just like the baby daughters are different. But both lovely and perfect for each couple. Tom’s retirement [about which this blog will devote lots more time]. And Christmas with our new family. There is little that can compare in emotion to the Christmas season. It either brings out the rosy, cheery, almost saccharine sweet, over the top or the bah humbug. I get the bah humbug. I also get the worrying about whether there is enough Christmas in Christmas. To me, the problem is we have far to many cable hours to fill on a machine that was originally call the ‘boob tube’. But enough about that.

It feels very appropriate that we  celebrate a new beginning in the midst of the twelve days of Christmas. We’ve had our Advent time to prepare. To await. To watch. That’s so over. And now, how Catholic! To bring the most pagan of feast days to the middle of a very religious, Christ-centered season. Public relations was invented long before the last century. 

The Wall Street Journal had an article the other day about outsourcing your resolutions.  Making your resolutions more than public, but not even written by you. Another, a close, perhaps intimate friend, like a husband or wife, writes your New Year’s resolution. That way, you not only have your resolution out there for all to see, but you have someone else counting on your fulfilling the resolution. Someone who will support and encourage.

In the Pen & Palette, SCBWI Carolinas’ quarterly publication, as RA, I wrote of my daughter’s thought that New Year’s resolutions should be one word. Write! Submit! Encourage! Success! The thought of ONE word being your guide throughout the year is a powerful one. The thought that you can use just ONE word to shape your life is amazing.  My word for this year? There are so many ways to use this word. Present tense. Past tense. Future tense.

And so. On this, the last day of the year, I wish you great words of your own and

When we talk about eves, as in the night before of THE DAY, there are only three that count: All Hallows Eve, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve. I like how they are all amazing each in a different way.

All Hallows Eve is scary and mysterious. We trick or treat in costume with the smell of wood burning in the fire place and spiced cider and blowing autumnal leaves. And we wait for the opportunity to be scared senseless.

Christmas Eve is more quiet. We are awed by  an event, year after year, that, in our faith, we believe there is something greater beyond all of this that we see around us. As the new Mass translation states, visible and invisible.

New Year’s Eve is a wild and crazy eve. A Greco-Roman bacchanalia. Full of noise and celebration, best intentions and resolutions and wanting. There is a lot of wanting for the next year.

So. This is the eve of THE EVE. A time of renewal. Of restoration. Of revival. A chance for new. Today was Tom’s last day of work, employed work, that is.

LOL, this is more than renewal, restoration or revival. This is brand new!

Today we head up to Baltimore. We’re packed. Truth be told, I’ve had this list in my head for weeks. Back to my old self in planning and executing. My old multi-tasking, double-down self. So. It’s a good day. I’ve been writing. I like this story. I liked the original. But. We’ve moved on. This is a better story. Because of practice. Just like the girls practiced trick or treating. Or Tom and I practiced, albeit shortly, retirement. Practice is worth it.

On of the thing I realized is that even though I am a good, no, make that great reader. I didn’t pay attention to the writing. I gobbled it up. I tore into it. I pushed through it until I found the story, ‘specially the bits that were memorable and fun, and tossed all the writer’s hard work away. Pulling the images into my brain in a free-for-all way. And most of those stuck.

Today we head up to Baltimore. I put the writing aside. I put the reading aside. I concentrate on the baby daughter. It’s Bayley’s time. It’s her day. There will be plenty of time to continue to practice.

…I firmly believe in practicing. When the girls were little we’d practice trick or treating the day before Halloween. So they’d know what to expect, how to behave and could do it on their own. When we ate, we practiced our manners. We’d practice reading aloud. I get practice from my Dad.

In the early 1970′s, my parents started talking about retirement. People were retiring, not to the alternate lives many are living today, but retiring to be with the grandchildren, or because of illness, or to a home away from the growing up places to the settling down quiet place. But there really weren’t that many ‘role models’ of retirement out there. Although the actuarial life expectancy had gotten so much better by the 70′s there wasn’t that feeling that 65 was the new 55. 65 was just that, 65. Not necessarily old…

When we asked Dad what he wanted to do in retirement, he said he wanted to fish. We laughed. He didn’t. He was serious. And, like all things Dad was serious about he targeted. He tackled it. He went after it with determination. Not that it was a problem. It was a project that needed to be addressed. Courted. Developed. And he needed education. Not about retirement. About fishing. Why fishing, we asked? Well, when he was a little kid, he lived with his grandparents. His younger brother was sickly, then came another and another and another, etc. and Dad lived until age ten or so with his grandparents. He was the first grandson. The first to carry the Hannick name into the next generation. Irish immigrants. Big Deal!

Joseph Hannick, married to Mary Judge, well-known as ‘the witch’, retired, well, stopped working at around age 45 or 50. We’re not quite sure. Being Irish we have some great stories. Truth? Well, maybe, not so much. Anyway, Great Grandfather like to fish. And he taught little Jimmy. Then came the great grandfather’s death, Dad moved to live with Ed and Mary Scott, uncle and aunt, and grew up as a singleton with seven brothers and sisters. And, he never forgot the fishing.

Then along came retirement. The possibility of fishing. Again. Dad took a class on how to tie his own flies, roll his own rods, cast in streams and in lakes. He read Rand-McNally’s best 100 places to retire. And he practiced. For several summers prior to their retirement, Dad quit his job, Mom was a teacher, so she had the summers off and they would ‘try out a lifestyle.’ One year they went to northern California, Irish Beach, rented a house and lived there. Dad fished. Mom cooked, read, met people. The next year they bought a camper and traveled. Dad fished. Mom cooked, read, met people. One year they went to the desert. Dad fished. Mom cooked, read and met people. Ah, so easy to see a pattern.

They practiced. Tom and I practiced retirement this past Thanksgiving weekend.  A little practice is a good thing.