It’s enough to make you dizzy, huh? 
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I have three sisters-in-law. I love them all very much. One lives far away, and I don’t get to see her often enough. The other is full of “natural wisdoms” and has a wicked sense of humor, and then there’s the sister-in-law who I always considered to be the matriarch of my husband’s family. This sister-in-law, the “matriarch” (although she has kind of given up that title now) gave me the BEST gift this week. Because I pulled her son’s Buddhist wedding together for her, she came over and cleaned and organized my kitchen for me! She spent 9 hours cleaning out my cupboards and going through eigtheen years’ worth of stuff. She found things I didn’t even know I had! And the food I had tucked away all over the place! OMG! I had no idea I had so much canned fruit, etc. You know what she said to me? You go write. You go do what you do best. I love to clean and organize and couldn’t write a book if I tried, but you can. Go do it. I love her! She opened a bag of BBQ potato chips, a bottle of white wine and went to work. She is amazing. We made a box for the food bank, tossed a lot of stuff (she wouldn’t let me keep three can openers or two tea kettles) and she’s coming back next week to trade my food and dish cupboards. My husband orginally put the stuff in the shelves and I’ve never re-arranged it. My SIL is going to switch stuff for me while I’m at the day job. I have had six glorious weeks off. I wrote three books and have an offer to submit the fourth (partially completed) directly to the editor of the publisher when it’s ready. But soon, I must return to my day-time persona as a school secretary. The real me is here, however. Right here at www.darragha.com. I truly appreciate having a day job with benefits and umpteen days off per year, but I love staying home and writing, too. Someday, I hope to find a balance between the two. Someday, I will find a balance My daughter…who is a horsewoman. Works 4 days a week with cows and horses on a stable and smells like the great outdoors most of the time…cleaned up well.
My husband’s nephew (my nephew, I love him, too) married a lovely girl in Guatemala a year ago. She’s deaf/mute. I swear she can communicate better than most hearing and speaking people, however. It took some time, but they finally got her marriage visa and they came home in May. Today, they’re going to have a Buddhist ceremony. My SIL asked me to HELP! because she’s not Buddhist and doesn’t have a computer to make invitations, etc. I made the invitations, hired the ASL interpreter so that the nephew can just sit back and enjoy his own ceremony, made the program and arranged dozens of other little things for today’s event. My SIL, on the other hand, has baked 15 pies, 100 cornbread muffins, stocked a bar, ordered 200 pieces of chicken (cheaper than doing it herself, apparently), made several HUGE salads and spent two weeks cleaning up her farmhouse yard (wrangle those chickens!). We expect about 40-50 people to show up at the ceremony. Probaby 70-80 at the reception. Best thing: My daughter is the San-san-kudo girl! The “closest unmarried female relative” traditionally performs/pours the sake ceremony for the bride and groom. My daughter is it! There’s something special about being the San-san-kudo girl in a wedding. I was the server once…when I was 28 years old. It’s like catching the bride’s bouquet. I was the next married. However, my kid is only 16, so let’s give her 10 more years before she has to find her own San-san-kudo girl! Wanna see the happy couple? Here they are! I’ll post more photos later.
I received a royalty check in the mail today. It wasn’t huge, but I’ll tell ya, it came at a good time. Payday from the day job isn’t until the last working day of the month (both DH and I have the same employer), so having a little extra cash early in the week is going to be a huge blessing. Authors have to buy gas, feed the horse, clothe the teenager, keep the fridge stocked and the mortgage paid just like everyone else. No pink castles in the clouds for this peep, I’ll tell you! My father dropped off a bag of zuccinnis from the Farmer’s Market today and I was overjoyed not to have to figure out “what’s for dinner.” I made Zuccinni Surprise with all the left-over veggies in the fridge, a can of Cream of Mushroom soup and a box of StoveTop Stuffing that I picked up at Deals Only down the street. Strange, seriously over-stocked store where you have to check expiration and pull dates before putting stuff into your cart…but full of foreign labeled foods and the strange and wonderful It’s the small things that keep my smiling. A small royalty check. A bag of zuccinnis. Life is good! Darragha Today is my best day. July 24, 1988 was a huge turning point in my life. Today, twenty years later, I am filled with appreciation that I embraced a new life for myself. Want the gory details? Look at this post from July, 24, 2007. Where would I be if I hadn’t had an epiphany on that bus twenty year ago? Not writing, I’m sure. My creative processes were severely quashed in my first marriage. Second-hand smoke pervaded my world. Smoke causing blindness and fear. Childless. I knew better than to make babies with my first husband. What kind of mother would raise her child around bongs, cocajina scales, mayhem and foolishness? Not I. Without love. Twenty years ago today I fell in love with my husband. He was in a relationship. I was still married. It took us two years to get our acts together. We had our first “official” date (I’m not mentioning the few unofficial dates we had between August 4th, the day I kicked my ex-husband out and September 28, 1989. We were naughty) in February, 1990. We were engaged two weeks later. Married within six months. We had a daughter in May, 1992. I love and appreciate him. He is the catalyst for my creative flow, my best friend, my greatest supporter and still chases me around the house after 18 years of marriage. Without hope. My first husband was a determination-destroyer. Would I still be chanting had I not kicked him out? He used to throw shoes at me while I chanted. Would I have given up and succumbed to his addictions? I used to chant every day for his happiness and protection. I was so afraid of being a widow when I was married to my first husband. He was soooo reckless. July 24, 1988 I realized that I did not love him. I did not want to partake in the worship of his god (marijuana). I did not want to live on the outskirts of his drug culture in my own home any longer. I did not want to work three jobs to support us while he dropped acid with his buddies instead of going to work. July 24, 1988, I knew I wanted to practice Buddhism with my whole heart. I knew I needed to make drastic changes in my life–and that meant removing myself from the hell of my home life. July 24, 1988, I knew that I was in love with another man, and that even though we hadn’t even touched, kissed or done anything more than talk to each other at that point, he was going to be my husband.
I am so appreciative that I am where I am. I have a great day job. I have a climbing career in the romance novel industry. I recently had two fabulous writing partners to work with on an anthology. My daughter is proud, independent and strong. My husband is gentle, handsome and is chanting as I type this… Thank you all protective functions of the universe for moving my smoke-blinded life into the light! Because I appreciate YOU, too, I’m going to give away two ebooks from the Darragha Collection today to two posters who drop by and share their appreciation of life with me today. Thank you! Darragha My daughter picked the number corresponding to Jennifer’s post! Thank you ALL for playing today. I just might have to do this more often! Darragha April Martinez captures the heart of the book, again, with the cover for my upcoming Liquid Silver Books release, “The Orca King, II.”
Made impotent by a shadow of ill-intent created by his own godly misdeeds, whale-shifter Big Tom, The Orca King, takes on the challenge of a lifetime to make amends to the women whose personal histories he’s abused after leading too many of them on needless sensual vision quests. To restore and renew his vitality and ability to shift, and to save the life of his true love—a man infested with the breath of the serpent demon—he must confront his shadow head-on—not with force, but with love.
I signed the contract this morning with Liquid Silver Books for “The Orca King, II,” the sequel to “The Orca King.”
Huzzah!
Blurb One: Big Tom is in deep shit. Centuries of using women and the sexual vision quests he could lead them into to feed his own inner power trip has created a baleful shadow of body and spirit, rendering him impotent. Him. The Orca King . Impotent. Not only that, he’s also lost the ability to shift and can no longer endure swimming through the ocean he once called home. To restore the balance and to heal and renew his vitality and ability to shift—and to save the life of his true love—a man infested with the breath of the serpent demon—he must confront his shadow head-on—not with force, but with love.
Blurb Two: Made impotent by a shadow of ill-intent created by his own godly misdeeds, whale-shifter Big Tom, The Orca King , takes on the challenge of a lifetime to make amends to the women whose personal histories he’s abused after leading too many of them on needless sensual vision quests. To restore and renew his vitality and ability to shift, and to save the life of his true love—a man infested with the breath of the serpent demon—he must confront his shadow head-on—not with force, but with love. |
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