The other side of the coin

When I started this blog, I said I was going to use it to let people know what was going on in my life, and what I was thinking about. I never guaranteed that those would always be happy thoughts, and today, they really aren't. It's been a rough summer, and this is where my head is at right now.

Disclaimer: If you think Oklahoma is an awesome state or even a moderately okay state, or if you don't like hearing someone complain about things that can't be changed, you probably don't want to keep reading.

This was also written at some point between midnight and one a.m. Which probably contributed to the brutal honesty.

Anyway.

I try really hard to stay positive about things, I really do. But sometimes it's just more than I can take and I don't know how to stay positive anymore.

So...

People are always asking me how I like living in Oklahoma. And I give them the piece of the answer they want to hear: "We have a wonderful church out here, which is great!" or "It's a lot sunnier here than in Beaver Falls!" or "I like having a house with a backyard!" Which are all true statements, but I'm leaving a lot out. Because no one wants to hear the rest of the truth.

I hate the weather here. Sure, it's sunnier. I don't care. We have two seasons: Summer, which lasts for six months and is miserably hot. And fall/winter/spring, which covers the other six months. Sometimes you can get nice weather in there, and sometimes it's just really nasty and cold. Not the nice kind of winter, the really crappy kind. I'm tired of it being too hot to enjoy the outdoors half the time, and too cold a quarter of the time.

Oh, and that's another thing I hate. Even on those rare occasions when it is actually nice outside, there's no place to enjoy it. Parks out here suck. There are no creeks, and no real lakes (the muck-filled pond that is Meadow Lake does not count). When we lived in Jersey, we had two gorgeous parks nearby, with water and woods and lovely trails. And there was good hiking/camping within three hours. Same for PA - we had Brady's Run and McConnell's Mill and Lake Arthur close by, and Frick and Schenley Park when Trevor lived in Pittsburgh. And the Allegheny National Forest was always available for backpacking trips. Parks out here don't even come close.

The weather and geography actually frustrate me a lot, but I usually try to just let that go, and focus on the good things. Like that wonderful church family we have. But you know what? I had a wonderful church family in PA, too. One that I was a part of for years and years. One that I felt much more at home in, because I'd known the people for a long time. And until we've been somewhere else for twenty years, that will probably always be my real church home. Doesn't matter that I'm a member of ERC - I still feel more at home at Christ Pres. So even though I'm really grateful for a good church out here (and I really am, really and truly), it's not enough right now to make me feel better.

And the worst part about living out here is that we're hundreds and hundreds of miles from everyone and everything I love. 400 miles to Omaha, Nebraska - and that's the shortest distance. 1800 miles to Maine. 1100 miles to where I really want to be right now - where my family is (and Karen now, too), where a big stupid slobbery dog is waiting to drool on my lap... I miss people so much. (And I miss hugs. I really miss hugs. Not side-arm awkward hugs. Not gentle squeezes. Real freaking hugs. With people I love more than anything.)

I know we're here in Oklahoma because this is where God wants us. But right now I just want to be some place where they have normal seasons, where there are lakes and hills and woods. And where the people I love are, where I don't feel so alone. (Yes, I have Trevor. And yes, I'm incredibly grateful for that. But it doesn't change the fact that I'm really, really lonely.)

It's not likely that we're leaving Oklahoma anytime soon, though. And who knows where we'll go from here. So I guess I'll just keep trying to be okay with where God puts us (it's a hard lesson to learn), and occasionally venting my frustrations, just so I don't go insane. At least it's good incentive to build good relationships with God and my husband, 'cause those stay with me wherever we live...

Sunday reflections

I didn't go to church this morning, due to reasons of physical health (in other words, I felt miserable). And yet in the midst of two weeks of feeling miserable, and two weeks of missing out on the fellowship of church, I've realized a few things for which I'm thankful.

Firstly, I'm thankful that even when I can't manage to go and sit through the service, I can still hear the sermon online. Yes, I spend most of this morning lying on the couch feeling alternately sort of okay and really crummy. But I got to listen to the words of the psalms as they were sung, and to Noah's preaching as he brought home important points from Peter's words. I missed out on the communal aspect of worship, but at least some of it was there. And after missing last week entirely, it was refreshing to hear God's word preached.

And that brings me to the next thing I'm thankful for - the fact that I actually have a desire to worship and hear God's word. That's a big deal for me, because for several years, that wasn't the case at all. At that point, missing two weeks of church would have been the norm, rather than something that made me long to feel better so I could get back to worshiping together with my church family. It wasn't that I loved my church family less back then (they were the folks I'd grown up with, and some of my very best friends). It wasn't that my church was somehow deficient (it wasn't perfect, but neither is my church now...). I was just really struggling with my faith, and church was about the last place I wanted to be. I've come quite a ways in the years since then, and I'm really grateful that God has renewed my desire to worship him and hear his word preached, and also helped me realize that even when I don't feel like it, I should do it anyway.

Lastly, I'm thankful for a church where the preaching is sound. I grew up on sound preaching (although it was less enthusiastic than Noah's preaching...), and really struggled when we had difficulty finding a good church in NJ. After enduring unsound preaching for several months, it's really amazing to know for sure every Sunday that God's word will be preached, faithfully.

In short, I'm really glad for Enid Reformed Church - for the preaching and the community. And I'm glad that I can be glad about church, even when life isn't always so great.

An attempt at art appreciation (and also alliteration)

There's a post going around Facebook that I really liked - one of those chain posts (which I usually hate), but this one is different. It's an attempt to spread art appreciation, one person at a time. And I decided to take part, and share my favorite artists with people who liked the idea.

Who are my favorite artists? Why, I'm so glad you asked!

I'm not listing them in any sort of order, but these are artists whose work I really enjoy. Let's start with the German-American landscape painter, Albert Bierstadt. He has some absolutely beautiful scenes of the American West, and I'm just going to share a few of my favorites here (the first one I actually got to see recently, as it's on display at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum down in OKC).

Emigrants Crossing the Plains (1867)

Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California (1868)

The Buffalo Trail: The Impending Storm (1869)

Moving on, we come to Winslow Homer. If I had to pick a favorite artist, it would be him. I love the variety in his work, ranging from everyday scenes to sketches of the Civil War to wild seascapes, and I had a hard time choosing just a few of his pieces to include here.

Snap the Whip (1872)

Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) (1876)

The Gulf Stream (1899)

Transitioning out of the 1800s for a bit, we go back in time to Jacob van Ruisdael, a Dutch landscape painter. (Yes, you would be correct in noticing a theme here - I do love a good landscape.) One of the things I like most about his paintings is the way he depicts the clouds - this should come as no surprise to anyone who's ever seen any of my photo albums.

View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds (~1670)

A Landscape with a Ruined Castle and a Church (~1670)

Ruins in a Dune Landscape (~1655)

And then we're back to the 1800s again, but not to the same style of painting. Instead, we come to Pierre-Auguste Renoir, one of the great Impressionist painters. I have to admit that this isn't my favorite style of painting in general, but I have a soft spot for Renoir, probably because the people in his paintings generally look cheerful and happy with life. I did also have a print of one of his works (the first one below) hanging on my wall growing up - I think it was a gift from my grandparents - so that may also contribute to me liking his work.

Girl with a Watering Can (1876)

By the Water (1880)

La Grenouillère (1868)

Having finished our quick trip through famous artists, we're now back in the present day and age, and the next two artists - well, you'll likely never see their work in a museum. However, Alan Lee and John Howe are probably responsible for what you see whenever you try to picture Middle Earth. The first three pieces below are Lee's work, and the other three are Howe's art.

The Stone Trolls

Caves of Moria

The Golden Hall

Helm's Deep

Flight to the Ford

The Dark Tower

Finally, we come to Michael Whelan, who spent a good portion of his life as an illustrator for book covers, before transitioning to gallery painting. Both sides of his work have produced some gorgeous pieces. And if you're interested, not only do these books have awesome covers - they have amazing content as well. (Be warned, though - they're both around 1,000 pages long. And one might be the last book in a 14-book series... And the other might be the first book in a series planned to be 10 books long... On second thought, you might want to avoid these books.)

Cover for The Way of Kings

Cover for A Memory of Light

If you're still reading this at this point, thanks for sticking with me. I hope you enjoyed some of the artists featured here, and if you did, spread the love; it's always fun to share things you really like with others! So go show a friend a piece by your favorite artist - who knows, maybe they'll agree with you on how cool it is!

P.S. - Thanks, Mum, for working to instill a love of art in me at an early age. I know I probably griped a lot about art museums as a kid, but it paid off :)

Don't feed the bunnies...

You've all probably at least heard of the children's book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Its premise is simple - giving a mouse a cookie results in him wanting milk, which results in him wanting a straw, and so on.

Well, plot bunnies are like mice. Because not only do they demand to be written, but often one idea prompts another, which triggers yet another... In short, plot bunnies spawn. Like mice, actually... I remember a math problem in grade school where you start with a male and female mouse, and have to figure out how many mice you could have after a year. I can't recall the exact number, but it was way up there. And over the past several years, my plot bunnies have done the same.

As of right now, I have thirteen story ideas that I have actually started writing. Some of these are just a paragraph long at the moment, with an idea of where I'd like to go from there; some are over two thousand words, with an accompanying story outline that's a page long itself.

And then there's all the ideas that haven't quite made it to the actual writing stage - I have nineteen of those at the moment, all of them in either the concept or outline stage. Again, some of these have two pages of outline and are just waiting on the actual writing process, while others are a single sentence to remind me of the idea later.

I already know that there are several of these ideas that will never become completed stories, and some of the works-in-progress have been sitting on my computer for years now, without any actual progress being made. But that's just how my brain works - it doesn't matter if I'm sure from the beginning that the idea isn't going to take off, because it will continue to bug me until I write it down.

It's the ones that keep running through my mind after I write them down that are the real problem - the ones that keep me awake at night as my brain churns through plot ideas, through characterization and sentence wording, until I'm really ready for it to just shut off already... Those usually turn out to be the best stories though.

And sadly, plot bunnies have no known natural predators. They're sort of like the Instant Gratification Monkey in that way. (If you haven't heard of this monkey, go check out this post before continuing.) Plot bunnies are even tougher to scare than the monkey is, though. In fact, the Panic Monster (the only thing that can make the monkey run and hide) is apt to trigger a plot bunny or two while you're in the middle of cranking out that all-nighter...

Really, the only way to kill plot bunnies is starvation. If you don't write for a while (and I'm talking months here, not days), they spawn more and more slowly. And the mathematical model predicts that if you continue with a severe diet of non-writing, their spawning rate will eventually approach zero... I wouldn't know - I've only ever been able to go a few months without feeding the bunnies.

So right now, they're everywhere, little demon spawn hopping around in my brain poking their noses in when they're least appreciated (e.g., at 3AM, or when I'm trying to write my thesis).

Maybe there's a Whac-A-Mole equivalent for plot bunnies...

Traders Wild

I don't usually post about my story writing here, because for the most part, it's fanfiction, and unless you're a fan of Fringe or Supernatural, you're not going to care. But I'm making an exception to that rule here, because I'm quite proud of my latest accomplishment. (Please stick with me, everyone - there's a fun science fiction short story as a reward if you do!)

Back in October, I signed up to participate in the SPN Reverse Bang. The concept was simple - fan artists create art in various mediums - drawings, digital art, manips - pretty much everything was fair game. And then the authors (that'd be me and about 150 other people) come along and claim a piece of art, using it as a prompt for a fic. It was the first time I'd ever done anything along these lines, and I was excited to give it a try.

When I logged in to view the art prompts, I was thinking that I'd really rather stay away from digital manips, because oftentimes they look tacky and aren't well done. But then, right there on the first page, was a beautiful manip featuring Dean and a gorgeous spacescape. It was something along the lines of the covers of the classic sci-fi novels I grew up reading, and as I looked at it (my brain still in no-manips mode), I suddenly had an amazing idea for a story (or at least I thought so). And unlike most of my inspirations, this one came almost fully formed - plot points and plot twists and characters already laid out in detail in my head. I couldn't not write it, and so I put in my claim, hoping I'd get lucky - and I did!

After getting in contact with my artist (who goes by the name of glasslogic on LJ, and was amazing to work with), I ran my ideas past her, then leapt into writing. With the help of my very awesome sister, I managed to figure out a style that worked well for the story I wanted to tell, and over 8,000 words later, I had a short story!

(This is the part where I shamelessly plug my own work)

For those of you who aren't into Supernatural, that doesn't actually matter here, because this is an AU fic - the only things borrowed from the show are character names. So really, this is a piece of science fiction where the characters just happen to have the same names as the Winchester brothers. You don't have to know a thing about the show to understand it - just dive in and (hopefully) enjoy Traders Wild!