Focus on a different holiday season! Really! October is the Mischief Night / Halloween / Samhain season, so that's what I'm going to do. I may do a different pagan holiday season every year and keep going around the Wheel.

For this Witchmas I'm going to write a short story set in Blacktree. This will be a glimpse into the past. The characters involved are adults now but will be children (12 years, 10 years and 7 years) for this story. I'll publish one bit per day of October over on my Bluesky account.

Okay, by now you know what you did so I won't belabor the point. Just know you're going to regret it far beyond the end of the next year.

But! That idea you had in early March is really good! Really good! I don't know if that's what I'm going to write when I finally finish The Book of Questions but it's definitely a candidate.

As to family issues: Buckle up, Buttercup. The Spud is going to be less spud-like, and while he's way more chill than the Bean when he and Bean start interacting it's going to be.... wow. Also. Surprise. Double Trouble is about to become the Triple Threat. Coming to a bassinet near you in late June/early July.

The sparkle of snow in the sunlight.

Baby laughs!

New art from @prinnay and @simzart

A fresh spiral-bound notebook

A filled spiral-bound notebook

The first taste of home-baked bread

The delighted smiles of our neighbors when we give them home-baked bread still steaming from the oven

My son calling out "Hey-oh!" as he comes through the door.

Stop second-guessing myself and starting over or starting a new project! For the love of gods just finish some-fucking-thing!

Last year I was literally in the middle of The Book of Questions. It was flowing well, I was editing it somewhat (it's supposed to be a bit rough, being the notebook of a teenage girl), and I had it up on Royal Road on time or in advance each week.

Then I got restless and dissatisfied. I started thinking of ways I could have done it better. I started doubting myself, the story, and life in general.

I ripped it all down. Everything that had already been posted, everything that had been finished and was scheduled. All of it.

And I started over.

What should have been done by the end of 2025 won't be done until the end of 2026. And that's if I don't start over again or abandon it altogether.

This has happened to every. Single. Project. That I've ever done. It's the only reason I'm a fifty-year-old nana, been writing my entire life, and have nothing published. I can't blame it on poverty, chronic illness and pain, lack of education, or anything else. Only this.

Robert: Tell me about how your coven celebrated the Winter Solstice, in the early days.

Irene: At first we basically "took Christ out of Christmas" and tried on various pagan elements, but gradually we began developing our own traditions. Mostly around the sun.

Robert: The longest night leading to the gradual lengthening of the day?

Irene: Yes. Instead of the star on top of the evergreen tree we put the sun. And we used to put up so many lights I'm surprised we didn't cause a blackout in half the town.

Robert: You're smiling.

Irene: Those were good times. And I do still love holiday lights.

Robert: Did you exchange gifts?

Irene: As usual at first, then we started doing a sort of Secret Santa among the members. We drew names at the Summer Solstice to give us plenty of time to make handmade gifts or source something truly special.

Robert: And for procrastination?

Irene: And for that. Mostly it was a middle finger to consumerism. And there's a lot of... I don't know what word to use... something very special about a personal handmade gift. One of our members learned to knit just to make me a shawl. The spellwork of warmth and protection in it is much better than the knitting.

Robert: I've seen it, haven't I?

Irene: Yes. I wrapped it around you when you were sick as a little boy.

Robert: Do you approve of the revival of these traditions?

Irene: Most definitely. Now more than ever. This age... Well. Old people have been bitching about the way things are verses the way things were since we first developed language to bitch with.

Robert: You said it, not me.

Irene: Because I raised you to have respect for your elders.

Robert: Yes, ma'am. How many returning suns do you think you'll see?

Irene: Not many. One more, at least. I've passed what light I had in me to the new generations. It's up to them what they do with it.

Robert: We won't let it go out, Aunt Reenie.

Soups! I didn't think much of soup when I was growing up in the Ozarks. It was just a cheap way to make a lot of okay food.

When we moved to Maine in 2008 the first thing we did was get involved in the Common Good Soup Kitchen, because we'd had to leave our tribe and needed.... Something. What we got was community, a sense of contribution, and soup. Lots and lots of soup.

So many soups! We experimented. We made local favorites, vegan soups, international dishes, created recipes with whatever donations had come in that week plus what we could (barely) afford. We made amazing soups and some noticeable disasters. (Don't blend seaweed and spinach and expect anyone to eat it. Trust me.)

Winter!

I grew up in an in-between. We might get an inch of snow, a little ice, and a lot of wind. But mostly we just got brown, wet, cold, and blah. I hated it.

We moved to Downeast Maine in 2008. That winter I reveled in the first crystalline flakes. The locals said I'd learn to hate the snow and I told them, "Maybe, but for now I'm going to let myself experience this joy." When the snow reached depths that came up to my ass-cheeks I rolled in it like a horse in clover even though it set my arthritis off. I built snow people, tried (and failed) to build an igloo, and drank hot chocolate by the gallon.

I didn't get sick of winter until mid-February. That's when, in my homeland, it starts warming up and people plant seedlings indoors to put in the ground soon. By March I was done.

Still, after seventeen years, it's the same. We haven't had snow to that depth since but I still get excited for the first sparkling flakes, the clean cold smell of the air. I can't play out in it much anymore but I want to. At least a couple of times this year I've been out in it with my grandbabies teaching them to make snowballs and throw them at each other and their grandfather.

And by February I'll be restless, and in March I'll be done.

This is Ash. I call her "Varmint!" so often she thinks that's her name. She's actually not that much of a nuisance, as cats go, but her predecessor was a calm, nearly blind fluffy sofa cushion. I'm not used to cats that get the zoomies and can actually fly.

I usually shut her out of my sanctum when I'm working. I work in the morning when it's prime Zoomies time. She's literally climbed me with her claws out, jumped from my shoulder to pounce at the wall, landed on my desk, been hissed at and put down, only to make the circuit again. At calmer times she tries to claim my desk chair during my breaks.

She thinks my grandson is her baby. (Spud is much older now, hence I'm okay posting this photo.) She doesn't curl up with him anymore because he's too... interactive... but even though she could hide upstairs when the grandgoblins come over she's usually somewhere near him. "Assh!" was one of his first words.