Tag Archives: Windy Ridge Orchard

Westward bound!

Adrenal Cancer, Family, My Novel- Alex, Travel, Writing Group January 6, 2015 Comments: 3
Christmas Bonfire

Christmas Bonfire

We enjoyed the holidays and are now in Virginia with Jennifer and family on the first leg of our trip to Arizona. My favorite part of Christmas? For a few weeks being able to get up every morning, drink a cup or two of coffee, and watch the news with the Christmas tree lights plugged in. And, of course, I loved getting the tree at Windy Ridge with Elise and Sheffiled (even though it was bitter cold), watching the Blue School Christmas program in Landaff, hosting our Welch family celebration with Yankee Swap and bonfire (no singed eyebrows), opening presents with Jesse and family at breakfast Christmas morning, cooking dinner on Christmas Day, and celebrating a second Christmas with Jennifer, Jeff, Laurel, and Alex and my sister, Bessie.

What didn’t I like? Packing up to leave for a winter away and preparing the house to be vacant followed by a fifteen hour trip to Virginia. Apparently the Saturday after Christmas was a popular day for people to travel home from the holidays and for those pesky snow birds to head south!

While Jennifer’s girls were on winter break we took them to the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum at Colonial Williamsburg. Sunday we toured Mount Vernon, a place I have wanted to visit for years. We chose the warmer day of the weekend to visit Washington’s home–it was in the 60’s with some drizzle and mud.  Imagine seeing the bed that George Washington died in! After our visit Jennifer researched his death and it appears that the doctors prior to his death removed the majority of his bodily fluids through bleeding, inducing vomiting, and giving him an enema. (George himself was

Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon

proponent of bleeding.) We wonder if their ministrations could have contributed to his death at sixty-seven. She also found out a lot about his ownership of close to 400 slaves. Unfathomable.

On our way home Jennifer surprised the girls with a trip north to the American Girl Store at Tysons Corner Center, where their dolls had their hair done. (Like a real hair salon!) I was slightly embarrassed to traipse through an upscale mall in my muddy jeans and shoes.

I hate to admit that this is the only writing that I have done since I “won” NaNoWriMo, aside from a writing exercise during my writing group and posting to an ACC Facebook page. That is one of my problems with NaNoWriMo–it depletes me of any desire to write. The holidays don’t help, either.

However, Williamsburg is the setting of a short story that I never finished and close to Tysons Corner (Alexandria) is where part of an unfinished novel is set. When I’m so close to those locations, I wonder if I should complete those projects. Or is deleting them from my computer the more humane approach?

Incredibly we start our trip to Arizona this coming Sunday. It never seems as though I get enough time at Williamsburg though this cold snap (Thursday might tie a record low at 26) does make me yearn for warmer weather…..

 

 

It wouldn’t be Christmas without a real tree

Family, HGTV/DIY/Design, My Novel - Claire, Writing December 1, 2013 Leave a comment

28189-beautiful-christmas-tree[1] December 1. Steve’s official start of retirement. A day to celebrate. Under normal circumstances, I would be jealous, looking forward to another four or more years of work while he stayed home, completing his honey do list and puttering around the house. Nothing normal about our current situation. We’re both retired, home together, 24/7.

We have only one vehicle now. Already we are missing the company truck. Can’t just run and get a Christmas tree, throw it in the back of the truck. This year we borrowed Chris’ truck and took Elise with us to Windy Ridge Orchard to cut our tree. I’ve thought about buying a nice artificial tree (we put a cheap one in the gazebo that caused a few arguments as it was being assembled) but I can’t quite make myself do it. I like real ones. It wouldn’t be Christmas without a real tree.

Last year Steve and Sheffield bought an already cut one while I lay on the couch recovering from my surgery. It was not what you would call a pretty tree although he claimed it was the best one in the lot. I recall that Steve and the grandkids decorated it. I didn’t much care what it looked like. But I definitely cared that we had one. It meant that everything was normal. Even though it wasn’t.

This year everything is pretty close to normal. Except we are preparing for our trip to Arizona and packing up the house so that our contractor can renovate the kitchen and install new tile in the mud room. And I get to tear up the old tile! So excited! Our contractor even left me a real tool to do it with—a mini jackhammer. I can’t wait to get started. I’ll probably hate it or, more likely, not be able to do it, and Steve will have to take over. And all of those hours spent watching HGTV will be wasted.

Sort of like writing. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for so long and now that I have the time to do it I realize how much work it is. (I certainly can’t delegate it to Steve.) So it doesn’t get done. That’s why I didn’t “win” NaNoWriMo (yesterday was the deadline and I never got beyond 11,000 words). But I did get a good start on a novel that I like and that I hope to complete – “Claire.” Eventually. Even with Steve hanging around the house…….

I’m a winner!!

Adrenal Cancer, Cancer, My Novel- Anne, Writing, Writing Group September 5, 2013 Leave a comment
NaNoWriMo Winner Certificate 2011

NaNoWriMo Winner Certificate 2011

It’s a great day to be alive even if it feels like summer is over and fall is on the horizon. Frost warnings tonight!

I spent the morning yesterday at the Cider House Café at Windy Ridge Orchard with three women from my writing group. I can’t think of a better way to spend a morning—except if the one member who is “not a morning person” had been there.

As I had already eaten a bagel, the scrumptious apple cinnamon pancakes and bacon counted as my lunch, along with a Cortland apple from the peck I purchased in the gift shop. A lifetime ago I worked with the husband of the woman running the register—actually I started the novel (“Anne”) I am still struggling with when we began working together in 1986. He died of cancer five years ago.

She said she is finally coming to grips with his death. I can see that when Steve looks at me. I know he is thinking, how am I going to live without you? I am fortunate, I am only Stage 2 (of an ultra-rare cancer, unfortunately). It doesn’t mean I can’t become Stage 4 overnight. Or that I remain NED (no evidence of disease) forever.

I didn’t know in October that I would have surgery for ACC in November. I was living for tomorrow. It’s a wakeup call to find out that tomorrow may not come. Now I try to live my life as though today, this very moment of today, is all that I can count on.

But the reality is that most people don’t live their lives that way. They live as though death only happens to other people.

The ability of the women in my writing group to motivate, energize, inspire, me is priceless. They make me want to sit in my seat and write until I can’t write any more. To hone my skills until I can’t write any better.

We decided to participate in the National Novel Writing Month event this November, where you write a 50,000 word book in 30 days. I participated a few years ago, something I admit I am proud of. We’re going to meet in a neutral place—meaning no distractions—to write together in November. It’s a lot of work to write, and a lot more to do NaNoWriMo, but together I have no doubt that we will be successful.

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