I am sitting in the quiet of my new home. The sun is rising, the leaves are turning and the birds are coming alive. We have discovered a woodchuck under our shed and he is readying his day. My internet is working and I am reflecting on this trip to the homestead!

On this trip we brought many of my own personal things and as, I look around I can see my stamp being put upon this home.  This indeed was Mr Bankerchick's mother's home for so many years but with her passing it has become our home.

I have rearranged things in the kitchen so that it reflects my taste and and my way of working. The dining room has her wonderful round oak table and vintage buffet and it also contains a writing desk that I refinished and a glass front cabinet  of my own. The upper floor is a loft space that we have been cleaning out for DD2 when she joins us in November,  You would have been amused to see us trying to get a box spring up the stairs,(pivot, PIVOT) and have decided that we will have to enlist some help before we try to move anything else up those stairs, just to save our backs, and our tempers.

We leave on Wednesday, back to California to bring DD2 and the dogs and the rest of her and our things to the homestead. And we will stay in Missouri until after the new year. Our new grandson will arrive in February and I actually will be going back after Christmas to be with DD1 and prepare the California house for sale and Mr BC will come in Feb for Birthdays and delivery. We are excited to start a new chapter in our life.

On the Road Again!

I won't be posting much this week as we are making another move to Missouri, We are packing the trailer today and leaving early tomorrow for a fast trip. We will be making the last trip for the year about Nov 12 when we move DD2 and then in the New Year we will be back to wait for our second grandson and put the house on the market. It is exciting and busy times.  We are setting up our WiFi this trip, so we will be linked to the interwebs soon.

The Stars are Against Me

Aargh,,,, I got up this morning feeling bad,,,I have popped some Claritin and some Aleve and I am hoping for best. I have so much work to do and since Mr Bankerchick was laid up last week with a wonky ankle and could not walk.We are so behind. We want to take a load of furniture to Missouri and be back by the end of the month, If this turns into the real thing I am sunk.
Лука was the picture of health this week so it is not something I picked up from him.  I just hope I have not left behind a bug for him. Mommy and Ta Ta beware, start the vitamin C!

When I got home yesterday, the dogs had missed me. I was showered in kisses and wiggling butts. Totes has not left my side since, and I have two permanent shadows.

Passages-Red Writing Hood

This week we were asked to take you somewhere. Where, was up to us -fiction or creative nonfiction- but we were asked  to use our words to paint the setting as vividly as possible, in 200 words. I love the opportunity to work on fiction.

She opens her eyes, and a blinding white light causes her to flinch. The light seems to intensify and she blinks again.  What appears to be a bright light is the metallic incandescence of the walls that surround her. It is a small enclosure that seems not to have a door or windows, yet she smells a crisp whiff of ozone. perfuming the air. She raises her head and sees that she is lying on a cold metal bench in the middle of the room.  Not restrained, she sits up looking and listening for clues to where she is. Planting her feet on the floor, she could feel a humming vibration coming from outside the room. She crosses the room to the luminous wall and puts her hand out to touch it and is knocked to the floor from a charge running through her body. The walls begin to shimmer. then disappear. The crisp air she breathed in the chamber is replaced by a damp foul odor. Dark passages lead off in three directions and from the middle passage she hears heavy footsteps moving in her direction. Perspiring she wonders aloud, "What is this madness?"

My sound track

Think Geek- Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt

I am visiting in Santa Barbara and enjoying myself immensely.  I am here with my 2 Darling Daughters and my grandson Лука.  An amazing thing about  Лука is, that when he goes about his life, he has a sound track that is quite audible, Of course there are the usual "boy sounds" air planes flying, trains running and tooting, and moist raspberries slurping off his tongue. However he is very musical as well. Sometimes its the Wheels on the Bus, or You are my Sunshine, even the theme song from Jaws, other times it is a Serbian Ditty, or it is just sounds of humming, words not necessary. His life right now is a continuous narrative with music and singing and dancing, he is only quiet when he sleeps.

 

Лука's pleasure in music and song reminds me that we all have soundtracks that run in the background of our lives that include music and song that we love. Muzak of a different kind. My music is not just one song, it includes Classical, Rock and Roll and even Country.  Favorite singers are Pavoratti, Chuck Berry, or the Dixie Chicks. Mr Bankerchick's song is Devil with the Blue Dress On, mine is my grandson singing You are My Sunshine.

The Prompts this week:
1.) Share a disagreement you’re having with someone and let your readers be the judge!
2.) Tell us about your song.
3.) Share a Halloween craft.
4.) Slow dancing with boys…talk about one of your first school dance experiences.
5.) I have no idea where the following message originated from, but it’s been floating around Facebook for the past week…who does it make you think about?

Conjuring Up Memories

A suffusion of light warms the sanctuary,

Azure blue mosaics rain down from the dome.

Incense permeates the air, 

As the saints overlook the couple, hands raised in blessing.

I smile through my tears, my heart seems about to burst.

The chanting of the choir has stopped and the priest begins.

I do not recognize the language being spoken, but understand the meaning.

Two becoming one, my child no more, a new life together begins.

My memoir prompt this week comes from Assistant Editor Galit.

This week I want you to conjure something. An object, a person, a feeling, a color, a season- whatever you like. But don’t tell me what it is, conjure it

         
                                         

This is what I was conjuring.

Misty Morning-Red Writing Hood

I am trying something a little different this week...Fiction!

Write on Edge/Red Writing Hood's prompt this week is to be inspired by pictures. Of the two, I chose this one and my attempt is below. Feel free to critique.

Jessica had been sitting on the cold iron bench for hours.  The thick fog had turned to a mist as the darkness merged into gray. She had remained unseen by the voices and lights that had passed her in the early hours of the morning. The noises had startled her but she remained steadfast on the bench, waiting. She would not be afraid.  She was not sure what she would have said or done if those voices or lights had found her in the dark.  However, now as the mist lifted she knew that anyone walking by would think she was just waiting for the doors of the church to open for the first mass.

As the early light of day revealed the corners of the square, she wondered how she had been able to sit here waiting, alone. She had counted as the bells in the tower had chimed out the time on each hour and half hour. He was suppose to meet her at one o'clock and she had arrived as the clock was tolling the half hour before. She could make out the numbers on the clock face now and it was almost five am. He was not coming! She would have to leave soon if she wanted to slip back into the house, unseen by the prying eyes of her disapproving roommates. Maybe they were right.

She was profoundly disappointed that he had not come. She had been excited by their relationship, he was older and seemed glamorous, romantic and slightly dangerous. She was going to go away with him if he asked her. All night long she thought she saw him out of the corner of her eye but it was always a shadow. She had worried several times during her vigil that something might have happened to him on his way to meet her.  Perhaps he had met with an accident, maybe he was delayed by traffic from Baton Rouge. Traffic at this time of the morning, nonsense! But an accident, she thought, or a mugging, was that possible?  She had her cell phone with her and she had called his number but it rang through to voice mail.  Where was he? He would never do this to her, something terrible had happened! He wasn't coming. Oh why was she still here waiting for him? Now she was angry!

Jessica was cold and wet as she arose from the bench and looked around the square. The lights were flickering off. There was a dog across the square turning the corner of the building sniffing, searching for some scrap of something left behind by the patrons of the cafe next door. She flinched at the sound of two pigeons arguing about the contents of a plastic bag that was left behind by a careless tourist. She heard the far away sound of trash cans being emptied.  The square was coming alive but she was dying a little inside, he had not come for her. She used her silk scarf to wipe away her tears, touching her throat with her fingers, she whispered,

"Damn Vampires!"