Overnight

7-19: Fiorella has given up on the house--it will be what it will be. But she hasn't given up on herself. Instead, she's doubled down on her own life and what is important to her--writing, languages, art, family.

7-20: Fiorella woke up bursting with joy. Maybe it was that she slept soundly, without disturbing dreams, and apparently in such good posture that she could mmediately leap to her feet without her back hurting. Maybe it was that she ate the right things yesterday (chocolate chip cookes,  hamburger, chocolate ice cream?) or that her book is moving, really moving, again. Maybe it's that the irritating webs cleared from her brain ("Gene Kelley and Fred Astaire" were her first thoughts of the morning.) Maybe it's that she had a long, rambling phone conversation with Daughter yesterday, or that she attended church with friend Sharon, then had a two-hour visit with her. Maybe it was because her telenovela is resolving or because of the Russian flavor of the stupid Colbert show. Or maybe it's an intimation of something wonderful about to happen. On the personal scene, will all Fio's personal problems be resolved? On the national scene, will Trump be trumped?

Whatever, Fiorella cannot stop grinnng. She feels cleansed, powerful, and ready for action. God's in his heaven, and all's right with the world.

Stability

Mother's house was her snailshell, except that she never moved it, perhaps because her childhood was spent moving from house to house according to her father's employment fortunes, which were controlled by how well he knew the local politicians and how much he drank. Well, Mom did move once, to Texas, because Dad, who was also good with people but who didn't drink, got a job promotion.

Waco, Texas, was a shock to her because it was so different from Akron, Ohio. Texas accents back then were so strong that they sounded like a foreign language. And there weren't many natural trees around. And the rather plain one-story house Dad had bought for the family was so different from her charming two-story in in Ohio. Sure, the Texas house came equipped with a dishwasher, washing machine, and two bathrooms, but its front porch was minuscule, the kitchen was a quarter of the kitchen she had left behind her, it lacked a real dining room, AND THERE WAS NO BASEMENT.

Fio remembers the look of horror on Mother's face, the tears in her eyes, when she met the house for the first time, but being her mother's daughter, she rolled up her sleeves and went to work, dragging Dad in her wake. The garish wallpaper was the first thing to go.

Through the years, Mother brought that little house on Proctor Avenue to its glory. It was her creation, her haven, her stability, and she lived in it the rest of her life, never having to move again.

Taking on All Comers

Fiorella doesn't understand.  After she and her brother left the family nest, her mother had a hard time finding ways to occupy herself and actually went through a period of depression. Fio herself has wrestled with depression from time to time, but never from lack of things to do. There are always pictures to paint, languages to learn at, stories to write, a house to whip into shape, and now, five and one-third acres to tame. Fio's often feels overwhelmed, but she's never at loose ends.

This Old House

The house is twelve years old and counting, which means that a door has fallen off an upper kitchen cabinet, an air conditioner has had to be replaced, and the water softener has gone kaput. By the way, did you know that if you wash your hair in unsoftened water, it takes more than one rinse to get the shampoo and conditioner out?

So now if you'll excuse her, Fio, whose newly-washed hair is stiff as a board, will run upstairs to stand under the shower for a good fifteen minutes.

Forty-eight Hour Day Needed

Fiorella is being pulled in too many directions.  She wants to finish off her novella and edit her short stories.  She wants to work on the house and the yard.  She wants to refresh her languages.  She wants to paint again. And she wants to play the piano and write more songs.

Fio needs a clone--half a dozen of them, in fact.

Having the Eye

Fiorella is fascinated by the way the right accent piece can pull a room together.

Every room in Fiorella's house is painted white and decorated in shades of red and blue.  Downstairs in the den, it's maroon and blue, which shows off the Persian carpets Husband inherited from his mother.  And in the master bedroom upstairs, it's peach and aqua, which works well with the white, white master bedroom and en suite. But neither of the rooms really came together until Fio added a large maroon pillow to the couch and placed a multi-folded red-orange Indian blanket across the bench at the foot of the bed.

Fio's inner artist glows with appreciation every time she looks at the maroon pillow and red-orange Indian blanket, but Sonia Dog drags the pillow off onto the floor, and Husband piles clothes on top of the blanket.

Such is the fate of an artist.

Fiorella's Day

Fiorella's day is shot.  She's under the gun--a barrage of guns, in fact.  Not only is she engaged in a massive GERD attack (wonder why), but she also has to make a whirlwind clean up of the house, back porch, and adjacent yards because a refinancing appraiser is coming this afternoon.  And she's been asked to dig up records she's never seen before on property she and Husband own in Colorado.  And she has to get her final, line-edit revisions in on Tuesday, but they disappear the second she turns off the computer.

Needless to say, she's canceled the dental appointment.

Promotion

Fiorella is overwhelmed again.  It isn't just the house or the yard or the writing.  It's the literary promotion.  Everywhere Fiorella looks, people are advocating self-promotion, which Fio does NOT want to do.  One reason she held out for an agent and a publisher was so that she would write, write, write her stories, and OTHER people could sell, sell, sell them.  Besides, she was blessed with many talents and skills, but NOT electronics!

Yes, your Fio has a blog, email, and Facebook, but that's it--no Pinterest, no Instagram, no Twitter, no WODDL, no Buffer, no Street Team, no give-aways,  Definitely a dinosaur.

Fictional Reality

No, Fio does not go to the movies, nor does she watch them on television--she doesn't have the time.  She's always working on the house or the yard or keeping up with friends or, as you know, writing, which is her full-time job.  Besides, she's more interested in reality than fiction.  But Fiorella, you say, you write fiction.  To which Fiorella replies, "My fiction is reality."

Selection from WHAT THE HEART WANTS

Jase drove slowly down the road, searching for his old home.  

He knew twilight was a great equalizer, but the neighborhood sure looked a lot better  than it had ten years go when he'd come back to town after Growler drowned in the Bosque River after a night of heavy drinking.  In fact, it looked downright respectable--without a single junk pile, broken-down car or scavenging dog pack in sight,  

Thank God that Lolly would never know the squalor he'd grown up in.  "Poor but honest" was the picture he'd always painted of his family--he'd sugar-coated his childhood and said squat about why he'd left town.

His high beam cut across the front of the house as he turned into the drive, but there was no forlorn teenager sitting on the front steps. 

His mouth went dry and his chest tightened.  

What if . . .

No, he refused to go down that road.  He was Lolly’s father.  He’d know if something had happened to her--wouldn’t he?

He ran his eyes over the shadowed porch again

Goddamn--where was she?  If she wasn't at Kinkaid House, she had to be here.

He backed the Cadillac into the driveway--if there was an emergency, he needed to be able to haul ass.  Easing himself out of the car, he leaned against the side of it for a long moment, gazing into the sky and trying to be logical while his heart raced like the Indianapolis 500.  .

Maybe she'd found a way to get into the house. Girl Child had been an expert at picking locks ever since she was two, when she'd shrieked "Me do it!" and unbuckled her own carseat belt, which, of course, meant he had to spend half the night on the internet, searching for a tamperproof model.   Truth be told, he was proud of her willfulness, even encouraged it,  As far as he was concerned, it was a survival trait.

But there was a big difference between a willful toddler unlocking her seat belt and a willful fifteen-year-old taking off down I-35 on her own.

And, oh God, I love her so much.

He shoved off the  had to car and walked up onto the porch, took one last look around, and flipped on the lights.

"Lolly?"

His voice echoed in the empty house.

Maybe she hadn't heard him.

"Lolly!"

No answer.

He made a swift search of every room, opening every closet, then checked out back.

Nada.

A chill crept over him.

He walked into his old room at the front of the house, raised the blind on the lone window, and looked up at the evening star--the wishing star, as Aunt Maxie called it--and wished his daughter to miraculously appear.

Funkless

Fiorella's cousin is visiting for the first time ever next week, which means Fio is running around like the proverbial headless chicken trying to get the house in shape.  It's wearing, but, on the other hand, it's also invigorating--all that action is pulling Fio out of her funk.  And talking to Friend Suzy across the ocean also buoyed her up, as did attending the San Gabriel Writers' League meeting last night.

Action and social communication--that does the trick!

On the Treadmill

Fiorella really got industrious yesterday and put the kitchen back in shape, picked up the den, went upstairs and took care of the workroom/utility room, neatened the master bedroom, and did a thorough job on the master closet.  Today she'll go after her office.  WHERE THE HEART LEADS is breathing down her neck.

Helter-skelter Life

Why doesn't Fiorella have time to do things like takes vacations or travel or indulge in new hobbies?   Maybe because she can't spare time off from what she's already committed herself to: writing, physical therapy, voice therapy, the piano, dog training, getting the house in shape, taking care of family finances, handling the family business venture, keeping up with friends and relatives.  And  in the wings lurk the languages she wants to learn or refresh herself on, the paintings she wants to do or redo, the poems she'd like to bundle into little booklets for posterity. And soon she'll be attending to the groom's family's wedding responsibilities.  Then comes Christmas, which will require her to design a special card, write a new poem, and decorate the house.

Fiorella is active, intense, and insane.

House of Origin

Happy birthday to me/As usual, I'm forty-three/And that is all I'll ever be.

Here's a picture of the house at 429 Stetler Avenue, Ellet, Ohio, which Fiorella lived in for the first seven years of her life.  Back then, the front porch was not enclosed, and Fiorella remembers her father sitting her on the railing to watch the fireworks on Fourth of July.