… donations if at all possible. We just got done paying out nearly 2k to hook up into the town’s new sewer system. They told us originally that there would be “help” to pay for it, but they failed to mention that you have to be over 60 years old in order to qualify for it, which just figures. Oh, and our sump pump gave out, too, which was another stupid thing to be replaced. When it rains it pours, which is just enough to make me feel like moving into a box under a bridge somewhere … *sigh*

Right now, we’re in dire need of roof repairs (the 20×10 foot section, roughly 200 square feet) that will cost around 500.00 as well as trying to save up for the genetic testing that our son needs in order to diagnose whether or not he has maple syrup urine disorder. The roof is in really bad shape right over the kids’ room, and we found out this weekend that there’s a small area in the closet that has developed a hole. We were hoping to do the roof this month, but with everything else that has sneaked up on us, I’m worried that we won’t be able to. And yeah, the roof is THAT bad that it isn’t going to last much more than a few months. When we first figured out that it needed to be repaired, Eric’s hours had been cut down drastically, and now, while Eric’s hours are a little better, they’re still not back where they were before.

All help would be greatly appreciated

Two years.

Really?

That sounds like such a long time, doesn’t it?  Two years …

I mean, if you think about it, a lot can happen in just two years, right?

A recession, a change of presidents, a change of eras … In two years, I’ve learned that there are some people who I should be able to trust but cannot and others who I didn’t trust who have since proved that they are sincere.  In two years, I’ve realized that little boys can and do grow up to be young men.  In two years, I’ve found that some people whom I have considered friends are more like family.  In two years, I’ve found that some family are not worthy of that distinction.

In two years, I’ve learned what it is like to lose a good friend disguised as a pet.  In two years, I’ve learned to open my heart to other pets that have needed me almost as much as I needed them.  I’ve learned that to truly be happy in this world, you have to let go of things that just don’t matter.  In two years, I’ve learned to hold onto those things that really, really do.

In two years, I’ve laughed, and I’ve cried.  In two years, I’ve wondered if I’d be able to open my eyes in the morning without worrying about things that I cannot control.  In two years, I’ve realized time and again that my best friend is the man I married.  In two years, I’ve come to understand that it’s all right to see him cry, too.

There’s just one thing that has remained the same over the course of two years.  It is a strange thing, I think, that in those same two years that have molded me, the constant sense of loss is still there.  Oh, I don’t cry very often anymore.  I can smile when I remember, and I can laugh at the funny things.  I can see things with more clarity than I saw back then, too.  I suppose that it’s a normal thing, isn’t it?

The sun still rises, and the sun still sets.  The moon goes through its phases in the midst of a starry sky.  Sometimes I sit beside her grave, and I think that everything really is all right.  Maybe it’s because I can feel her more now than I did two years ago.  I’d like to think that she’s our angel now, that incredible woman that we knew as “mom”.  Though we cannot hear her voice any longer, we can still feel her presence.  It’s always there, in the touch of the breeze that ruffles your hair.  It’s there in the sigh when the light of the world touches the darker hues of the descending night, and that night is no longer a scary place.  It has been tempered by a gentleness that came from her, or so I like to think.

I’d like to think that she’s happier now—happier because she can watch over all of those she held dear, not just the ones she could see, and I know without a doubt at all that she is still here, and if that is so, then there is one thing that I need to say.

Mom, I want to thank you: thank you for welcoming me into your family, thank you for smiling when you could’ve cried, for laughter and for understanding.  Thank you for the gentle advice and the times when you said nothing at all.  How did you know when I just needed someone to listen?  How did you know when I needed you to tell me to stop feeling sorry for myself?  And I am ashamed to admit that I didn’t say ‘thank you’ nearly enough, especially when I realize that the single greatest thing that you did for me was something that I never got to thank you for.  For that man I married, the one I love: I thank you for him most of all.  Through your guidance and your love, you helped him to become the person I adore, and if I have one regret, it’s that I didn’t hug you one more time, that I didn’t tell you that I held you in the highest of regard.

Two years have passed since you slipped out of our lives, but … but you’re still here, aren’t you, Mom?  So I won’t say goodbye now, either.  Instead I’ll smile when I look up into the clear blue sky.  When I hear my children laugh, I’ll think of you then, too, and I’ll try every day to remember that one day, I want to be a guardian for those I leave behind, just like you are.

Two years.

Two years.

Purity 7: Avouchment and Purity 8: Vendetta have been added for download.  See the Sueric page for the links.  Enjoy!

Wow, it’s been awhile, huh?  Sorry for the long break.  I’ve had a ton of stuff going on, but I’m glad to say that I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things.  By the time I was ready to jump back in, though, I figured it’d be a good time to go back and see how far I’ve come, and so I started reading Purity, and …

Well, I don’t know.  I mean, I guess that the mind can play tricks on you, right?  Sometimes you remember things a little fonder than you maybe should have, and I think that’s the case with Purity.  Don’t get me wrong, I still love the story, but …

But as I read through this, my first fanfiction, I started to realize a few things: things like … good God, it’s bad.  Okay, well, it’s not BAD but it’s certainly not great, either.  In fact, I spent a lot of time cringing as I read it, and to be brutally honest, I’m not entirely sure why anyone else bothered to go on to read the continuations from it.  Sounds harsh, maybe but then I am likely my own worst critic.

So my options were 1) leave it alone and keep grimacing every time I thought about that story–one of the ones that I really do love best, or 2) Rewrite it.  Okay, not a complete rewrite but a mass edit to fix the things that made me cringe: things like characterizations and areas where I just kind of skimmed over parts that I just was too lazy to write.  Well, maybe not lazy.  Maybe it’s more of an evolution in my own writing that makes me realize now that the story line is good even if the writing isn’t always as complimentary.

Thing is, this is the story of InuYasha and Kagome, and it’s a story that I’ve always loved.  I really hope that  you’ll take the time to read the edited chapters as I post them.  I think that it’ll serve to improve the quality and overall story.

As for Subterfuge … don’t worry.  I’ve been working on that one, too.  At the moment, I’ve got two chapters of it in beta, and you’ll get those as I get them back.  Believe it or not, we’re only about 1/2 way done with Evan’s story.  I’m hoping to have this one wrapped up at least by the end of the year.  Wish me luck!

Thanks to everyone who sent me emails or stopped in the forum to let me know that you were thinking of me.  You guys have helped me a lot, even if you don’t realize it, and for that, I sincerely thank you all.

So I figured that I’d better post something about why I’ve not been updating and probably won’t be updating regularly for awhile.  You know, you’d have thought that the last year was a big enough financial slap in the face to most of the people in America, but no, it really does get worse, right?

Let me preface this by saying that when I walk to the post office or to get a newspaper out of the one machine in the town, I tend to smile and wave at anyone I see, whether I know them or not because I live in such a small place that it’s common to do so.  Let me also preface this by saying that our roof over our kids’ room is bad—really bad.  We know it’s bad, and we know that it desperately needs replaced.  We also know that we don’t have the money to do it at the moment.  Two years ago when we had the money (when it was first starting to become an issue), Eric’s mom died.  Now what was I supposed to do?  Tell him, “Gee, honey, sorry about your mom.  That really bites.  Now get your ass out there and fix the roof!”

Yeah.  Not.

So last year (it was leaking during rain pretty badly), we had the time as Eric was laid off for a couple weeks here and there, but no money.  None.

Anyway, out of the blue, one of my neighbors stops in a month or two ago and offers to help us out by giving us roofing (they’d just finished roofing her shed) and that she’d help putting it up.  I was shocked, and my gut reaction was to tell her that we’d get it ourselves, but you know, I have kids, and they’re the most important people in the world to me, and my pride isn’t nearly as important to me as they are, so I said a grateful, “yes”.

Then I didn’t hear from her again.  I could’ve called her, I suppose, but again, the pride thing, and I kept thinking, ‘how would that sound?  By the way, weren’t you going to fix my roof?’

Now, we’re talking about a twenty foot by ten foot square that direly needs replaced, and it’s going to cost us around $400.00 (or less) to actually get all the materials and do it, but …

But the woman and her husband had a guy staying with them whose wife had kicked him out and gotten a restraining order against him.  Despite the restraining order that she asked for, she calls over to the woman’s house constantly, harassing her estranged husband to come over and fix this and that and what have you.  What does this have to do with me?  Well, I’m getting to that.

So on the day before my birthday, I get a letter in the mail indicating that we’re currently under investigation by the welfare department because of OUR ROOF.  That’s right; our roof.  That damned project that the economy screwed us on.  Now, the social worker claims that she doesn’t have any intention of taking my kids, but hell … maybe I’m just sadistic or something, but I can’t help thinking ‘what if …?’ …

I ended up calling the woman who had offered to help in the first place to tell her that I didn’t appreciate her coming over here and saying she wants to help, only to get a good look at our house and the water damage in the kids’ room so that she could turn us in.  It turns out that she didn’t, but she knew who did because she was bragging about it to her husband because he’d offered to help the woman put our roof on which meant he wouldn’t be able to fix whatever his estrange wife wanted fixed at the drop of a hat for … what?  Three days at most, as long as it took to complete our roof.  She’s also turned in half of the town I live in because they’re “nice” to her estranged husband, for everything from having a few pieces of siding down on their houses to having a hole in the yard where they’d excavated a tree trunk last summer.

Like any of that matters.  All I know is that I am sitting here, worrying that my kids are going to be taken away because of some woman’s ignorant show of jealousy and four hundred frigging dollars that seems like a mountain ahead of us.

Anyway, I’ll update when I can or when I feel settled enough to actually sit down to put a string of words together, and I’m sorry if that’s not good enough.  It really is the best I can do.

Okay, so this image just cracks me up, mostly because of Nezumi’s facial expression.  LOL … check it out in full view on Duckie’s page, and thanks to a really awesome artist!!!

Merry Christmas.

I guess that’s a good way to start a Christmas letter to everyone.  When I think back over the time that’s passed since last Christmas, I have to smile—and shed a few tears, too.  The generosity of strangers has touched me—us—in such a way that a simple thank you seems so trite, yet it is all I can really say.

So I guess that I should add here that we finished Christmas shopping for our boys last night.  Maybe we don’t have copious amounts of stuff under the tree, but we were able to get them things that they’d really like, and I have to say that my oldest made me so proud this year.  One of his school friends was really depressed one day.  Apparently, his mom had told him that they might have to move.  He admitted to my son that his mom had lost her job just before Christmas last year—we knew that—and that, like us, she’d had trouble paying her property taxes, so even though her house was hers, the county was going to take her house because she didn’t have the money to pay.  Now, her property taxes weren’t really any worse than ours, but the problem for her is that her husband left her when her son (now nearly seventeen, the same age as my son) was a baby, and she hadn’t seen him since.  Because of that, though, she’d always worked two jobs, so when she lost her main job—the one that paid the bills and kept her out of the welfare line—she only had the other.  Long and short of it was that this boy’s mother was going to lose her house.  So my son came to me and asked me how much I was going to spend on him for Christmas.  It was kind of a weird question coming from him, so I asked him why?  I mean, isn’t it the thought that counts?  (Yes, I was a little irked at that point.  I mean, I didn’t think I’d raised a greedy kid …)

And he looked me in the eye and he said, “Mom, Cody’s going to have to move because they can’t afford to pay their taxes, but even then, they don’t have anywhere to go.  Could you give her the money you were going to spend on me for Christmas?  I’d rather keep a friend than open presents on Christmas day.”

I just stared at him—just stared.  I think I might’ve stared at him for close to a whole minute before my eyes filled with tears, and I grabbed him and hugged him and told him that I was so proud of him.  Granted, we didn’t have a lot of money to spend on him, but since my husband’s hours had picked up somewhat, we did have some.

So I called Cody’s mom and I tried to find a good way to ask her how much she needed to come up with.  Turns out that a few others had heard about it and had offered her money to help her.  She was only about $150.00 short, and while we hadn’t really figured on spending that much on Christmas per kid, I couldn’t stand to see her that close to her goal and not help her.

So we skimped on groceries for a week, cut back on gas money and extra trips to town, and we gave her what she needed, and I thought, you know, isn’t that what Christmas is all about, anyway?

In the end, we were able to get my son one video game, and my youngest is always cheaper to buy for.  The point is, even now, looking at our tree and seeing how few presents are under there, I still feel good because that feeling that we actually could help someone who really needed it is a beautiful, beautiful thing, and to everyone who helped us when the situation was reversed? Thank you.  God bless you.  May you look at your Christmas tree and smile, too.

So I got to thinking, what can I do to say a small thank you to everyone who cared, whether they could afford to help us or not, or even if they did nothing more than drop me an email to let me know that they were praying for us.

Well, I guess it’s this: I wrote a one shot.  What’s different about that?  Nothing, I guess.  I mean, I do that every Christmas, don’t I?    But that’s what I can do, isn’t it?  What I do best, really.  I can only hope that you all enjoy reading the story as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.  Look for it on Christmas Eve day, okay?

Oh, and to everyone?  Thanks for bearing with me this year.  Here’s hoping that 2010 is even better!

Happy Holidays,

Sue

I’m channeling Arnold, I think … anyway, I just wanted to let everyone who cares know what’s going on.

My parents are coming into town next week for a long overdue visit, and with them staying here, I’m just not really going to be able to sit down and do much in the way of writing, but it’s been a long while since I’ve last seen them, and I really want to spend time with them. For those of you who don’t know, my father’s recently been confined to a wheelchair. All of his foot surgeries have taken their toll on him, and he just cannot seem to stay on his feet without falling a lot. He just doesn’t have the balance nor the ability to catch himself before he falls anymore, and he’s suffering pretty severe depression. Anyway, Mom’s bringing him up because he says he wants to visit some places that he used to go when he was younger. Mom’s afraid that he’s just going to sit back and wait to die. I sincerely hope not.

Because of all that going on, I’m just not going to be able to update next week as I normally do. I hope you understand. Right now in my life is such a struggle to put a bright face forward, and Evan and Valerie have been good for me in that sense. I just want to be able to focus on my family’s visit next week without worrying about anything else, but …

It really does make me feel better to read the discussion on the forums or read through the reviews when I have time. Thank you all for those. Sometimes, you just don’t know how much I appreciate hearing that someone appreciates the stories I tell. Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know what was going on, and I’ll see you on November 23!

Two new fanarts added on the lineart page. Very nice yet again, Chole M! Mikio just looks sweet, and Nezumi is as cute as she ought to be!