I spent most of today fretting about a situation that turned out to be nothing at all. Poof. A weird game of Telephone. Nobody’s upset with anybody. I’m proud of myself for approaching it head-on, though; I hate conflict, and I’ve had to work at being proactive rather than hiding and hoping a problem will go away. And it turned out to be good impetus to vacuum and clean the living room.

I copy edited, and ran some errands, and watched some TV, and did other little stuff. I sat and made a slew of photocopies for something that had to be mailed for Ken. As I did, I read through a few back issues of Speculations that had piled up, and found another place to send a query for _What Beck’ning Ghost_, so that’s good. A while back Dean advised me to re-send queries to places that had said they didn’t want to see sample chapters; chances are there are new editors, or slots have opened up. So that’s on my long list of writing-related to-do things.

I didn’t get any writing done, mostly because I was stressed (see first paragraph, above), but also because I procrastinated and got tired. I did, however, do a small Imbolc celebration by setting up what’s essentially my writing altar. It was set up on the windowsill ages ago, but then when Ken took over that half of the study (and my laptop), I moved everything over, where it became jumbled and lost under cords and dust. I brought everything back out tonight and put it back on the windowsill (if only for a few months).

There are two candle holders. One is a Goddess figure, gifted to me by Teresa. The other is a rock I found on the Oregon beach when I was there for the OCW Master Class. It’s curiously sculpted by the waves, and has random holes in it, so it works perfectly as a candle holder. There are various shells and rocks; I can’t remember specifically where each came from, but I know they had meaning at the time, and I was happy when I found them. There are some random crystals, all purple. There’s a worn piece of glass, also from the Oregon coast at the first OCW, which may be a piece of a Japanese glass float (I was inspired to write a story about them while I was there, and I also bought a glass float replica that hangs above the desk, by the window). There’s a twisted copper ring that I sometimes where on my right thumb when I’m writing, because copper can conduct energy. There’s a silver pendant of two combined runes that equal creativity.

I’m going to blow out the candles now, and go outside and see if I can see the full moon (it was cloudy earlier, but I could see it glowing behind the lacy wisps), and then I’m going to curl up in bed with my kitties.