Epiphany

Epiphany, meaning appearance or manifestation, is a Christian feast intended to celebrate the "shining forth" or revelation of God in human form, to the Gentiles, in the person of Jesus. Some Christians commemorate the visitation of the Magi to the child Jesus on this day... (from Wikipedia)

What a fitting day to return, with my children, to church. We went to the local Presbyterian community church -- much more in line with my beliefs and philosophy than the local Southern Baptist church -- and although it's small and struggling a bit without a pastor, I felt rather at home again. For now. While I wait. For what, I know not; my entire life is suspended at the moment, and as I continue having to let go of pieces of my life -- the store I worked so hard to get running and make beautiful, the home I made for my family, the cats, one of our dogs (I had to give Maisy away last week because she was suffering so much living outside in the cold), any hopes and plans any future I might have wanted -- I feel stripped bare. I have no choice but to surrender. Letting go means loss, and God knows I'm feeling it every day. But it also opens my heart and my spirit to a divine transforming power that will take me to a better place in my life. An Al-Anon slogan reminds me that "God's plan for your life is to be happy, joyous, and free" -- and sometimes, obviously now, I have to step out of the way and throw my own agenda out the window in order for that plan to manifest.

No pain, no palm;
no thorns, no throne;
no gall, no glory;
no cross, no crown.
(William Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 1669)

Lookin' on the bright side and all that.

Merry Christmas from Mama and the babes

Havin' kind of a Blue Xmas here, but the kids' enthusiasm and joy have helped keep me afloat. We celebrated Christmas here with my parents today and had a lot of fun, and that alone has made this barely bearable "holiday" worth the struggle. And I got two great pictures -- just with my cell phone but of surprisingly good quality:

From another side (looks like the downside, at the moment)

Well, now that I'm DIVORCING, God help me, the "annasanchez" domain probably isn't a good idea.... *Sigh* Those of you who know me well surely understand that this, uh, huge life transition was a long time coming, but I can tell you that it is still pretty damn painful. I suppose it's worse to be on the other end -- in this case, Antonio's end -- when one partner decides that a marriage is over, but maybe it's just a matter of timing: I'd gone through a lot of emotional pain and "work" (processing, agonizing, whatever you want to call it) by the time I finally got up the nerve to tell Antonio that I had to end our marriage, whereas it was at that moment that his "work" (i.e. excruciating pain) had to begin.

So now we pay the lawyers, vascillate between hating each others' guts and trying to get even and trying desperately to get along somehow for the kids' sake, and although I have no doubts or regrets about what I'm doing, I feel awful for the pain that this is causing the man I loved and married 9.5 years ago. On the other hand... I know I did everything I could to try to make the marriage work, and that its last months were essentially unbearable... but no matter how you look at it, divorce just sucks, whether it's one-sided or mutual.

That's the news from Lake Wobegon, where the women are strong... or trying to be, one damn day at a time.

Back online, sort of

Laz and Maggie have *loved* seeing their Uncle Charles again!

I'm back on a new domain, temporarily, MAYBE -- annelear.com is in Register.com limbo and I've been too busy to fight for it. I'll work on transitioning the images if I can't get annelear.com back; in the meantime, well, I'm still here... and I have two new blogs: one for my store/gallery, Little Maggie's Mercantile, and one for my jewelry, Anna Sanchez Ltd., which I've been updating more regularly than, uh, this one. A mama can only do so much, right?

Little Maggie's Mercantile

Finally, here are some photos of the store. More to come soon.

Summer Home

As I was taking pictures of our apricot tree in full bloom, I noticed this tiny nest in the upper branches -- a hummingbird nest, awaiting the return of our zippy little friends. I think I heard one buzzing around the yard today, which prompted me to track down and start cleaning my hummingbird feeders so I can fill them up ASAP and tempt as many as possible to hang out around my yard.

That's it for now -- sorry for the lack of posts; I'm completely swamped (mostly good stuff) and, of course, as the weather gets warmer I hardly want to hang out on the computer burning daylight....

Maggie and Maisy

This is Maisy, our new half-boxer, half-mystery dog. We brought her home a week ago Saturday, and the kids have definitely taken a shine to her... Maggie was squealing with delight when I took this shot, but Maisy, now almost six weeks old, didn't seem so thrilled. The kids are learning to temper their excitement and be gentler (Laz finally seems to understand that dragging Maisy by her hind legs might hurt her; Maggie gets it that Maisy yelps when sat on), and they also alert me to pee and poop incidents so I don't step in them later. The paper training is going very slowly.... Lucy is absolutely delighted to have a playmate at last -- after a few days of tentative sniffing and bewilderment, she has accepted Maisy as her new little buddy.

She sleeps a lot -- and more and more at night, thank goodness, though I'm still getting up twice in the night if only to shush her so that her howls and wails of loneliness don't wake the kids up. On Saturday I took her with me (with permission) to a baby shower, since no one was home and I didn't want to leave her alone at home or in my car (I'm spoiling her rotten, I know!), and she fell asleep tucked under my arm, much to the other guests' delight. I take her to the store with me every day now, since Antonio has his hands full with the kids and Maisy needs a LOT of attention (not to mention the paper training thing, which just... ugh), and on the way over I bring her into the post office, the bank... just not restaurants (though that would be cool in France!) or the grocery store. Everybody ADORES her, and she's getting well socialized.

I can hear her and Lucy playing now. I know I'll be up again twice or so tonight, but it's cool.

Happy birthday to my Magpie

Three years ago today, Maggie came to stay. I can't believe it's been that long, but here she is, over the years...

Happy Valentine's Day

Two little monkeys jumping on the bed...

Every morning I try to sneak up to the loft to get a bit of computer time -- at least to check email -- but soon enough I hear the pitter-patter of little feet coming up the ladder. Sometimes it's Laz, asking me to button or snap his pants, or "I just want a hug and a kiss, Mama!" Usually, though, once he's up here, Maggie is in hot pursuit, and my five minutes of computer time (four of them spent deleting spam email) are over. My loft, once my refuge, has been breached and is showing it: Maggie gravitates to my sewing corner, pulling open drawers and playing with fun little tools (the sharp ones are well out of reach now), and my thread bobbins have now been completely de-threaded and scattered under the sewing table. Lazarus has arranged and rearranged the empty CD cases that I've never managed to fill with CDs containing backup data, pictures, music, or anything else, and his obsession with a small tile clock that just needed a new battery has rendered it useless. They both are emptying my paper trays, page by page, and the pens they palm to create their masterpieces are probably congregating under the bed, along with stray socks and fat dust bunnies. It's far beyond time to clean up the loft, both because I can't find or do anything anymore and because I'm supposed to set a better example for my children... so it seems, anyway. Though they sure do have fun up here, and, although it means losing my alone time, I have fun, too.

Sunrise, Sunset

Yes, it has been a long time since I've posted. December was too busy with the store, and after Christmas I fell hard into my usual winter slump. I feel okay, just tired and wanting to hibernate. And the weather -- oy. I guess I'll take this winter's busy storm season over last year's dust bowl; winter is for enduring (for me), so the earth might as well get snowed on. At least I know my bulbs and perennials will be bursting out just as soon as spring returns....

I've also been spending my computer time getting my little online jewelry store up and running. Right now I'm using Etsy.com, since it has the e-commerce part built in; someday I'll get ambitious and make a real site. Just not now. Check it out and let me know what you think!

So that's it for now; I'll try to be more ambitious about posting here, if only to show how big the kids are getting!

Over the river and into the woods...

Here's where we'll be for Thanksgiving.

That's a few miles northwest of Dusty, off NM 52, in case you were wondering....

New(ish) pictures!

I got some great pictures of the kids on our Halloween trip to Cloudcroft to see Jai and Christine. Laz and Jai looked great in their costumes; Maggie said "No" to her Tinkerbell costume (I wasn't surprised, though a bit disappointed because it was adorable) but joined in the fun, too.

The next day, we all went to White Sands, and the kids had a blast playing and digging in the snow-like (but NOT frosty, hence the eventually bare feet) sand:

Daydreaming

So let's just say the Democrats do gain control of the House of Reps on Tuesday. And then in January, when all the newly minted reps show up for duty, and current House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi becomes the new Speaker of the House, let's just say someone starts talking about impeachment of both Dubya and Evil Cheney for the high crimes and treasonous acts with which they have hitherto gotten away. And let's just say the impeachment actually happens.

Then the first woman President in US history would take office. A woman. From California. San Francisco, no less.

Now how cool would that be?

Please, nobody wake me up....

The View from Up There

Antonio asked a rancher friend to take Laz up in his workhorse Cessna 182, and this is what we saw:



Magdalena sure ain't much, from the ground or the air, but that's why we love it so. The empty-looking land in the second picture is (roughly) the north half of what is now the Lear Ranch -- Mom and Dad closed on it today!

Laz had his nose plastered to the window for the entire half-hour flight. Mom and I did okay, too, except for a few moments of vertigo on my part. Thanks so much to Mr. Guin for the great time!

Aster-Senecio

Senecio Aster
Originally uploaded by stannabelle.

One of the many, many wildflowers from last week's outing: a Senecio Aster (thanks to this great site for the IDs). More here. And the rains keep coming, and the flowers keep blooming...

The Wild

We took a little drive today, undeterred by the continuing threat of rain and road washouts, and came across some interesting neighbors:



The bear came to see what we were having for lunch -- he was downwind of our picnic, and I saw him or her in time to scuttle the kids into the car, call Lucy, and grab my camera. Lucy was smart enough to let the bear see her protecting us but not to bark or bait the creature. It looked like a yearling or two-year-old, not so big but not small enough to have a mama bear nearby (though I kept my eyes pealed), and it sauntered down to the creek when we waved some sticks and yelled (from the safety of the car, of course).

The rattler was on the side of a dirt "road" that we were "driving" on (more on that in a moment) and Antonio spotted it (good eyes!). I took this picture from, again, the safety of the car.

Looking at the map after arriving home, I was surprised by how close to home we stayed. We had intended to go further, but on the first leg of the journey we had already crossed over a creekbed that totally washed out the "road" we were on, necessitating a dogleg down the creekbed a bit to a gentler slope back out than the eight-foot cliff where the "road" formerly exited. With rain threatening and perhaps already filling up the arroyos upstream, we doubled back and then went east for a ways. I had been in this terrain before, due north of Magdalena in the Bear Mountains, but I hardly recognized it because it is so green now. Here's one of the "roads" we took, and I was shocked to find it on our DeLorme map:



I took many, many pictures of the wildflowers that somehow managed to survive the winter/spring drought and have emerged from the dust and rocks; I'm still processing them, so I'll put them up later. Here's a car-window shot for Mom and Dad -- you guys know this place (and will get to know it a whole lot better soon) but might not quite recognize it:

An outing

Last Saturday we paid our respects to Antonio's grandma and grandpa Sisneros, who died some time ago but waited patiently for the family to scatter their ashes in one of their favorite fishing spots, the Cimarron River east of Eagle Nest.

Lazarus and Maggie enjoyed themselves thoroughly, especially at the very end when a rain shower descended upon us and they could finally use their new umbrellas.



The rains here have been amazing, especially after our long winter of drought. Even more amazing is how green everything is. I hardly recognized many spots along the long drive to and from the site -- I'd seen plenty of green around Taos before, but never on that long brown stretch between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. A sight to behold, for however long it lasts.

I love the contrast in these pictures -- my boy casting his eyes skyward, my girl intently focused on earth and stones:

The Old Timers Reunion

Every year in July, the weekend after the fourth, Magdalena holds its Old Timers Reunion come rain or come shine. Sometimes it's almost deadly hot; this year it rained buckets, though that never cancels out the rodeo because, well, this is the West after all. No cowboy worth a damn is gonna cry over a little mud on his boots. This is our fourth summer here and the first time I've managed to get good pictures -- here are a few, and the rest are on a Flickr slideshow. Enjoy!


Our friend Gerry, waiting patiently for the parade to start (and end)


One of the town's many vintage car enthusiasts


Alamo Navajo dancers (from the small rez 30 miles NW of town)

A sunny day

We went to Jai's birthday party today, and Marin (our marvelous babysitter, who is going off to college a year early -- sniff) was there. I asked her to pose with the kids for a moment, but she was otherwise off duty! (She handled the kids wonderfully for four long days last week, and not only did I not want to impose on her AT ALL today, I'm also broke now!) ;-)