Let’s Try This Again

A year ago or more, I decided that I didn’t have time to update this page regularly, so I bowed out. But over the past several weeks, I’ve found myself with quite a few new things to say and nowhere significant to say them. (Two of the magazines I was writing for have ceased publication in the past year. Let’s hope I’m not some sort of jinx.)

Then there’s that “no time” issue. Sure, I’ve saved time by not blogging. And yes, I’ve been writing. But a fair portion of that “writing” has been updating my Facebook status. If I have time to tell 400 or so of my closest friends all about what I’m making for supper, then perhaps I could manage to squeeze a few more minutes into posting regularly on this blog.

My grand plan is to post daily, as I did when I established this page in the fall of 2006. I hope you’ll follow along, even if I drop back to weekly. Wouldn’t want my Facebook friends to miss some crucial info on Roasted Red Pepper Focaccia and Wild Mushroom Risotto.

Living the Life

Yesterday I was in my all-too-usual state of barely suppressed frustration.  I was thinking of all the tasks on my to-do list, and how most of those tasks will only need to be redone in a matter of hours, days, or a week at most.  Dishes, laundry, bill-paying, cleaning the floor that looks streaky and attracts footprints the instant it’s dry.  Not to mention the tongue-marks that our puppy leaves, since apparently the floor is quite tasty.

Minor annoyance at life’s tediousness isn’t an enormous problem.  But too often, I find myself letting it balloon into frustration at life in general.  That’s when I start grumbling to myself — audibly if I’m alone.  And I wind up cranky, snappish, and not much fun to be around.

But yesterday, my normal progression of thoughts was interrupted somehow.  I don’t know why, but just before I got to the point of frowning and huffing, I remembered something.

When I was four years old, a bright, shiny dream took shape in my imagination and became a persistent, life-long goal.  That goal stayed with me all through school, college, early marriage, early motherhood, and even to this day.  That goal was to be a published writer.

So the thought that stood me upright yesterday, letting the steam mop do the huffing for me for a minute, was that I have reached that goal.  Five times over.  My name isn’t on the binding of any library books.  And that would be some kind of wonderful, to be sure.  But on five separate occasions in the past two years, editors have found my words to be worth paying for–worth printing and sharing with their readers.

Not only that, but I am living in a quiet, beautiful rural area–another dream I have nurtured for years, along with my husband.  Everybody in my little family likes one another at least 90% of the time.  I get to hang out with teenagers a couple of times a week, which is its own special sort of crazy, surprising joy.  And I’ve recently been dubbed the Editor of the Pikes Peak Writer NewsMag, which is as fun for me as playing video games is for my sweet husband and our girls.  (Yes, I really am that odd.)

I have an expandable file folder that I use in my Creative Writing Class, helping me organize assignments and notes for my lesson plans.  I customized it a bit with favorite quotes, and the one that I wrote on the front, with thick black permanent Sharpie, is by Henry David Thoreau.  It reads, “Live the life you’ve imagined.”

Even when I’m mopping, fluffing and folding, or filling a sink with hot soapy water for the second or third time in one day, I can remind myself that those tasks do not define my life.  They’re a small, necessary part of it, but they’re more like the salt and pepper, not the meat.  The core of my life, thanks be to God, is what I always imagined it ought to be.

I resolve to be grateful for the dreams I’m already living.  And then, to keep on dreaming.

National Novel Insanity Month

Let me first state the obvious:  a man–with apparently no interest even in football–must have been the one to decide that November would be the perfect month for hundreds of thousands of aspiring writers to write an entire novel (50,000 words, at least).

Because how on earth am I to write a novel AND cook a turkey with all the trimmings AND host out-of-town family members in a clean, nicely-decorated home, AND do my Christmas shopping, wrapping, and letter writing?  And by the way: I love football!  What could be a better end to Thanksgiving Day than to curl up on the couch next to my honey with an entirely unnecessary extra piece of pie, watching college boys toss around the pigskin.  Ah, I feel bloated and happy just thinking about it.

So I did most of the holiday preparation stuff early.  I have my Thanksgiving menu planned out, but not my shopping list.  I have decorative pumpkins on the table, at least.  Flowers can come later.  And I have all my Christmas presents squirreled away–but not wrapped.  The football?  Can’t do any of that in advance, unfortunately.

And I have decided to give myself the first twenty days of November, rather than all thirty, to complete the 50,000 word goal.  So far, I am on target, having written more than 2,500 words per day for the past three days.

And you know what?  It’s been fun.  As anyone who loves to write will tell you, writing feels like catching your breath after a long run.  Like the first few days after falling in love.  Like seeing someone you adore, when you haven’t seen them in ages and didn’t expect to any time soon.  Like laughing so hard and long and freely that after awhile, you are only laughing at the laughing itself.

My fear: that what I write this month will be horrible, and will betray the integrity of these characters who have lived inside my head for more than a year now, and with whom I have fallen deeply, helplessly, and inexplicably in love.  (Yes, I know they are imaginary.  That’s the inexplicably part.)  That what I write will be meandering and goopy and far beyond repair, which would mean the death of the idea and the story and those wonderful, aforementioned characters.

But the fact is that I had been thinking and talking about this novel for, like I said, over a year now.  And I needed something to force it out of me.

And so, I write.  For at least the first twenty days of November, I write.

Sleep?  There’ll be time for that in December.

Or not.

UPDATE: 50,419 words, completed on November 21st, logged on November 25th!  I’ll blog more about it later, but that time I thought I’d have in December has been unceremoniously swallowed up by my new position as Editor of the Pikes Peak Writers’ NewsMag.  First issue?  January!  November might have been Novel Insanity Month, but December is NewsMag Insanity Month.  Have to finish in time to write the Christmas letter…

Life with Mr. Puppy

Lord help me.  We got ourselves a puppy about a month ago, and I am exhausted.

Yes, we should have gotten a rescue dog.  I realize that, so please don’t leave a comment admonishing me for falling into the cute-little-puppy trap.  I already agree with you.

He is definitely cute.

Particularly in photos, or while sleeping.  And he’s little.  But only in size, not in personality.

The dog trainer we talked to a couple of weeks ago called him “a bold little guy.”  In other words, he is pushy, demanding, hyper, and exceedingly difficult to control.  He is, in short, a toddler who is not potty trained and who runs around the house without a diaper.

He is stretching my patience and forcing me–a committed homebody–out the door into the neighborhood for long, fast walks that wipe me out and pump him up.

I have met neighbors, which can be difficult to do when there are a few acres between each front door and mailbox.  It’s that cuteness thing again.  People in cars pull over and roll down their windows to see him.  People on bikes stop and coo.  People in their front yards drop their rakes to come and say hello.

All of which Mr. Puppy loves.  He squirms, wags, and makes hilarious semi-whining sounds as the neighbors approach, and then he attempts murder-by-licking.

If I can survive the puppy days, which is somewhat in doubt (I’ve already almost posted an item on Craig’s List to sell him), I think Mr. Puppy might change me for the better.

Let’s put it this way:  “If I do not kill him, he’ll make me stronger.”

Things I’ve Learned from Living in the Country…

…which you’d think would have been obvious before.

1. If you live on a dirt road in a particularly windy geographical area, you will be dusting much more often. Much, much more often. Particularly in warm weather, when the windows are open.

2. Goats are great for eating weeds. But they don’t know the difference between weeds and grass. And shrubs. And flowers. And the lower branches of pine trees.

3. If you live in the forest, you might not want to wrap your house in wood. The woodpeckers get confused. Which explains the large holes in the side of our house, where a smaller bird has recently moved in, nest, eggs, and all. And birds do not sleep all night long. Which means we don’t sleep all night long, since the interior wall opposite the exterior hole is in our master bedroom.

4. Dandelions are lovely. It’s a lot easier to adopt this mindset than to try to eradicate the happy little buggers from two acres of land. It helps to recite George Washington Carver’s famous quote: “A weed is a flower growing in the wrong place.”  It also helps that I have an endless supply of bouquets, presented by grubby little hands nearly every afternoon.

5. People think it’s really fun to drive as fast as possible on country roads. If you are one of these people, it might interest you to learn that all that dirt you’re kicking up has to land somewhere. (See #1.)

6. I love it, I love it, I love it. Dirt, dandelions, confused wildlife and all.

I’m in Love with a Pedometer (WFMW)

I knew I wasn’t an especially active person. I work out of my home for the most part, and much of my time is spent in a chair, staring at the computer (like now). But it wasn’t until I clipped a rather small, benign-looking gadget to my hip that I realized how sedative I really am.

According to several articles, including this one, a sedentary person walks an average of 1,000 to 3,000 per day. On my first pedometer-laden day, I barely passed 1,200. And that was on a day that I thought I was busy! Pitiful.

So I decided to push it to 5,000. I did a lot of useless pacing. I stood up and walked around the room every time I waited for a website to load (which takes a bit of time since we don’t have DSL). Little things like that. I only made it to 3,000.

The next day, I vacuumed. Now, I wouldn’t say I’m a slob. But you might. So vacuuming is not necessarily a regular habit in this house. I also did an extra load or two of laundry. And I went around the house decluttering a few times that day. I reached (passed!) 5,000 steps, and my house was cleaner than it typically is, unless company’s coming.

Hm. Perhaps I was onto something.

This past week, I increased my goal to 10,000 steps per day, which is the recommended average for maximum health benefit and weight loss. The sheets on all the beds in the house are fresh. The sheets I removed have been laundered and put away, rather than crammed in the hamper for some magical future day when I have extra time. The hard floors have been mopped. There is virtually no clutter anywhere in the house, and the kitchen counters are confused, wondering why all their dirty dish friends have been cutting their visits so short.

Still, all that activity only gets me to about 8,000 steps. So, in the afternoons, when I have the news on, or the girls want me to watch a movie with them, I walk. It annoyed the girls at first, but they’re getting used to it. I walk back and forth behind the sofa, where I am still able to pay attention to whatever’s on the tube but I don’t get in anyone’s way. Yesterday, I knocked off 2,500 steps this way, just walking during the last few minutes of Meet the Robinsons, which the girls have been wanting me to see.

Guess what I normally do when I’m watching tv in the afternoon. I eat. Being notoriously bad at multi-tasking, there is no way I could handle watching, walking and eating. So, without much effort, I have eliminated a few hundred extra calories from my day. Not to mention what I’m burning with all that walking (roughly 300 calories per day when I hit 10,000 steps).

And one more thing: when I run errands, I walk up and down every single aisle now, since it adds hundreds of steps and not much extra time. Side effect? I remember to pick up things that I forgot to put on my list, just because I happen to walk right by them!

My pedometer really works for me. It keeps me moving, it keeps my house clean, it keeps me from mindlessly stuffing my face, and it even keeps my pantry stocked.

Click here to see what works for Shannon!  (Hers is a healthy tip this week, too.)