Tag: writethirtyminutes

Plenty of Fish in the Digital Sea

Plenty of Fish in the Digital Sea

sundaydutroLeave a comment

Part II

(You can read Part I here.)

It was there in that ending of the second month and the beginning of her real and true fear that perhaps she should listen to her friends rather than herself, that she was scrolling through the app, her heart not really in it, sipping her coffee and sitting on the toilet, a thing she’d list under “Worst Habit” on the app if she didn’t have a plethora of other less private habits to list, that she saw him.

Her coffee mug slipped from her left hand, she’d entirely forgotten she was holding it, her left hand now at her lips, coffee and ceramic painted across her bathroom floor, a slight stinging across the tops of her feet where drops of coffee and a shrapnel of ceramic landed. It was him, there was no question. He’d lost a good thirty pounds, maybe more, and he’d gone blonde, a look she didn’t quite dislike on him as much as she’d have thought.

She instantly regretted everything about her profile, from the very practical and real photo she’d chosen rather than the Glamour Shots style of photo her girlfriends encouraged her to use, to that stupid tagline that made her sound like the world’s most uptight bitch ever, even if it wasn’t intended that way at all…she was spiraling through memories of him refusing to go with her to the gym because he was too embarrassed, even though she insisted everyone started somewhere and how he looked to anyone else didn’t matter because she loved him and he was there for his health not his looks, memories of him saying he would go blonde when he no longer loathed himself and her insisting that his brown hair was a perfect complement to his brown eyes that blonde would look all wrong and besides didn’t he love her brown hair, and the memory that she’d been avoiding for years as she picked herself up and her put herself back together and created the creature that was now happily single rather than lonely and broken and desperate for anyone with a pulse to show her some spark of attraction.

It had been five years ago, she was in her prime, or at least that’s what she’d thought at the time. She had everything she’d always said she’d have by that point in her life: an excellent career, a long-term relationship with the man she was going to marry even if he hadn’t proposed yet, and she’d just gone into escrow on a home she’d driven by every day for ten years and always wanted. At the time she didn’t notice that her excellent career caused her migraines, that the man who hadn’t proposed yet was never going to and was in fact suffering from a massive depression, and the home she’d gone into escrow on she’d purchased alone. She had an excuse, or several, for not seeing these things, for not allowing the truth to ruin her perfect vision.

It was the day her escrow closed, no less. She came home to “their” apartment and noticed everything dramatically amiss. Her first thought was that they’d been robbed, and it was only upon closer inspection that she realized her things were all still there. Not only still there, as in right where she’d left them upon her hasty exit this morning, running late to work, her morning cup of coffee on the toilet having gone overlong as she scrolled through her social media discovering another of her friends’ engagement pictures and forcing herself back into the vision she had of her reality rather than facing the glaring truth. It was so odd to see her things so perfectly untouched, as though she’d been living alone this morning, while all of his things had simply vanished.

Obviously his things hadn’t vanished, they’d been removed. He’d removed them. But how? He spent days on the couch now, there were even nights where he didn’t come to bed, “I just can’t sleep, I don’t want to keep you up.” So fine, they’d weather this storm, she’d thought. Incorrectly, it turns out.

Her first move was to scour the apartment for a note. Finding none, she picked up her phone and was moments from pressing his name in her contacts when a text came through: “Thank you for loving me, for believing in me, but this isn’t working.”

She read it twice.

She looked to see the familiar ellipses that would indicate he was typing, but there were none.

She realized she was standing in her living room with her mouth open, her phone in front of her face, a comic character from a television program.

And then there they were, the ellipses. Followed by a text the thoughts of which still brought fury to her every cell: “congratulations on the house.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!?!” she screamed.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here
Your (Writing) Tagline

Your (Writing) Tagline

sundaydutroLeave a comment

Part I

Her friends insisted she try it. They were all married, engaged, or in committed relationships and naturally had to see her in same. Join, join, join. Of course they weren’t that obnoxious about it, no one ever is; if peer pressure were so obvious it would be so much easier to avoid. The lemmings never announce themselves.

“You’re amazing,” they’d say, “you really deserve someone who’s as wonderful as you.” “We just want to see you happy,” they’d say, “I really think you’ll feel more fulfilled with someone to give your love to who will love you in return.”

They meant well, really, but she almost felt like telling them she’d rather have a dog. But that would never go over.

So she joined. She joined this dating app, website, whatever. She wasn’t even entirely sure what it was, but it sounded like a joke and she thought they’d laugh along with her when she told them, “I joined ‘I’m Hooked!‘” Instead the conversation went askew, “I love that site,” “do you remember Tom? I met him there. That almost worked out,” “oh my gosh my co-worker is on there! Let’s make sure it didn’t match you up with him.” There were other comments, but everything turned to silence when her bestie asked, “so what’d you put for your tagline?”

Ah, yes, the tagline: each member, upon joining, was required to describe themselves in ten words or less. As though they were an M&M or a beer. And some of the taglines read very much like something the thinktank at Nestle would come up with: “Loaded for love and looking for you,” “I’ll bring the six pack, you bring the taco,” “It’s always ladies night at casa Miguel.” They were all ambiguous or disgusting, and none of them said a damn thing about the author.

She’d thought of doing the same: “Tired and quiet, seeks same for nights of reading and wine,” “Would rather have dog, friends insist on man,” “Might as well be you, bring take out,” but resisted. She decided if she was going to do this, she might as well do it right. It’s how she did everything, really, why pretend otherwise now.

It took her a surprisingly long time to come up with something that fulfilled the legitimate requirements of ten words or less and an actual description of her: “30ish and autonomous, seeks no one. Astound me.”

This wasn’t quite what her friends had in mind. “No one is going to respond to you sounding all conceited like that,” “would you be curious about some dude if that was his tagline,” “why didn’t you talk about your eyes? You have such lovely eyes,” “well, at least your sense of humor comes through.”

But she thought it was perfect. It did show her sense of humor. It also showed that she wasn’t really interested, which was true. She wouldn’t say no to the right person, or a good sounding date, but anyone interested in her was going to have to put forth some effort. Nothing in it was a lie and it was certainly memorable. And after promising her friends that if she didn’t meet at least one worthy man after three months that she’d change it, they agreed to let it go.

At first she didn’t concern herself with the three month deadline. She felt she’d made her point of view rather clear to her friends and that they’d let it go. But as the first month slipped by with nothing she’d call a real match, only men clearly looking to hook up and completely ignoring everything about her profile except that she was within driving distance, she began to worry that perhaps her friends had been right. That and they weren’t letting it go.

The monthly girls lunch began as it always did with hugs all around and the “how is your mom,” and “hey, is that ankle doing better,” etc. sorts of comments, but once orders were placed and the talking got around to serious matters it was all about her and the damn dating app. She explained calmly and quickly about the hook-up matches that were clearly not matches, and then sat quietly through the deluge of responses, “you have to change your tagline,” “what if you changed that part about your favorite book being The Handmaid’s Tale, I mean now that Netfilx has that series, someone could get the wrong idea,” “did you check the ‘no’ box for ‘casual relationships’?”

The rest of the lunch was a disaster but she tried not to let it rankle her. As the second month disappeared, all the lousy men having already contacted her and been ignored or blocked, and now not one single attempted match she began to wonder if maybe she really did want this whole app thing to pan out. She found herself disappointed that no one had contacted her, found herself checking the app to make sure her profile was still active, and searching her area to see if new men had joined.

Part II is here.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here
The Terrible Decision

The Terrible Decision

sundaydutroLeave a comment

She could have stayed. It may have been better to stay. How hard could it have been to stop, take a deep breath, count to ten? Too hard, apparently. She left. It was a split decision, even as she was doing it, she floated above, watching herself doing it. The walking to the hook, the grabbing of the key, the thoughtful stopping to pick out sunglasses and wallet from her purse…clearly she was able to think, and so the leaving must be seen as coherent, a decision.

Even as she drove away she was hovering above. Truly she was driving, sitting in the seat, the heated seat which had seemed an extravagance in California now a necessity in Montana, still she was physically in the seat and driving, her hands upon the non-heated steering wheel, an extravagance she’d gone without and now wished she’d splurged for…like remote start functionality. At any rate, there was her body, in the seat, hands on the wheel, feet on the pedals, and she was physically determining her future. But emotionally, psychically, she was floating above. Looking down at herself. Slightly in awe of her power and also completely overwhelmed by the happenings.

Would she be able to go back? Would she want to? Would she be allowed back? Would they want her?

Did it matter?

…

She’d always done things by the book:

  1. got good grades in high school
  2. got into a prestigious college
  3. graduated from said prestigious college
  4. obtained a successful career
  5. obtained a desirable partner
  6. got married
  7. bought a house
  8. had kids

She’d done all that was every expected of her, overtly or subtly. And as she was doing it, she knew it wasn’t right.

She realized near the end of high school that she’d been played.

Everyone else goofed off and had fun in high school. Everyone else partied. She studied. She got the perfect grades. She got the extra-curriculars that looked good and the extra tassels to wear at graduation and the pomp and circumstance and ridiculousness and she realized she’d been cheated. Never even had a beer.

But too late, because now she had to continue to tow the line because college was also required, expected, demanded. So now through the gauntlet again. Only now she was bitter about it, only barely making it through, changing her prestigious major for one that allowed her out in four years, anything, underwater basketweaving as they say. But she did it, and was done and out and on to the next thing on the list.

Her life was lived by everyone else’s rules but how could one point and complain or cry or rail against the injustice of it when one was ultimately accepting and following and not pulling up the reins and saying “NO!” It was too late. On to the next thing on the list.

The career came next, something with customer service that caused her to drink more coffee than even a night before finals required. Lots of smiling and cheek biting and swallowing of words, not to mention matching nail polish and jewelry to uniforms. Truly awful.

But she was good at it and up the ladder she rose. As expected, and therefore too late to back out and try something else.

Next came the husband. Good good, nothing to see here, move along.

A house. Kids.

Check. Check.

And then one day, it may have been the lack of sleep, insomnia being a result of those non-stop caffeine injections, or it may have been that the kids were just especially tired from the heat and the extracurriculars and school having started up again and the stress of all the things that used to stress her out about the unspoken and spoken expectations and the not-so-minor-aggressions inherent in them, and her inability to inflict upon another what was done to her and it was almost an audible snap.

Almost, because no one else seemed to hear it.

One minute she was arguing with herself in the form of a toddler and the next she knew this was all wrong. This was not her life. Or rather it was, but it oughtn’t be. None of this was her life and even though it was always too late to start over, every step telling her too late, too late, too late, she found herself out the door, in the car, down the road.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here
Goals

What If This is the New Normal

sundaydutroLeave a comment

When COVID was raging and we were all waiting impatiently for it to be over, like watching the Twin Towers get hit by a plane or watching our child hooked up to hospital equipment, this watching and waiting and feeling like it must all be a dream, surely, and when will it be over, when will I wake up…at some point, later, around the end of that first full year, many people began to ask, what if this is the new normal?

I stole it.

I stole the question.

What if this is the new normal?

I apply it to everything.

And it works to keep me going, moving forward.

For example, I had this gnarly rash, a “classic food allergy reaction” but the rash didn’t go away. It didn’t go away with a massively limited diet, it didn’t go away with topical creams, it didn’t go away with oral medication, it didn’t go away with a full dose of antibiotics. It remained undeterred and unchanged. It was there for three months before I broke down.

I asked myself, what if this is the new normal?

I stopped sleeping all the time (a reaction to the massive doses of Benadryl I was taking in order to continue breathing), I stopped sulking, I continued drinking the morning smoothie that didn’t alter the reaction at all but made me feel healthier. If this was the new normal, I wasn’t going to let it derail my life.

I don’t even remember when the rash finally went away. I’d decided it was the new normal and worked around it and then it was gone.

Reactions are what I call time sucks, and they exist everywhere and pup up constantly:

  • the kids want to join soccer
  • my husband wants to start a business
  • we need to buck wood or we won’t make it through winter

And constantly I have to remind myself that this reaction is the new normal.

If the kids being in soccer and needing to go to practice twice a week and games once a week is going to suck a minimum of eight hours of our week away every week forever (yes, soccer has a limited schedule, but let’s follow the bouncing ball) how do I incorporate it into my life without putting my life on hold?

The things we all have to remember when trying to achieve our goals are:

  • our families goals are just as important as our own
  • no ones life should be placed on hold, ever
  • we can all reach our goals, separately and together

There are a million metaphors for how we’re like houseplants, etc. but the bottom line is, the current goal is our new normal, make it work.

Take five minutes, right now, and

  1. close your eyes
  2. take a deep breath
  3. visualize the current reaction, really look at all the ways it causes problems
  4. look at how to work the reaction into your end goal in a daily way
  5. really see how tomorrow will look working the reaction in, now the next day
  6. write it down

I find it helpful at night, right before I fall asleep, to lay there and think of three things I’m grateful for from the current day, then visualize the next day from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. It often starts like this:

“I wake up around 5:30am after getting as much sleep as I need…”

Your current allergic reaction is your new normal. Are you going to sleep all day, or are you going to live your life?

Time

Time

sundaydutroLeave a comment

Two years I started this blog post below and had to walk away from it. I re-read it today:

“I’ve been reading this book by Ann Patchett, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, and in it she describes a weekend away. She needed to get some reading and writing done and simply couldn’t do it at home, so off she went to a hotel. No big deal, just up and off to a hotel where she did nothing but read, write, order room service, go down once to the pool. I read this and I’m so jealous I could spit. The idea of having time to read and write…glorious.”

I have to say, the idea still makes me so jealous I could spit. Although spitting is gross.

What’s hilarious, is that I can’t remember exactly what had me so busy…will I look back in two years on this point in my life and wonder what kept me so busy? Of course. Definitely. Without question.

Facebook also gives me these memories to look back on and in them I see my oldest going from a smoosh baby to a toddler and think, oh my gosh he was so little! And then I look over at him now, at six years old, and realize this is going to look little someday too.

Where does it all go?

How do I feel like I have zero time for anything and yet time is so clearly passing, and passing quickly?

And the thing is that I’m not anywhere near where I thought I’d be two years ago, and yet I’m further…or maybe just different.

Two years ago if you told me I’d be living in Montana I’d have laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed. Because moving to Montana is something crazy people do. Who needs all that winter? Who needs all those prairies and cowboys and endless skies?

Well…me, it turns out. I need them.

Two years ago we were gearing up to live in our trailer for a few months while we purchased a property in Oregon.

One year ago we were moving to Montana, to a property I’d only ever seen pictures of and to a home my husband described as “live-able.”

This year I’m reading a post from two years ago wondering how I could have possibly thought I was busy then, when I’m so obviously much busier now. What a laugh. All of it.

Today has been about breathing. Fears are constantly popping up in my mind:

  • I don’t have time for this
  • I haven’t made time for my #writethirtyminutes yet and won’t have the time
  • How is it possible that I’m constantly making food for two creatures who survive on air
  • My husband is so excited right now, that makes me excited, he’s doing what I have to do, that’s scary
  • I signed up for that webinar but I’m going to be late cause the kids still need to be dressed, brush teeth, take vitamins
  • I don’t have time to eat lunch with these boys because I need to do that thing for my husband and I still have to #writethirtminutes and I need to get that roast in the InstaPot (“Insta” my a$$)

It all comes down to fear and mostly fear around time. So my mantra for today has been:

“I have as much time as I need to do what needs to be done”

It’s been proving itself true, so far. I made it to my webinar just as it was starting, missed nothing. I was able to do a little bit of homeschool prep stuff during the webinar while still digesting the meat of the course. I still need to do that thing for my husband (and for myself once I confront my fears), but I will do that after I get the roast started and the InstaPot insta-ing.

The day is proving that I absolutely have as much time as I need to do what needs to be done. And the thing is, if it doesn’t get done today, it didn’t need to. Remembering to breathe, remembering to focus on the now, remembering to “sit and know I am sitting” as the Ten Percent app guru says, has been tremendous.

The days will always be packed.

The key is to recognize that there is only so much you can do, only so much you can reasonably expect from yourself, or anyone, and that when it comes down to it, I have as much time as I need to do what needs to be done.

Progress Every Day

Progress Every Day

sundaydutroLeave a comment

They say that to reach your goals, you just have to make a little progress every day. I suspect there’s truth in that, although it doesn’t feel like it. For example:

Meditation

I’ve been doing a daily meditation on the Ten Percent app after having read the book Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics by Dan Harris. I do whatever the daily meditation is, for however long it last. The first one is roughly two minutes and they gradually get slightly longer. I have no idea what I’ll do when the free meditations end…maybe it will be like the Calm app, when the free ones are gone, so am I…but I’d like to think that because I’m making slow and steady progress in daily meditation that I’ll continue on my own when it’s required of me.

Homeschooling

My boys are still young enough that there’s not much involved in homeschooling and I tend to get by with all the Q&A of daily life with an added dose of weekly Outschool classes and daily book reading. Still, I’ve been creating meetups for my local homeschool group and researching ideas and and and…. My daily progress on this end has been reading one chapter a day from the Homeschooling and Loving It! book by Rebecca Kochenderfer and now that I’ve finished it, I’ll be reading a chapter a day from The Well-Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer.

Writing

My daily progress is tracked by my #writethirtyminutes, catalogued here on the blog and doesn’t include any behind the scenes writing I do (although to be honest, I haven’t been doing much). I’ve been allowing myself the excuse of keeping up with my inbox which includes emails from Authors Publish and Writer’s Digest as well as reading a chapter a day from whatever writing tomb I’m reading, The Savvy Writer’s Guide to Productivity by Bryan Collins is the current pick.

Life

There’s also this thing called life, which, dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through. Life includes making three meals a day, doing dishes from said meals, laundry, going to/from soccer practices/games as well as karate classes, the weekly running of errands, making kombucha every five days, cleaning the house, doctors appointments, etc. Nothing everybody doesn’t already deal with, but things we tend to ignore or consider unimportant because everyone deals with them. These things, however, are a major time-suck and it behooves us to be honest about just how much of our time and energy they take.

What’s My Point?

I don’t know.

Okay, seriously, the point is that it doesn’t ever really feel like I’m making any progress towards my goals, but I am. The going is slow because the progress is slow because it’s daily. These things aren’t about immediate gratification. It’s not painting the bedroom where one day it’s off-white and boring and the next day you’re surrounded by sumptuous color that immediately makes you recognize just how badly you needed to paint. This is stuff that goes the distance.

I want to make meditation a part of my daily life forever, so the effects of the meditation, less anxiety and longer fuse, are going to be noticeable as early as a week from starting, but the bedroom of my mind isn’t going to be painted overnight. It will take a lifetime.

And the same goes for everything else I’m attempting. There will, hopefully, be small wins all along the way, but the path is long and winding and I’m learning to be okay with that.

The Injury

The Injury

sundaydutroLeave a comment

It wasn’t supposed to be permanent. The injury. The injury was supposed to heal, to mend, to become a thing distantly remembered and the scar discussed at a roundtable of drunkards a la Jaws. But it didn’t. Heal, that is. The injury didn’t heal.

…

People had rather gotten used to the young woman limping to and from town every few days. Always the same route: post office, library, market. Those who saw her insisted she ought to have a bicycle, a wagon, a horse, something they’d say as they watched her pass. No one ever asked if she wanted a lift to wherever she was going when she left town. No one. Not after the first week of watching her routine, nor after the first year. What could possibly be so intimidating about a young woman with a limp?

…

He watched her limping towards him. It would be 10 am on the dot when she arrived. Always was. Just as he was finishing up the post office boxes and preparing the outgoing mail. He’d taken to checking that his watch was accurate by her arrival, checking that the old clock kept on the wall didn’t need new batteries.

The first time she came he’d noticed the similarity in her gait, the hitch in her giddyup as he thought of it. So familiar, like watching himself approach, if you didn’t notice the long light dress or the long bundled hair, which he did. How could he not. His first thought was that he’d finally found her, the perfect woman, the one who’d understand. His second thought was that she was much too young to settle for the likes of him, not once she knew…though maybe she’d be just as relieved to find herself in him. No, he shook his head, dismissed the thought, she was too young.

…

She never noticed the weather much, a heavier coat or a lighter one, waterproof boots or trainers. Weather was nothing more than a fact, and could easily be ignored, her life revolving as it did around supposition.

Suppose instead of going to the post office, the library, and the market, she went instead to a beach somewhere. Surely there’d be all the same necessaries, but perhaps with a better view. Not a beach though, her leg would stick out like…well, anyway. Perhaps a city, a major one, where the library would have multiple levels and ladders that rolled along walls. But no, that would all require more strength than she felt she had, despite walking the mile in and out of town every few days. No. She was where she belonged, even if she didn’t yet feel settled. Known.

And how was a body supposed to be known anyway when that body never made the necessary overtures.

Perhaps now that she was well and truly decided upon staying, perhaps now that a year had passed and her routine had settled, although who was she kidding, perhaps…

…

“I wonder if you know a good place to eat?” she asked.

He blinked twice, trying not to appear ruffled. This being the first personal question she’d ever asked him. Although what was so personal about it really? A place to eat. Not what deodorant he wore or which side of the bed he slept upon. Food. Simple. He blinked twice more in quick succession, and tried to reply without a stammer, not wanting to be taken as slow.

“The market there has take away items, if you’re in a hurry,” he knew she’d be heading out of town and on her way to wherever she went in an hours time, but realizing that perhaps he oughtn’t know her schedule or exactly where she went every time she came to town, he rushed ahead, “there’s also the little cafe round the corner there, a bit french if you like that sort of lighter lunch with a bit of wine?”

She smiled at his pronunciation of cafe as though it were a baby cow, a light lunch of veal, she pictured herself a fork in one hand, steak knife in the other, a big eyed snotty calf standing docilely before her.

This post was written as a thirty minute writing exercise, no editing, no stopping and was inspired from a writing prompt in Bryan Collins’ “Yes, You Can Write!” book available here.

Classical Music

Classical Music

sundaydutroLeave a comment

I recently read the If I Stay and Where She Went books by Gayle Forman, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And because they were partly about a cellist, I retrieved the names of two cellists to lookup on my iMusic app and I’ve been playing them on occasion (luckily I like classical music to begin with).

There’s all the hype about classical music being good for your brain and studying, which is fantastic, but the thing about classical music, that I love, is how it makes you feel. Any music, really, has the ability to take what you’re already feeling and amplify it or even change it. Have you ever desperately needed to hear a specific song? Have you ever been sad and required sad music or switched it up for something happy to lift you up?

With any song or piece of music the opening notes can completely take us over, send us back in time to a well worn memory or completely gut us with the emotions it brings up. I love that some people see color when they hear music and while I’ve had that happen once, I’d love to have it happen again.

Generally I surround myself with silence when I can get it. With two kids and two dogs, four chickens and five cats, and a husband, there is rarely a moment of silence around here. I cherish the silence.

And yet…

The opening notes of Rachmaninov’s Theme of Paganini can transport me to the book shop where I worked for a year and had to play the same piano CD every.single.day. with this being one of the songs. Despite getting thoroughly sick of the CD, I love to hear the song now and remember how wonderful it was to be surrounded by books all day.

Just about anything by Bach sends me back to college whistling to myself as I biked through campus or walked the arboretum in a moment of stillness and decision making.

Brahm transports me to Budapest where I attended an orchestral concert that played over and over in my brain as I walked the bridges and riverways for days trying different random bits of wild game: bear (not a fan), boar (not bad), and venison (my favorite).

While all music transports us, part of why we love it, there’s something about the sounds of classical music without the interruption of words, the words that pull us out of what our brains and souls are doing as we listen to the music, that’s part of what makes classical music so essential.

In an attempt to get our kiddos to appreciate all forms of music we routinely mix up what we listen to in the car when running errands or driving long distances. They’re mostly exposed to music from the forties on but every now and again we slip them a classical album or a meditative suite. I won’t lie and say these are their favorites, but they also aren’t opposed.

Just now as I was listening to Yo-Yo Ma play cello my oldest came running to let it wash over him as well. The kids are alright.

This post was written as a thirty minute writing exercise, no editing, no stopping and was inspired from a writing prompt in Bryan Collins’ “Yes, You Can Write!” book available here.

Ray Bradbury

Short Story Challenge

sundaydutroLeave a comment

I would very much like to believe what Ray Bradbury says is true, “write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.” I want so much for this to be true, that I’m taking it as a personal challenge, although I’m sure I’m not the first. I’m not sure exactly when I’m going to start (she hedges quietly from behind the safety of her computer), but I’m doing it.

I’ve been doing these mostly-daily thirty minute writing warm ups and then moving on to other things…other non-writing related things. I’ve got two kids to homeschool, a house to keep clean, chickens and dogs and cats to care for, groceries to shop for, three meals a day to make, a garden, life…and let’s be honest, my husband does at least half of these things for me cause I can never get to them.

All that aside, I’ve got to get back into a rhythm and since all of my major excuses are used up (our lives are a shambles as we figure out where to live, our lives are a shambles as we live in a trailer, our lives are a shambles as we actually move somewhere, our lives are a shambles as we clean the place we moved into, our lives are a shambles as we get settled and acquire the things we need to live…like books), it’s time to get cracking.

My first new habit to practice is meditation which I will begin tomorrow. Once I’ve got a solid week or so under my belt I will begin the short story challenge: one short story a week, every week, for one year.

Has anyone ever done this? I mean, I could Google it, and knowing me I will, cause I’m curious:

  • How does one go about it?
  • Do you write the story in a day or two then spend the remaining five days editing?
  • Do you spend the first day coming up with the characters and idea, the second day writing it all out, the remaining days editing?
  • Are there any days left open for giving the product to someone else to read and comment on leaving time to re-edit afterwards?

The how-to part is what I will work on and determine over the next week as I get my meditation habit going and gear up for taking on this challenge. I’d love any feedback anyone has on doing this.

Horse

Horses

sundaydutroLeave a comment

We buy a quart of goat milk every week from a neighbor and today we went to pick it up in person. The kiddos got to meet her goats, adorable, and her chickens and ducks, and then we got to go say hi to the horses.

There’s something magical about the horses. They smell like comfort.

Every summer when I was growing up I’d get to go to my cousins ranch in Arkansas and ride horses (and work in the chicken houses, but we won’t talk about that here). Riding horses was magical for me, a city kid. And even now every horse I meet is Sugar in my head cause that was the horse I rode every summer.

My kids, especially the oldest, have been begging us to get a horse for years. Especially now that we live in Montana where it seems every single property you drive by has at least two horses. We’ve been sticking to our guns, their dad and I, no horses because money, feed, time, manure…but it’s not easy.

I don’t enjoy being a crusher of dreams, but the idea of getting a horse just so I can smell it and my kids don’t have to be told no is a pretty obvious no brainer. Still.

I’ve smelled like horses all day. I have had every opportunity to change, but haven’t because then I wouldn’t smell like horses anymore. I love that smell. I love the idea of heading out to the pasture in the morning, swinging up on a pony’s back, and riding down to the river…but since I can barely make time to exercise in the morning before the boys wake up and I have to schedule in the twenty minutes I need each week to clean the chicken pen (lemme tell ya, it doesn’t always happen), I think it’s pretty clear we don’t have time for horses.

But maybe goats?

Just kidding.

I know our lives don’t have room for any of that right now. And that’s a good thing. Our lives are very full. Our lives are very wonderful. And there’s always time for these grand things in the future. The boys will keep getting older, as much as I don’t want them to, and there will be more time in each day and then one day, there will be more time in a day than I know what to do with.

In the meantime, maybe I can go pick up our goat milk and snuggle up on our friends horses every now and again and revel in the smell of comfort.