More Random Mutterings

From this week's Unconscious Mutterings:

1. Voices :: Haven't heard any (lately)



2. Have to :: do laundry



3. Machine :: head



4. Seventh grade :: Ms. Deutsch, Huck Finn, Cheryl, Matt, White-Out, scary Mr. Kennedy (NO White-Out), speeches, the longest stint of grounding EVER!!!



5. Beach :: Warm, relaxing, reading, peaceful



6. Roommate :: what we became



7. Cyclone :: Twister



8. Theater :: Theatre (I like the "r-e" spelling better)



9. Pregnant :: All set with that, thanks ;)



10. Phoebe :: Boufay

Unconscious Mutterings

I found this website yesterday which I thought might be fun (at least for a while). It's called Unconscious Mutterings and is based upon the theory of free association. The site publishes a list of 10 words every week and asks readers to write down the first thing that comes into their heads when reading each word. There aren't really any rules - you can write down a one word reaction or a series of words; You can post your responses with a bunch of other people on Sunday or post any day of the week. (Be sure to check out the website for more details.)

So here's my first attempt. If you've got a few minutes, try it yourself. You might be surprised what you come up with and who knows where some of these free thoughts can lead - I refer to continued inspiration for writing only ;)

1. Traditional :: Antiquated



2. Popeye :: Spinach



3. Gin :: and Tonic



4. Harsh :: Teenagers



5. Topless :: Beach



6. The thing :: You don't want anyone to know



7. Defiant :: Bold



8. Huge :: Ginormous (I can't believe that made it into the dictionary this year!!)



9. Food :: Necessary



10. Lenny :: Kravitz

****************************************

P.S. I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Saturday and it was wonderful :) I am a little sad though that there won't be any more new adventures for Harry and his friends. I can still look forward to the final two installments of the movie version though!!

I Did It . . . And I Liked It

I couldn't wait. I said I was going to. I said I didn't want to know. But the temptation was just too much and this morning, I caved.

I went online and got a preview of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I know, I know. I was so adamant about not reading anything regarding the book. I stayed away when I heard a couple of days ago that apparently someone had gotten a hold of the book and published photographs of every page on the web. Nope. I didn't want anything to do with it. I would be patient and wait for my copy to arrive early next week.

So much for that.

After hearing about the New York Times book review and the flack they were getting for publishing it before the book was released, I got a little curious. This came after I had reread Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as a primer for the final installment and then went to see the Harry Potter and Order of the Phoenix movie Wednesday night. (The movie was amazing btw. There's one scene where Harry and a few other witches and wizards are flying through the night time skies of London on broomsticks - It was simply magical.)

I even thought about canceling my Amazon.com order and picking up the book today so that I could start it sooner, but by the time that idea occurred to me my order was already "being prepared for shipment" and therefore un-cancellable.

So I first gave in by reading the NYT book review which I must say doesn't really give anything away. All these people are up in arms that about it, but it didn't really say anything that we readers didn't expect. There are no big secrets revealed, no spoilers in my opinion. I understand the publisher and the author being upset by the fact that the reviewer was able to walk into a New York City bookstore on Wednesday and pick the book up . . . But then again I'm never all that disappointed when the big almighty marketing machine gets a wrench thrown into it.

The book review, however, did whet my appetite further and I found myself googling "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Sure enough, Wikipedia had an entry about it and gave a synopsis of the book with a few spoilers included. I didn't have to read it. And who knows, it might not even be accurate, but what I did read seemed pretty likely and confirmed some of my own feelings about how the story would wind up.

Now I'm no crazed Harry Potter fan. I didn't have any urge to dress up and go to one of these Midnight Madness events at my local bookstore (I'll leave that to the kids), but I am excited about reading the book and even after I gave myself a sneak peek, I'm still excited.

So if you don't hear from me for a few days starting Monday or Tuesday, have no fear I will be fully immersed in the magical world of Harry Potter. It's a wonderful story - one I never thought I would be the least bit interested in - and I'm a little sad to see that it will finally be over. Thank you, J.K. Rowling for creating such a wonderful reading experience for young and old. It has been a pleasure.

UPDATE, 2:01 p.m. - The mailman just delivered my book! I thought I would have to wait until next week and now I don't so I kind of feel bad that I couldn't wait to find out the end because now I will certainly devour this thing and stay up all too late reading . . . Gotta go!!

P.S. I wrote an entry this morning over at my website for my online writing journal that I'm sort of proud of and would like to invite you to read. I've been trying to give myself (and whoever else is reading) a weekly prompt to ponder and then posting my response to it. I liked this one, so if you'd like to read it I promise a warm, fuzzy feeling :)

I'm Still Here

Yes, I know. I haven't been blogging. Haven't been in the mood, I guess. Been busy with other things - Work mainly, but I've managed to squeeze in some good stuff, too. You know, real life. Like Thursday . . .

Thursday was my older son's last day of school. It was exciting (even at four years old he knows enough to look forward to summer vacation) and a little sad, too. I tend to get attached. I'm going to miss his teacher. (I will admit to having one of those sad smiles on my face when he hugged his preschool teacher goodbye.) She was great with him. She really got to know him and our whole family. She even gave him what I consider to be one of the best compliments someone can give when she told me that he reminded her of her own son :)

I won't miss having to split my day in half to go pick him up for lunch. I'll enjoy being able to take a few highly anticipated day trips to the zoo and such. It will be nice for my younger son to have his playmate back in the A.M. And it will be fun to experience that back-to-school excitement again in the fall. (Kind of brings me back to when I was a kid . . . going school shopping, picking out my first day of school outfit, not being able to sleep the night before the big first day . . .)

So that was Thursday. I've also been reading a lot instead of writing. Really I should be doing both, but haven't quite found that balance yet. I'm reading "American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work" by Susan Cheever. (Yes I'm on that transcendentalism kick again :) It's pretty good. A good portion of it I'd read in other books, but I'm learning a lot about Alcott and Hawthorne that I didn't know before. It really was a kind of magical time in the mid-1800's in Concord, MA. I think I would have enjoyed the atmosphere - all that talk of literature and philosophy. The idea that there was more to life than just work . . . That God could be found in nature and not just in a church . . . That it was important to experience life, to live it, to not rush from one task to another in order to get everything done . . . I just think I would have liked it.

What else? Oh, I was listening to one of my favorite shows on NPR the other day, On Point with Tom Ashbrook, and they were doing one of my favorite topics of the year - summer reading lists. Ashbrook had several guests on sharing what they thought would be great summer reads this year. There were quite a few that sounded interesting and I've already suggested Boomsday by Christopher Buckley to my husband. (Buckley wrote Thank You for Smoking which I haven't read but the movie was darkly hilarious.) It seems right up his alley. If you're looking for something to pick up at the bookstore, be sure and check out their list.

Another topic that was covered this week on the show was titled "The End of the Private Life." It talked about how people are willing to share everything from their most embarrassing moment to stories about their children and bosses with complete strangers via the Internet. And it got me thinking. I've always tried to be somewhat conscious of revealing too much (because you never know who might be reading :) but I know that I have also written things on here that I don't have the courage to say out loud anywhere else.

At the same time, I started to think about how this blog has changed over the last year or so. It started out as something that was somewhat impersonal where I mainly talked about issues that were important to me or thoughts I had about random things I saw or read about, but now it seems I spend more time talking about my personal life than anything else. And I'm not sure that's how I want it to be. I need to reevaluate what it is I want my writing to represent. I think I need to refocus on some of the issues that are important to me and share my ideas with all of you so that maybe you'll begin to do some thinking of your own.

Maybe I just haven't been thinking that much lately about anything other than my personal stuff . . . That's certainly a possibility and if that's the case, I definitely need to switch gears.

All right. My mind has pretty much shut down at this point. Getting up at 5 a.m. makes for a long day by four in the afternoon. I could really use a nap. Or maybe I should go clean my house. It could use it. But I'll probably go try and catch up on my magazine reading instead. Give me something to write about ;)


***Just to illustrate how unmotivated I've been - I started this entry Friday morning at 7:30 a.m. and didn't get around to finishing/posting it until 4 p.m. on Saturday. Oh well.

Random Quotes

I was just looking through my writing journal (where I keep all kinds of prompts and words of inspiration for when the mood strikes me) and I found a few things I just had to share. (I've updated some of the prompts on my website, btw, if you're interested.)

• "Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine." --- Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
• "For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever." --- Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
• "I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see." --- John Burroughs
• "Their most destructive untruth is that it is easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times." --- A propaganda officer, and former U.S. citizen, for the German Army during WWII referring to American culture in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five
• "Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops." --- Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

I think that's enough to chew on for now. Please leave comments on anything that strikes you. My personal favorite of the moment is the final Vonnegut quote. There's just something so poignant about the observation. My heart actually jumped a bit when I read it. (Isn't it great when a piece of writing can do that to you? Literally stop you in your tracks?)

My sister and her kids have arrived yesterday afternoon for the big wedding this weekend and the fun has already begun :) And I must get back to it . . .

I Forgot!

I knew it was coming up. I just forgot about it earlier in the week. (Have I heard that excuse somewhere before?)

Yes, it's true. I have been sharing my random thoughts with you all for a full year. Yes, I had a blog-a-versary this past week. (See how far I've come?) I can't believe I've actually kept this thing going for a full year. It's not my usual M.O. But here I am - still - and here you are, too.

So thank you to everyone out there in cyberspace who have been reading this thing for the last 365+ days. (And thank you to my friends who have also shown interest. It was pointed out to me recently that some of you have learned things about me by reading this blog that you probably wouldn't have found out otherwise. That may be true . . . although I can get pretty chatty after a couple of beers ;)

But I'm tired now and should go to bed. Thanks again for stopping by and hopefully you and I will all be around this same time next year.

Day Thirty One: A New Year Filled with Hope

I heard this song the other day and the lyrics really caught my attention. I didn't even know what song it was or by whom, but thanks to the power of the Internet, I found out. Nothing profound, I suppose, but a nice reminder on this New Year's Eve. It's a song by the Goo Goo Dolls and it goes something like this:

Better Days

And you ask me what I want this year

And I try to make this kind and clear

Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings

And desire and love and empty things

Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

So take these words

And sing out loud

Cuz everyone is forgiven now

Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again

And it's someplace simple where we could live

And something only you can give

And that's faith and trust and peace while we're alive

And the one poor child that saved this world

And there's 10 million more who probably could

If we all just stopped and said a prayer for them

So take these words

And sing out loud

Cuz everyone is forgiven now

Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again

I wish everyone was loved tonight

And somehow stop this endless fight

Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

So take these words

And sing out loud

Cuz everyone is forgiven now

Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again

Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again

P.S. I just want to point out that I did it! I managed to post thirty one times during the month of December. I didn't skip ONE day! I actually set a goal and followed through and while this may not sound like much to some of you - it's HUGE for me. I've not been known in the past to be a closer. I tend to lose interest or find some excuse not to cross the finish line. But not this time.

And what I'm most proud of is the fact that there were days when I didn't feel like writing; when it was late and I wanted to just go to bed and say "To hell with it!" But I didn't. I followed through and I wrote something everyday for the last month.

I guess my next goal is to continue this writing trend, probably not everyday on the blog, but everyday in some way, whether it be my fiction, my blog, writing prompts - WHATEVER!! I've set the precedent now. There's no going back.

Random Thoughts More Random on Friday

Since yesterday was Thanksgiving and I had a post planned , I thought I would post my Thursday randomness on Friday instead. Hopefully my Friday thoughts aren't too random since I'm writing them after a VERY tasty turkey dinner - Thank you, Steven! - and an early evening tryptophan-induced nap.

• You may have noticed that I've taken down my NaNo countdown. Yes, I've decided to throw in the towel on that one. It was just getting to be too much. Instead of being a challenge I just got more and more frustrated everyday as I continued to fall further and further behind on my word count. I realized that I didn't know my main characters well enough, so all I was writing was meandering crap. Which isn't totally worthless, but I didn't really want to write 50,000 words of it. So instead, I'm going to put the novel aside and do some free writing solely about my characters. And since the holidays are coming up, it will probably be slow going there, too. But I'm going to try and get as much as I can done and get a restart in January for, as my writing friend has suggested, JaNo.
  

• Tomorrow is the official start of the holiday shopping season - known around these parts as "Black Friday." While I'm not brave enough to run with the overwhelming crowds, I have put two new links on my sidebar I wish you would take note of. I have become part of the Amazon Associates program and if you plan on making any purchases on Amazon.com this holiday season, please use these links to shop through. By clicking through my site to Amazon, I will receive a percentage of your final purchase in the form of gift certificates. (I LOVE Amazon.com and couldn't pass up the opportunity to make free money for future purchases.) The links will be up year round, so you can use them anytime. Thank you in advance for your participation.


• My husband and I are now house hunting. It's so exciting! We currently live in an apartment and can't wait to have a space we can call our own and a back yard and a dishwasher and a new queen size bed and . . . you can see why we're excited. I've been scouring the net at all the online listings (another distraction that affected NaNo) and we're going to look at our first house this weekend! While I'm nervous about all the financial stuff, I know that it will all work out. It always does. And like someone has recently reminded me, if everyone else has a house, why can't we? So keep positive thoughts in your minds for me :)
  

• And last but not least, I feel it necessary to announce that I went out on Thanksgiving Eve - a great tradition in my pre-kid days. Usually when I go out I'm the cautious one; the one who has a few beers and stops; the one responsible for getting my (drunk) husband home. Well, last night I went WILD! I was drunk. I admit it. And I had a great time! We went out to eat, saw a great band and I enjoyed several beers with great friends and I'm so glad I did. In fact, I outlasted my husband. He went home a full hour and a half before I did (the bar was down the street and therefore we could walk home) and I heard "Drink it up! It's time to go!" for the first time in I don't know how long. I mean, I have NO idea when the last time I closed a bar was. It's definitely been years. And to top it off, I woke up this morning with NO HANGOVER! I don't know how, but I did. I did need a little extra sleep (and I had no voice for quite some time), but my husband politely obliged while he slaved away in the kitchen early this morning. Isn't he the greatest?!

So Happy Day-After-Thanksgiving!

Crazy Days of Autumn

I've been selfish lately. And I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Lately I've been very focused on my own needs - and tonight was a perfect example. Yet my conflict stems from my not feeling conflicted enough - I mean I'm not mad at myself for being selfish, I'm more upset about not being more upset regarding the lack of time I've been spending with my children . . . Let me try to explain.

Over the last six months or so I have rediscovered the writer inside me that has been dormant for years. I've been writing short stories, blogging (obviously), journaling and now I'm thinking about writing a novel - something I have been thinking about doing since I was a teenager. I've always had this feeling inside that I have something to offer the world of publishing. I just always felt that it was meant to be, but like many things in my life, I've had trouble putting in the work and have struggled with the follow through.

But over the last six to eight weeks my desire to write a novel has grown and with NaNo coming up in a little over two weeks, my drive and focus has intensified. I've got an outline going, I've got characters running around inside my head, random scenes written on notecards (I've even color coded them and for anyone who knows me they know that I've never color coded anything). I've purchased a couple of How-To books and I'm currently reading some non-fiction regarding the topic of my novel.

This is where the selfishness comes in.

I worked at my "day job" today, then came home and hung around with my boys. My youngest was in desperate need of a nap (read whining incessantly) and my oldest son was doing anything he could to increase the volume of his brother's whining. So I laid down on the couch with my little one and he quickly fell asleep on my chest.

After a while, I gently moved my precious sleeper off of me and headed to the computer. I checked my email, I checked my myspace page, my writing group forums . . . Meanwhile, my older son was watching tv. I know, I know - Motherly sin of all sins; letting the television babysit my own child. There's guilty seed number one.

I continued to work on a short story I'm trying to finish before NaNo until my son woke up. I went back to the couch to hang out and then my sister called. I knew what she was calling about, I had left a couple of messages for her, so I figured it would be a quick call. Well, I started talking and couldn't stop. I just started going on and on about her wedding, an aerobics class we want to start taking, family stuff, relationship stuff, my writing stuff . . . an hour, and several attempts by my children to get my attention later, I realized it was getting late. Guilty seed number two.

It was dinner time - past what would usually be referred to as "early bird" dinner and our usual mealtime, so I made some chicken nuggets and the two boys sat down to eat. I wasn't very hungry and so I skipped eating (until I had some cereal, alone, about an hour ago) and started reading a book. When the boys were done I was still reading, so I let them play together for a bit. There was some friction (probably because they were trying to get my attention) and finally I exploded about all the fighting and the yelling and the running in the house . . . Guilty seed number three.

I sent them into the bathroom for baths, got them dressed for bed and did our nightly bedtime ritual of reading books and tucking in - too bad I was putting them to bed 45 minutes late. Perfect for my older son who has to wake up and go to school tomorrow morning. Guilty seed number four.

But while I feel guilty for taking time out to do what I want, when I want, too, I don't feel that guilty and I feel worse about not feeling guilty enough. Does that make any sense?

I know that I am a person and not only a mother and therefore have the right to do my own thing. I'm a strong proponent of that very mantra in fact. But I know that between work and my own timeouts I'm not giving my children the best of what I have to give. In fact, I'm short with them and lax in keeping their routine. Yet, I don't want to give up the time I take throughout the day.

And that's even before I start thinking about the state of my relationship with my husband. We work opposite schedules. We watch a lot of tv and spend plenty of individual time on the computer. We read. Basically the time we have together is spent doing individual activities - kind of like what's referred to as "parallel play" with toddlers. And so when I devote large chunks of time to my writing when the boys are asleep and my husband is home - there's guilty seed number five.

So I think that while we have been taught we can have it all - we can't. There are always sacrifices that must be made and things we will miss out on. The question is how do you balance it so that one person isn't always making the sacrifices, the same person isn't missing your presence in their life and the guilt doesn't eat away at you?

I don't think that I need more hours in the day (I'm exhausted enough as it is), but better management of my time - Something else to think about I guess.