Mom is Just a Nickname

Today’s been an odd sort of day. I’m in a fairly snarky mood; maybe it’s boredom (been stuck at home most of the week with sick kids), maybe it’s sleep deprivation (was up most of last night with one of the sick kids). Either way, I don’t feel like spending more than this first paragraph being snarky, bored, cranky or otherwise irritating to myself (let alone to others). So, I’m going to count some blessings.

From the movie White Christmas, where Bing Crosby sings about counting blessings, to the book Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, where Sarah Ban Breathnach recommends keeping a daily gratitude journal, the idea of looking at the good things in life is not new. Focusing on the positive instead of the negative has a way of altering a bad attitude –and I’ve got bad attitude in abundance today.

So, today I am thankful for:

1. Although both J and X have been sick this week, neither has been so sick that I’ve had to sit at their bedside worried, nor have I had to rush anyone to the doctor or the hospital. (You couldn’t see it, but I knocked on wood as I typed that.)
2. Today’s boredom has resulted in a multitude of snuggles with X, two clean bathrooms, a dishwasher of clean dishes and at least one load of clean clothes.
3. We finally managed to get our old washer and dryer out of our garage and into a good home where it can once more lead a useful life.
4. Despite the fact that I haven’t grocery shopped this week, we have plenty of food in the house. Stocking up grocery shopping is working nicely that way.
5. I have a book waiting to be read, which is promising to be a good read: The Fiction Class by Susan Breen. It came to me via Blog Stop Book Tours which is run by my friend, Lynn, the Virtual Wordsmith. (Look for the review on my blog in April! More details later!)

I have other things to be thankful for, but this will do for now. Oh, I have one more:

Today is Friday!!!!!

Very few books, movies or anything make me cry. There is one topic -death and family responding to death – that will always make me cry.

When I was a teenager, I had yet to find a movie that would make me cry. Then, one day, I watched My Girl. The movie where the little boy dies from bee stings? (sorry if I just ruined it for you…it’s such an old movie, I figure most have seen it by now!) That one made me sob hysterically. Looking back, it almost seems prophetic that the one movie I’d seen that triggered a powerful emotional response was one in which a family and their friends must handle the death of a child.

Yesterday, I read a book called Necessary Arrangementsby Tanya Michna. Basically it juxtaposes the stories of two close and loving sisters. One is getting married, and one has cancer. I literally cried through the entire book. I found it poignant, realistic, and heartbreaking while still being uplifting at the end.

“Don’t let them give up family traditions. If they stop doing the stuff we all did together, if–”

If the customs the four of them had shared disappeared, it would be as if Asia had disappeared. Not just from their active lives, but from their shared memories, their collective love for her. No, they’d always love her, but it was disconcerting to think that one day they might possibly get used to being without her.

Paragraphs like that run throughout the book. They bring to mind the things that have plagued my mind since Sullivan’s death. Sadness that he’d be forgotten, hurt that lives would, could and should move on away from his life, and the ways that relationships change in the wake of a death.

Although I have not lost an immediate family member to cancer, I can relate with the long, drawn out fight, with the constant medical attention, with the array of emotions present, and with the decision that must be made between treating a fatal illness in order to buy more time or treating the symptoms to make the time available worth living. I can relate to the feelings of the family facing the loss of a loved one. So many of the things in the book were from different perspectives than I’ve experienced, but I could so easily step into their shoes and feel what they were going through.

Between the excellent flow of the writing, and my own experiences with prolonged illness and death, this book struck a very deep chord with me.

I feel like I’m at a junction right now. I have to decide whether I want to make money with my blog(s) or focus in on my writing. Long term, I suspect the writing will benefit me more. Short term, I feel compelled to monetize the blogs.

Monetizing the blogs feels like selling out in some ways. And really, I don’t have that much traffic on my blogs so the monetary benefits of selling adspace and all that might not be all that big. I worry that I will alienate what loyal readers I do have if I do paid reviews and that sort of thing. I worry that all of my time will be spent searching out new ways to make “quick money” rather than concentrating on the writing.

And that brings me to another hard point. It’s been very hard to concentrate on my writing lately. Where the months of November and December seemed to rattle my muse awake, the holidays and the month and a half since have lulled her to sleep once more. I’m trying to edit my Nano-novel and have made it into Chapter 4, which will actually be Chapter 3 since I’ve decided to start with Chapter 2 instead of Chapter 1. Did that make sense? heh. Well, no matter. Even harder to decipher is that the new Chapter 1 is actually about 14 or 15 chapters in to the stuff I wrote in November! How does that phrase go: A rough draft is 70% trash and 30% usable? I would have to say that’s very true.

Butt-In-Chair and write is all well and good, but how do I convince my butt to stay in the chair? How do I convince my fingers to write? Just start writing whatever and then go from there, I’ve heard, but so far it’s not working for me.

I’m wrangling with a mental lethargy and it’s killing me. I did brush up something I wrote years ago in order to submit it to an anthology. I have been knitting, too. I actually finished a scarf with the idea to give it to my niece (shh, don’t tell her about it, Lanie!) and I am working on another scarf for X (who insisted I should make him a blue one). J has several projects she’d like me to do for her, although I think it would make her day more to have me teach her to knit.

I’m drifting off topic. I like to do that, don’t I? In any case, I want to make money. I want to write. I’m trying to reconcile the two, but unfortunately I think I keep searching for the quick outs rather than investing the time and effort in a process that scares the pants off of me. At some point, I will have to buckle down and do the time. I hope I’ll be able to keep myself pulled together until that times comes.

DrowseyMonkey tagged me for this meme. I voluntarily submit to participating.

Here are the Rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people & post a comment here once you post it to your blog, so I can come see.

The books is Baby, I’m Yours by Susan Anderson, which I just finished reading last night. The fifth sentence on page 123 is: “‘It’s the one thing you can always count on with her,’ she agreed earnestly.”

The next three sentences are:

‘Oh, she’s resourceful, for sure,’ she rushed to say, as if he’d argued with
her assessment. ”But the one fact that is above all, A-1 guarunteed in my
sister’s life is that she is always, but always, very, very careful.’ She gave
him a tentative smile, and Bobby had to check himself from sliding out from
under the wheel to reach for her.

So, should they choose to participate, I ask Laskigal, Lanie and Lynn to join in the fun. But, hey! If you feel like playing along without being tagged, that’s good too! Drop me a link so I can check out what you’ve been reading!

Or just teach me to drink coffee without spilling it down my shirt. Sheesh.

This post was not about the fact that I still don’t know how to drink without making a mess….

I’ve read a lot of books about organization. I’ve even bought a few of them. (I try to stay out of bookstores unless I have a purpose there because I’m irresistibly drawn to buying things when I’m there.) They don’t usually have much to offer that’s different than what I already know. Sometimes I wonder why I bother reading them. Maybe it’s just for the inspiration, the way that they jiggle ideas lost in my head so that I can stew on them and put them into action.

That’s the same thing with the cookbooks I flip through on occasion. It’s got to be an eye catcher of a recipe (and pretty easy without exotic ingredients) for me to try a new recipe. But seeing the recipes in a book will often remind me of an old favorite that we used to eat often and I’ll make that again.

As a parent, I’ve been told by various “experts” that it takes something like fifteen times of experiencing a new food before kids will like it. (That goes for us adults, too, by the way!) Well, the whole thing with these ideas and recipes and everything seems to be the same cycle. I have to read it many times before it finally sinks in and I do something with the new information.

It’s the same theory that advertisers use when running ads. They try to get a company’s name in so many times during one commercial and why they run several commercials throughout the time of one show. They want the viewer to see their name enough times that it sinks in and becomes familiar. This way the viewer has an inner motivation to check out the brand or company that was advertised.

I think this is part of why writing ideas down is important, even writing to-do lists down, and journal ling. When we do this, we put our thoughts and ideas down where we can re-read them until we imprint them in our minds. Every time we re-read the ideas, we give it a boost towards action. Maybe one day I’ll re-read one of those organization books and have an epiphany and I’ll be able to get my house organized.

What are the chances?