Observations

• Invisibility is only cool if you are really invisible and not just being treated like you are.
• Some people get to choose when they want to be considered mature, and when they want to hide behind the protective wall of childhood. Whether or not they take responsibility for their words and actions depends on which they choose at the moment. And this is totally acceptable with all those around them, so it has to be okay.
• Being a mom is the most challenging task I'll ever love.
• I have written at least a dozen novels. Unfortunately they are all still in my head.
• You can say, "All you need to do is ask" a million times, but you can't make them ask.
• Coerced validation is not validation, but concession.
• It's really too bad that I have to get old to learn so many important lessons.

The Dreamer is Out

Maybe "out" isn't quite the term to use. Maybe a better one would be
disillusioned
disappointed
sad
dismayed
deflated
disheartened
Just pick one. Any one of those will do.

I've whittled my Facebook "friends" list down from 780 to 325, with more coming off daily. Simplify doesn't just mean reducing clutter on the list; it also means removing stressful people and situations. I would expect others to remove me if I were stressing them out. I'm sure some already have. I'm good with that.

My daughter is being harassed on a less-well-known social networking site by our lovely (not) family stalkers. We know who they are, and I find it terribly sad that they can't seem to curb their obsession with our family. Whether it's out of jealousy or anger or envy or some combination, I don't know and I honestly don't care any more. I will be so glad when we move from this place, if only for that reason. At least we will have far less chance of ever running into them in public, and I'm hoping we can sever the online ties to them at some point as well. They've been pretty persistent, so that may take a while. Seems to me they should have better things to do with their time and energies. It's kind of creepy.

I am juggling a lot in my head and heart lately. I'm trying to figure out a way to word at least some of it, knowing that wording it takes some of the heaviness away. Reading Natalie Goldberg is certainly helping, which is ironic considering our diametrically opposing spiritual views. I have a great respect for her heart.

Sunday Morning In

Our church is over an hour away, and we couldn't make the haul this morning. So we are home, spending the morning relaxing and resting and being grateful to our amazing God for all of His blessings. I'm sipping my coffee with vanilla latte creamer, and Steve's will be ready for him when he emerges from our epically comfortable canopy bed. Maybe there will be some cool worship music later, but right now I'm enjoying the stillness of Sunday morning.

I finished reading Writing Down the Bones last week and picked up Thunder and Lightning - Cracking Open the Writer's Craft (both by Natalie Goldberg). Natalie and I are at opposite poles spiritually, but the woman has some pretty awesome ideas on writing. I think I could just go from one of her books to the next, and then start over again and still find things to inspire me as a writer. I'd call that the mark of an effective author.

I had a bit of a struggle yesterday with a discussion that happened at the Haus. It's just hard when you keep asking the same direct question over and over again, trying to reword it in case you were misunderstood, and you keep getting the same answer over and over that doesn't answer the question. I love the girls of the Haus so much, and wouldn't hurt any one of them for the world. I know they are each doing and saying what they feel is right so I'm not criticizing them--just explaining how excruciating it is for me to feel like I did last night. I went to bed more frustrated than I've felt in quite a long time. I'm glad that doesn't happen often. I am deeply grateful for some very dear friends who are helping me sort through it all. They know who they are.

It's sunny this morning. The Google weather thing says our high is supposed to get to 70, but I'm pretty sure there's something screwy with how they get their numbers; we never reach the highs they say we're supposed to reach. At least we have it better than our friends in North Dakota whose high isn't supposed to quite reach zero. I would just die. Not even kidding.

Life has been much less complicated since my 2011 "Simplify" theme took hold. I stopped tutoring, found a permanent home for the rescue Chihuahua we were fostering, and returned to full-time homeschooling our two remaining teens. I'm focusing on God and home and family and writing. These are pivotal days in our family, and writing helps me to sort through my thoughts and emotions and responses to it all. If Rosie is lucky, she will be out of the house before I hit menopause. Then poor Steve will be the only one who has to live with me through it. I have plenty of Evening Primrose Oil on hand, so hopefully I will be ready when it hits. Steve is the best friend I could ever imagine, so having him here with me is key.

Sometimes Facebook vexes me. It isn't just the social network, though. It's both a blessing and a curse to have such constant access to everyone's daily lives. It did help to whittle my "friends" list from 780 to 328--and I'm still whittling. Simplify.

The truth is, I am not looking forward to no longer having kids in the house. Neither is Steve. And it isn't because we don't know each other, don't have a relationship of our own to hold us up, or any of that hooey. It's because we love our children more than life and we LIKE them very much and want them around. We haven't really had "kids" in the house for a while now. They are mature far beyond their years. They are our best friends.

Currently Reading: A Writer's Book of Days

Finding it pretty interesting thus far. One common thread I've noticed in the past few books I've read is that it's okay, and even beneficial, to flit all over from one topic to another without much regard to cohesiveness when doing daily writing practicing and/or journal-keeping. Why isn't "journaling" a word? There should be a verb form of that word. Then again, there should be an adjective form of "integrity", too, but there isn't. That isn't right.

My coffee cup warmer is my friend. I keep forgetting I have it (okay, the truth is, it keeps getting buried as my desk gets messy and it's when I take a few minutes to tidy it that I uncover it and recall its benefit), but I am once again enjoying not popping up from my desk every ten minutes to warm my coffee in the microwave. This is much more convenient.

Cut

My friend got her "chemo cut" today. She took it like the trooper she is, sharing the experience with her two best friends and making it a day of friendship and celebration of life rather than one of loss and fear. I admire her. I feel a million things at once, and few of them are positive. I would like to think I would be as courageous and upbeat and hopeful as my friend in her shoes. I can't say for certain that I would.

Mama never got the chemo cut. She didn't get far enough down the Multiple Myeloma road to take it. She didn't want to walk that road, though. She was ready to go. She told me so. She was ready to see Gary and Grandpa Joe and be done with hospitals and tests and needles and injury and pain. I understood, but I wasn't ready to let go.

I get angry when I see or hear the C word. I hate it with a passion I can't describe. I'm glad I can't describe it. I don't want to give it energy or time or acknowledgment. I just want to hate it.

I'm glad my friend is filled with hope. I know that is the way to live. She is a better woman that I.

Too Quiet

Resurrecting a poem I wrote in 2004 when my boys were away on a trip.

Too Quiet

It's too quiet in here
No voice of boy, no smile of teen
The scene cries for the absence
Waits, expectant, like me
Like it would only be an hour to hope
Like it would only be an hour
I miss you

It's too quiet in here
No impish acts, no sticks in the house
The empty is me
Loves without limit or restraint
Like it will be only a while till you're here
Like it will only be a while
Come home

It's too quiet in here
No chocolate stains, no eyes on ice cream
The silence shatters glass
Reaches across the miles to where you are
Like it could only be a prayer and you'd appear
Like it could only be a prayer
It's quiet

Pushing Through

Finished Writing Down the Bones this morning. I've moved on to Bonni Goldberg's Room to Write. I've browsed through it before (much like I had WDTB) but haven't read it start to finish. I have far too many great books on the writing craft that have been sitting on my shelves unread. Off the top of my head:
Write It Down, Make It Happen
Damn! Why Didn't I Write That?
The Well-Fed Writer
The Artist's Way
Vein of Gold
The Sound of Paper
God Is No Laughing Matter
The Creative Call (I think I lent this one out)
You Can Write a Column
The Everything Book of Creative Writing (or something like that)
Writing From the Heart
When Memory Speaks
How to Write the Story of Your Life
Lists to Live By
Dancing Corn Dogs In the Night
The Pocket Muse
Families Writing
and those are just the ones that popped into my head. I know there are probably three times that many if not more. No wonder bookcases are taking over the house.

I didn't realize how much I had missed having time to write until Natalie Goldberg inspired me to get the pen (fingers) moving again. I found myself not wanting to finish WDTB because I didn't want it to end. I think she felt the same way when she finished writing it. I think I would've, too. I really like her writing style.

Mire

Now would be an easy time to let the muck tire me out to the point where I just quit struggling. Wading through this can be pretty exhausting. I go a few steps and it gets a bit easier, but then they grow difficult again and I feel like I'm going backward. I may not be, but it feels like it. It's hard to stay well oriented and moving forward when the path feels like it's shifting beneath my feet.

God, are you doing the shifting, or are you just allowing it? I'm getting dizzy.

People intrigue me. Their responses to life's ups and downs are interesting to observe. Not that my own aren't equally interesting, and I have to say I have become a bit more introspective lately. We have a tendency to say pendulums swing way too far, when that is what they are designed to do. If they stopped in the middle, in the median, in the "zone", they wouldn't be pendulums. They are made to swing. Anyway, probably totally unrelated, but that's where my mind went.

Where was I? Oh, yes. People and their responses, and me and my own. I'm finding myself exploring why I do and say things I do and say habitually. There isn't a lot I do mechanically, but there are a few things. Most of what I say is fully thought-out, although now and then I do have a spontaneous (polite for "foot-in-mouth") moment of utterance where I'm stymied in regard to its catalyst. I try hard not to let that happen too often.

Secret: Sometimes I wonder if I should let it happen more often in my journals.

I set a goal in my journal writing group to write at least three times a week (and work toward more often) in a place that was neither email nor Facebook. This blog is one of the places I had in mind, along with other blogs and my paper journals. I'm trying to follow Natalie Goldberg's entreaty to keep writing, keep pushing, keep the thoughts going forward whether they seem to make sense at the moment or not. I admit some of my favorite writings to re-read are those where I've just let myself go and write, write, write without stopping to edit or make sense.

Stuck

I've fallen into a writing rut it seems. My writing feels sluggish, tight, stilted, bogged down like a bug in a Roach Motel. I'm trying to write through it. I even joined an online journaling group hoping for inspiration; thus far the other members have been very warm and welcoming, and I feel at home.

I'm trying to use terms like "very", "actually", "so",  "much", and "really" more sparingly. They've been haunting my writing and clogging it up and I'm over it.

Maybe part of the problem is that I'm uncomfortable. Like, physically uncomfortable. Cold, to be precise. As warm as our temps have been this past week, even for Florida, this office still stays pretty chilly in the mornings and evenings.

Another issue has been time. As in, there hasn't been enough of it for writing. That could be changing.

My husband and I reached a difficult decision today, for me to discontinue my private tutoring. We've been homeschooling our kids for the past 22+ years, and I only have Matt for another five months and Rosie for two more years--IF she doesn't end up going to school next year. The time is too short for me not to give my all to them. I am at peace with the decision, although I seriously hate letting people down.

Frozen Fingers

I want to write, but my fingers are freezing! I have my green plaid blankie tucked around me, but having my fingers flying across the keys (well, and the fan blowing on the computer to aid the CPU fan) is keeping them from warming up. It isn't bad enough that my brain freezes up when I sit down to my computer to write; now I have to deal with frigid fingers, too. It doesn't help that this is the draftiest room in the house, without the added fan!

I'm enjoying Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, although I'm glad it's written in small bites (1-2 page chapters) because I can only handle so much Zen philosophy before I feel like my head is melting and I have to put the book down. I read her books like I eat fish, pulling out the tasty meat--and there is lots of it, on the topic of writing specifically--and tossing out the Eastern religion bones (irony in the term duly noted).

Right now I'm reading about allowing freedom in wording, using descriptively specific verbs, and just freeing the mind to throw out onto the page whatever wants to show itself. I've done stream-of-consciousness writing before and I have to say I've always loved the exercise. I particularly love going back later and re-reading things I don't remember writing. It's a bit like uncovering a mystery I wrote myself.

Sadness

I feel almost gripped by a heavy sadness today. I wonder if this is characteristic of menopause, or if it's just situations in my life right now. I'm taking EPO, but I will probably start taking it more regularly. I don't like this feeling. I know there are other reasons for it, though, some of which I don't feel like I can openly share in a public forum.

The good news:
Being back on the Thin Within program is going really well. It's Day 23 today. The book goes through 30 days, but the lifestyle doesn't end. I'm feeling really good about it, though, and I'm seeing tangible positive changes in my health and state of mind.

We said goodbye to T-Mobile yesterday. THANK YOU, GOD. We're back with Verizon, and LOVE IT. Steve, Rosie, and I got pretty cool phones that ended up being free. Mattie didn't get to upgrade his phone, but we're happy to all be back on Verizon together. Bless Mattie, he never complains about anything or asks for anything. Hopefully his old phone will hold out until he's up for an upgrade.

I love my kids so much. Thank you, God, for the amazing people they are.

Dancing Elle, and Other Interesting Things

Rosie performed with her dance team and studio at a local family festival this morning and had an amazing performance. It was her first time dancing as "Elle" in "Legally Blonde", and she was awesome. I cried. Actually, I cried again, since I had already shed a good number of tears while watching her and her two friends lead the adaptive dancers in "I Hope You Dance". Wow.

I'm in the middle of a huge photo upload right now. Nine albums (one for each dance, plus one for pre/post-performance). Four down, five to go.

My hormones are sucky the past couple of days. I shouldn't complain, considering it could be a lot worse at my age. Speaking of my age, I can't believe I'm going to be 47 next month. Makes me shudder. When did I get this old?

Heavy

Since last night I've been feeling a deep heaviness that I can't shake. Ironic, since for the first time in about five years I'm actually losing weight. It's deep, though, down in the depths of my heart. I wish I could explain it better. Maybe it's just shifting hormones. I hope so.

I broke my favorite coffee cup today. Of course I did.

Grappling

It isn't always easy grappling with the way other people behave. Steve and I were talking on our walk last night about how sometimes we have these "Allie McBeal" moments where we wish we could say what's really on our minds rather than the politically correct, polite, gentle, socially acceptable expectation. I know it's best to be quiet when my soul is railing against its bounds, but it isn't always easy. I'm praying extra hard right now for strength to keep myself in check.

More of Him, Less of Me

I've been blogging daily at More of Him, Less of Me. If anyone is interested in reading how God is growing me through some pretty interesting things, I invite you to check it out. It's actually fun becoming the real me again.

When Thoughts Flee

One thing that seriously vexes me is the way I can be out and about, doing life wherever, and I can think of a gazillion things to write about. The wording floats through my mind in nearly poetic form. I even think about sitting down to write about it, and it's just gone. Makes me crazy.

I was in Bath and Body Works once with my mother (I believe it was actually the last time we shopped together at the mall before she died) and came across an aromatherapy scent called "Breathe". Now, I normally don't like aromatherapy scents at all (no, seriously--they just plain stink!), but this one...well, this one reminded me of my childhood. I can't exactly explain why or how, but it did. Something like our school cafeteria (back when school lunches were actually pretty good) and the hallways in fourth grade heading to Mrs. Mills' classroom, mixed with a hundred or more other tiny scents of memory that awakened the nostalgia senses with a force that hit me rather unexpectedly. I wavered for a moment, but Mama (as was common with her) bought a small bottle of it for me.

I can't remember how many times I have used it for a memory nudge in blogging or life-story writing, and ironically I've even found it works with a measure of regularity for other people. It must just be one of those scents that hints of individual memories, making it a lovely tool for writers everywhere. Anyway, this isn't an ad for Bath and Body Works so much as a musing about how helpful that particular lotion was for piquing nostalgia and helping to unlock whatever it is that slams shut the moment I sit down to write. Maybe this would be a good time to dig out that lotion.

I've only had rare times in my life when I actually was afraid to write. I guess it's because I've never been threatened because of my writing before. Yes, as in threatened with a libel/slander lawsuit. And the worst part is that I haven't even written anything deserving of the accusations. The real problem isn't with me, but my family and I have certainly suffered regardless.

It's funny how I always seem to get into a blogging mood right about the time I have an article due to HBTM. Maybe it's my way of gearing up to writing the article. I've been thinking lately that I don't write enough in general; I think writing just for the sake of pushing words out can be a good thing, good practice like Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg encourage.

Deleted some stuff. It's hard to be myself when I'm not sure how transparent it's okay to be.

Processing

I've been dealing with/processing/grappling with some anger lately. The odd thing is that it's coming from different angles. Different topics. I'm praying through it, but at times it's really hard. What's really challenging is being angry at people you can't tell how angry you are--or even that you are angry at all. That's when it's really tough...when you just have to keep it all inside and smile on the outside like nothing is bothering you.

Being on the edge of perimenopause isn't helping, either. I'm grateful that I don't have the heavier symptoms of menopause yet; this anger/emotional upheaval thing is hard enough.

I just remembered I have an article due in a few days. Need to get busy on it so I'm not late. My editor is an angel and never complains, which makes me want all the more to be on time.

Another Blog?

I do most of my blogging at Xanga, but I can't resist a nice new blog when it's just held dangling out there like that. I have trouble remembering where all my blogs are, which is right in line with my CAS (Compulsive Acquisition Syndrome, which isn't an actual disorder but probably should be). Anyway, when I comment on other people's Blogger blogs I sometimes have trouble remembering usernames and since this one is my Google username (or one of them, I forget), hopefully I will be able to land on something accurate.