Habits

Since I subscribed to the Fly Lady emails, I've been a lot more aware of habits. I've started to notice the domino effect of the habits in my life. The effective habits I have make other things much easier. The ineffective habits do the opposite. That seems like a no-brainer, especiall if you're one of the naturally organized folks. What Fly Lady, with her baby steps, is trying to get us to do is change one ineffective habit at a time into an effective habit. Effective habits have their domino effect, too. I think it's easier to make the changes when you really see how it all fits together. Having a positive domino effect is great motivation to change one habit. And move on from there.

I decided to go back to school and finish that web development degree I started before we moved to Salinas. I pulled the information from their web site and now I have to decide what to take. I also want to work on general drawing and design skills. What I love is designing web sites, but I'm not a skilled artist. I do fine with page layout, but I really want to create the graphics I'm using, as well. So, I'm planning to take classes that aren't required, but will help me reach my personal goals. Since I only have one or two GE classes left to take, I have room in my schedule to take classes that will improve the skills I'm weak in. But, if I'm going to continue to do the things I'm doing now--work, sing in my ensembles, take care of the stuff everyone has to do--I need to build better habits. I have the holiday season and NaNo month in which to do it before school starts. That's a good motivation for me. Heck, I to build effective habits just to get through NaNo and the holidays.

I've often tried to create effective habits, and have succeeded in some areas. But I've never before really understood the relationship doing one thing has on everything else. I always thought I had to change everything all at once or I'd be stuck with things the way they are. But I don't. I only need to change one thing. After I see what effect making that change has, I'll be able to see where I'm being ineffective and choose what the next one change should be. I may not make changes in the same order as the Fly Lady suggests, but that's not the important thing. What's important is that I develop habits that make the life I'm leading work for me in a way that's less stressful than it is now.

A Quick Post on NaNo

I'm not preparing anything other than a character and the essence of who she is for NaNo. It's not that I don't want to know more, it's that every time I try to do background stuff, what comes out is story. Writing story before November 1 is against the rules. My husband says I should just wait for NaNo and start writing.

That's a scary proposal for me because I've tried to write about this character before. She's really interesting to me. But I got stuck because I cannot figure out what the main problem she's facing is. I feel like I ought to have that, at least, before I start writing. But it's not happening.

I suspect what I'll end up doing is follow her around her normal day and see what happens. Something interesting is bound to happen because my imagination hates being bored. Start with the alarm clock going off and soon she'll be up to her neck in trouble, or at least talking to someone else up to his neck in trouble--and she'll want to help.

We'll see what happens when NaNo gets here. I'm determined to do something with it.

Fusion Food

Sometimes fusion food is nothing more than a technique borrowed from one cuisine used to create a dish using ingredients from another. Take my last night's "Fried Rice". It's just a veggie sauté with rice added in. I needed a simple dish to go with baked trout. Here's what I came up with:

Veggie Fried Rice

Toasted nuts
Olive oil
Frozen veggies--thawed and drained well
1-2 slices cooked bacon--diced
Garlic
Shallots or onion
Cooked rice
salt & pepper

The amounts you need will depend on how many veggies you're cooking. Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add veggies and onion. Sauté until the veggies are almost done. Add the garlic and bacon. Sauté a minute or so. Add rice. If your pan isn't nonstick--the rice will stick a little no matter how much oil you use, however, adding a bit more oil before adding the rice helps keep sticking to a minimum. Sauté to heat the rice through. Stir in the toasted nuts. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Note: This is one of those basic technique recipes you can use to create a lot of different dishes. Different vegetable combinations would go with different combinations of herbs and spices. You could melt in some grated cheese right before you serve it. I'd recommend adding the salt after the cheese, since cheese can be salty, so your dish could end up too salty if you do the salt before the cheese. You could use fresh veggies and prepare them the way you would for a stir-fry. After all, a stir-fry is simply the Asian version of the French sauté.

Mangia!

Changes

I had an interesting revelation this week while reading the emails from the Fly Lady site. I thought I was adaptable and accepted the inevitability of change, a "go with the flow" person. I realized that I do expect change and I am "go with the flow", but only in certain situations, those I'm fairly comfortable with or have faced successfully before. Or those I have no control over.

What I also realized is that I'm spontaneous, so I don't cling to my routines so much that I end up with a boring life with no fun in it. I realized that I'm a good problem-solver, so I often can come up with good solutions to the problems that arise in life. But when those solutions mean I have to make drastic changes, I resist. Changing makes me feel uncomfortable, as it does for most people.

I realized that one of the important things in dealing with this quirk is knowing why I'm uncomfortable in a situation. I need to know that the benefits that result from my being uncomfortable, but doing it anyway, are something I really want. I need to know that the discomfort will only last until the new thing becomes the comfortable old friend our habits eventually become. If I have those things, I can live with the discomfort and change my habits.

I also remembered that I need to take time to understand what I'm supposed to do before I actually start doing it. So, I'm not being ornery in not doing what's in the emails from day one. I'm being myself. I plan to start doing day one next week, after I understand the first week. I think I'm more likely to be successful if I use my natural approach, rather than push myself to act totally against my personality.

The Fly Lady & Being a "Scanner"

The Fly Lady site is about organization for the genetically disorganized. She broke down the system developed by Pam Young and Peggy Jones, the "Sidetracked Home Executives" or "SHE", into baby steps. Her approach filled in some of what was missing in the original system. Pam and Peggy invented the system and the Fly Lady figured out how to implement it successfully.

I've tried using Pam and Peggy's system ever since I first found the original book. I never was able to stick with it. My current situation is not nearly as bad as it has been in the past. I don't have as much clutter to get rid of. Just about a hundred boxes to unpack and nowhere to unpack them to. That sounds like we have a lot of stuff we could get rid of, but every time we move we weed out anything we don't want badly enough to schlep it around. For this stuff, we need bookshelves and appropriate storage containers, but that will have to wait until the job hunt is over.

I have to let that aspect of things go, even though it bugs me to have all these boxes stacked up around the walls. At least I can cook a meal, do laundry, sleep, and get my work done. Most of the books I really want access to are unpacked onto the bookshelves my son gave us. (Bless him! I don't know what I would have done if every book I own had to stay packed in boxes.) And we found some really small, cheap bookshelves at a local drugstore during back-to-school that I've been able to unpack most of the cookbooks I use the most onto.

But my challenge in this new place is establishing routines that will keep it clean. I don't want to go back to the way it used to be in other places we've lived. I think my problem in the past was my usual pattern of trying to fix everything all at once. The Fly Lady's contribution to this is that you don't do that. You fix one small thing and build on it, bit by bit. Each "bit" is a baby step.

Now for the "Scanner" part. Barbara Sher has written a book called Refuse to Choose. It's directed at people like me who want to learn about everything and do tons of interesting projects, which contributes to the clutter, for one thing. For another, although she doesn't discuss housework specifically, it explains to me, at least, part of why housework is such a challenge for "scanners". We have more interesting things to do besides clean. The problem is that often the chaos around me keeps me from doing the projects I want to do. I end up trying to get control of that and neither the chaos gets fixed nor the projects get done. I end up feeling overwhelmed and depressed.

I hope that as I use the tools provided by the Fly Lady, the SHE developers, and Barbara Sher, adapting them to fit my own life, I can figure out how to balance my life so I don't keep going from one extreme to the other. I'd really like to find that elusive middle ground because when I've been in that place, which has happened on occasion, I've been so much more content with my life. Barbara Sher makes the point that Scanners can't be happy unless they do the projects they want to do. I know she's right about that and I'm finally in a place where I'm ready to get back to working on those things that matter to me.

Blog Archives

I've been reading through the archives of blogs my friends posted. My friends write interesting blogs. Anyway, I found this little quiz on Tambo's blog and can't figure out why I didn't do it before. It's so me. (lol)

You Are an Excellent Cook

You're a top cook, but you weren't born that way. It's taken a lot of practice, a lot of experimenting, and a lot of learning. It's likely that you have what it takes to be a top chef, should you have the desire...

Are You A Good Cook?

So, are any of you great cooks?

Fruit & Veggie Salads, Plus a Veggie Eggs Benedict

I have a couple of simple recipes I wanted to share. They're for fruit salads, even though avocados and cucumbers are usually thought of as veggies.

The first one is as Strawberry and Cucumber Salad. You peel and slice a cucumber. You slice strawberries. How many depends on how many people you're serving and how big your plates are. You have to make this one on individual salad plates. You start at the outer edge and layer alternating, concentric circles of cucumber and strawberry. I like to put a srawberry half in the middle, so I try to end up with cucumber in the center and the strawberry on top. It looks prettier that way. Sprinkle either champagne vinegar or raspberry champagne vinegar and ground white pepper over the top. That's it.

DON'T try to take a shortcut and make this in a bowl. The strawberry juice makes the cucumber turn the most ghastly gray you've ever seen. Hmmm. . .might be appropriate for a gross Halloween food, but try it at your own risk. (grin)

Tonight, Paul tried a variation. We had some strawberries, papaya, and avocadoes that needed to be eaten. He cut them into a bowl. I sprinkled some raspberry champagne vinegar and white pepper, and voila! A great, healthy fruit salad. It was really good.

It would be perfect with that veggie Eggs Benedict I made a couple of weeks ago. I roasted a portobello mushroom cap and slices of tomato. I put the portobello upside down on the plate. I put the tomato slices inside the mushroom. I wilted a few spinach leaves and put them on top. A poached egg topped the vegetables. Then a spoonful or two of freshly-made hollandaise went over the whole thing.

Mangia!

NaNoWriMo

I went and signed up for NaNoWriMo yesterday. I'd thought at one time that I'd never do that again. I thought I'd gotten out of it what I needed to get out of that writing madness.

Perhaps I'd better explain NaNo, as it's affectionately called. Well, "affectionately" depends on when in November it is and how many words you've written. Because NaNo is all about word count. The idea is to write a 50K novel starting on November 1 and finishing on or before November 30. You only have to write 1667 words every day for the whole 30 days to win. That can be done in a couple of hours, if you just write the story, no editing, no worrying about the quality of this very rough draft. The NaNoWriMo (which stands for "National Novel Writing Month") official web site can be found here, in case you'd like to join several hundred thousand mad folks from all over the world.

Anyway, I signed up. I've beaten NaNo. I know I can put that many words on the page, if I want to. So, why do it? Especially since I may not be able to finish. I've got a much busier life than I had the year I beat NaNo. So, why do it? Because I want to play with words. I want to just have fun with writing. I've forgotten that part because so much of my life has been about money, as it tends to be when your income is as uncertain as ours has been for the past ten years, but particularly the past three, almost four years. And even though I'm not sure I can get that couple of hours every day, I signed up officially. I'll push myself harder if it's official, than if I decide in advance to lose, which is what I'd be telling myself if I just said I was doing it "unofficially".

I'm going to play with some ideas this month and see which one screams, "Write ME!" Then I'll pick that one and start and see what I get. Maybe I'll put up a progress bar for NaNo. Maybe I won't, since, for me, it's about having fun with other people having fun with writing a story, not about whether I win or lose. We'll see when I get closer to NaNo. My competitive spirit may stick up for itself and insist on keeping careful track of the word count. I'm feeling ambivalent about it because I really just want to rebuild the habit of writing.

Books

My friend, Margaret Fisk, has a blog she occasionally posts in. She set up a mailing list so people who are interested can read it when she posts and not be frustrated by how long it is in between posts. Anyway, her most recent post, which you can read at Stray Thoughts of Margaret Fisk, is about her reading list. She's asking for help in choosing what she should read next. I wasn't too helpful, having only read one of the books on her list.

But, it led me to writing about what I'm reading now. That got to be really long, so I decided to post it here. I'm reading Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series. I read Dime Store Magic and Industrial Magic several years ago. Due to our financial situation, I only recently acquired the remaining books that are out in paperback--Bitten, Stolen, Haunted, and Broken. She has one more out, No Humans Involved, but it's hardcover, so I have to wait for the mass market version before I can read that one.

What makes this all interesting is how I don't like werewolves, vampires, etc., etc., etc. Really, I don't. Or--maybe--I didn't? I love these books. I can't put them down. I'm reading when I should be doing something else. A friend, knowing my taste, said I probably wouldn't like the werewolf books. Most likely because of the violence. But the violence made so much sense with the world she created and the characters in the world, that it wasn't a problem. I probably would have liked them less if the violence wasn't in there because it would have felt like she'd held back from her true imagination.

And then there's Buffy. I refused to watch it when it was on. I didn't get it, and I understand why. I didn't see it from the beginning. I came into a random episode and had no clue what was going on. Then my son shoved it into my hands and made me watch season one. I was hooked. I've watched it all the way through three times since then. He mentioned he and his wife are watching them again and it's made me feel like it's time to go for a fourth go-round, at least with my favorite episodes.

And then there's Lynn Viehl's Darkyn series. I love her writing, but I'm way behind her output. I have at least one StarDoc and two Darkyn books on my shelf. I mention them, though, because the Darkyn are her version of the vampire myth and I love it.

So, what's the point of this seemingly rambling post? I learned, yet again, not to discount a genre, a type of book, or other any general category, just because I've had one or two bad experiences with it. What makes a good story is the combination of writer and subject matter. Different writers will deal with the same subject in totally unique ways. So, while Laurel K. Hamilton or Anne Rice's take on vampires don't thrill me, Kelley Armstrong and Lynn Viehl's do.

I think, in general, people do themselves a disservice when they stick to only one genre, or only a few favorite authors. One thing I used to do, that I don't do as much anymore, is pull books off the bookshelves at random and see if they look interesting. That's how I found a lot of the authors that are now my favorites. But when the money got tighter and tighter, I started sticking to trying to keep up with my favorite writer's books. I think I want to alternate or something. I think it's important for a reader to branch out. And even more important for me, as a writer, to go beyond what I usually read and am most comfortable with.

Music

We had such a great musical day on Sunday. Dr. David Cheriwen, is a Cantor of Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Minneapolis and conductor of the National Lutheran Choir. He visited one of our local Methodist churches for a Hymn Festival/Concert. The choir members of the local churches were invited, so Paul and I took advantage. It was amazing.

He did mini organ solos to introduce each hymn. Then we sang the hymns. In between, members of the church read reflections on living a godly life. It was set up kind of like an old-fashioned English lessons and carols service. We brought the house down with Every Time I Feel the Spirit. It was so much fun.

Then on Sunday night, we were invited to join one of our fellow choir members and her husband for a piano concert hosted by the local Steinway Society. The pianist was Joyce Yang, 2005 Silver Medalist in the Van Cliburn competition. It was amazing. I'm always astounded by excellent pianists, probably because I can't even come close to doing what they do. I can play the notes, in correct rhythm, if the piece is simple enough. But I was never taught good technique, so, for example, I don't know how to bring out one line, with the rest as accompaniment.

I love days like that. They're definitely worth writing about.

Man, Am I Out-of-date, or What?

I was tooling around the web, looking at blogs I enjoy. I opened up Tambo's blog, Tamboblog, and saw her moon phase widget. I remembered that I used to have it on my blog and I liked it. So I thought I'd just pick it up and put it on again. No way! They've changed things so much that I'm reading the code and it's gibberish. I can see I'm going to have to learn advanced HTML all over again. Things change so fast in the online world, but I'm looking forward to challenging myself to put stuff back on my blog. I'll figure it out, but it's going to take a bit more time than I have right now, as I have to go make dinner and get to choir rehearsal. It just seemed weird to me that something that was so easy a couple of years ago has become harder, just because I haven't looked at it for so long. Thought I'd write about it, but I think this is going to be "Out-of-date--Part One". The idea is sticking in my brain, tickling it, saying that there's more to be said here--more general stuff, as opposed to specifically about the blog. So, I'm going to think on it and see what pops out--later.

A Quickie Dinner

I've unpacked my cookbooks since we moved. I'm enjoying making a lot of old favorite recipes. This one is NOT low-fat, low-calorie or healthy, according to current nutritional standards. It's worth making for the occasional splurge. Plus, I don't eat a lot of it at one time. And I pair it with good, healthy stuff. It's a pasta sauce that's made by infusing cream with lemon zest and crushed red pepper flakes. I serve it over those crab & shrime ravioli you can get at Costco. I eat about 3 ravioli, because they're really filling. You don't need a lot of sauce for three ravioli, so I cut the recipe in half. Next time, I'm going to make a quarter recipe, which should still be plenty of sauce for that amount of ravioli.

Here's the recipe--Spicy Lemon Pasta Sauce (based on a recipe from The Top One Hundred Pasta Sauces by Diane Seed)

The sauce:

1-2 cloves of garlic, finely minced. Use however much makes it taste the way you like it. Judge by the size of the cloves, as well as the amount. I've seen large garlic cloves that are easily as much garlic as two small cloves.

1 tablespoon of butter

1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes. You can use 1/4 teaspoon, if you like it spicy, like I do.

The zest of one lemon. You can zest the lemon with a zester and leave it in strings or mince it, depending on your tolerance for eating cooked lemon peel. Be sure not to get any of the bitter white pith that's just under the skin of the lemon. Save a little zest to sprinkle over the top after it's done.

1 cup whipping cream. (I've tried several different ways to make lower fat dairy products work, but they tend to burn too easily.)

Salt, to taste.

Melt the butter. Add the garlic and crushed red pepper flakes. Saute briefly, just to get the oils out for a stronger flavor. You shouldn't cook them longer than a minute and the garlic shouldn't get darker than golden brown or it starts to taste bitter. Pour in the cream and add the lemon zest. Turn the heat down. Watch it carefully to make sure it doesn't boil above a simmer or it will tend to boil over. Stir it occasionally as it cooks. It takes about 45-50 minutes to thicken and get a good flavor. If it gets too thick, stir in a bit more cream. Just before serving, taste it. I usually end up adding a tiny pinch of salt. Literally a pinch--I take my fingers and pick it up between my index finger and thumb because that helps me keep from putting too much in. This doesn't need very much and it's easy to shake too much from a salt shaker.

6 crab and shrimp ravioli. Cook according to package directions. Time them to be done when the sauce is finished. Drain. Put on a plate and drizzle the sauce over the ravioli.

I like to garnish this dish with snipped chives or Italian parsley, in addition to the reserved lemon zest, just to give the dish some color. All that white pasta and lemon yellow sauce can be kind of boring-looking on the plate.

Since this dish is so rich, I serve it with a very simple salad, like mixed greens with a bit of balsamic and olive oil. It's summer and there are good tomatoes around, so I might toss in some tomato, to give it more color. Grilled veggies would also be good. Or, if you don't want any additional fat in the meal, steamed asparagus is wonderful with this.

Mangia!

Hmmm. . . it just occurred to me that I could try making the infusion with stock. Thicken it with a cornstarch slurry. Then put in a tablespoon of creme fraiche to give it the proper texture and dairy flavor. I'll try that next time and let you all know whether it works. I'm always trying to figure out ways to keep the flavor and texture of my food, but make it as healthy as possible for everyday meals. Come holidays or special occasions, I splurge. A Weight Watcher leader once said that we could have ten meals a year to eat what we wanted. Her point was that if you splurge every day, it's not special and it makes you fat. Saving it for truly special occasions makes it truly special and doesn't make you fat. So, this is one example of my love-hate relationship with weight, food, good nutrition, and so on.

Been Reading

This has been interesting. I've been reading a lot more lately. I'd forgotten what a pleasure just reading to enjoy a story is. So often, when a person starts writing, especially writing fiction, you start reading to anlyze the book. What works. What doesn't. Or worse, to critique a book--the writer should have done this or that and it would have been better.

But I've been just reading. No analysis. No critique. Just enjoying the story. Getting lost in it. Letting it become my world for a few hours. And it's wonderful. I heartily recommend any writer who has forgotten what it was about books that got them writing in the first place relearn reading for pleasure. Turn off the editor and just enjoy.

The ironic thing is reading for enjoyment makes my fingers itch to be writing my own stuff. My brain starts thinking of characters and what's going on with their lives. I start seeing the world around me from their perspective, not mine. A sure sign storytelling is imminent.

That reaction doesn't happen when I analyze or critique a book. It's probably because when I'm analyzing or critiquing, it's too similar to parts of the writing process. It feels too much like working on a book, so it pulls me away from my own stories. It also spoils the pleasure of reading the story.

I'm beginning to think that unless I'm looking to learn a specific technique or studying something a particular writer does especially well, I should analyze and critique my own stuff. And read the books I buy strictly for pleasure. After all, I bought them because I thought they'd have a good story inside. If I'm looking for how to write stories or what could be better, I'm missing that good story.

April

April slipped by with nary a post from me. In June, our church had a Sunday dedicated to reports of our trip to New Orleans, which took place in April. I had started this post, but never posted it. Instead, I turned it into my contribution to that Sunday service. Months later, I'm checking out my blog, which I'd like to resurrect and found the original draft of this essay. I decided to finish and post it. Maybe I'll even manage to keep my promise to myself to start posting regularly again.

I'm not sure how to relate what happened in April. First there was the Easter season, with lots of extra music, rehearsals, etc. That was wonderful. As a musician, I love the big religous holidays because there's so much great music written for them.

Then, right after Easter, we went to New Orleans. Easter is a season of contrasts--the rejoicing of Palm Sunday, followed by the sobering week before the crucifixion, followed by more rejoicing as we Christians celebrate the resurrection. New Orleans is a study in contrasts, too. I think that's the main impression I brought back from there.

There's the desolate neighborhoods with brick shells that used to be houses next to empty concrete slabs where the house was completely destroyed. Some lots have grass and nothing else left. No trees, flowers, nothing but the grasses that are the first things to start to grow back. Contrast that with the neigborhoods we drove through after taking the ferry across the Mississippi. They hadn't been touched. They looked like middle-class and upper middle-class neighborhoods anywhere. They were lush with the greenery that grows rampant in the area. There were no boarded up, empty stores. You could find a grocery store to go to.

Yet, there was a spirit of hope, too. Some neighborhoods had the same destruction, but every so often, you'd see a renovated home with people living there. It takes a lot of courage to go back and live in your house. Think about what it must be like to be the only people on your street with a home. Every time you leave or come back to your house, you drive by reminders of those who may never be able to come back. It wasn't just the homes and stuff they lost. It was family, friends, their community.

We went with members of our church. We spent a day and a half painting the sanctuary and new preschool classrooms of Gethsemane Lutheran. We painted part of the small dormitory. People who come from all over the country to help will be able to stay there. We planted new landscaping, which helped make the church look a bit less desolate.

We sang. Most of the people were choir members. We were part of a Musicale put on at Grace Lutheran to help raise funds to repair their pipe organ. Someone took two of the destroyed wooden organ pipes and made a cross for them. It sits in the narthex and is a testament to their resilience. They have a map of where people have come to help. People from all over the country are represented on that map.

We sang again. Our choir director is also a harpsichordist. She accompanied us on a harpsichord built by the organist of Grace Lutheran. St. Mark's escaped the devastation of Katrina, but its members did not. Yet there they were, diminished in number, but huge in spirit, helping each other recover from what they'd experienced.

We ate. There's a contrast for you. The members of Grace cooked dinner for us. It was amazing, topped off with that irresistible Southern guarantee to cause tooth decay, homemade pralines. On Sunday, our council president directed a bunch of us in a very California-style brunch. Great food, there, too. I keep forgetting to email her and ask for the recipes.

But it wasn't all work. We had time to walk around the French Quarter. Somehow, a small part of me felt a bit guilty playing when there was so much work to be done. Yet, playing is as important as work. Another contrast, but one we often forget in our supercharged Silicon Valley life. It's different in New Orleans. They have a different pace of life. If the kitchen crew isn't ready, you wait for them. If that means church is a half hour late, you just have more time to chat with everyone. And the pastor simply cuts bits of the service so it doesn't run over too long. Pastor Lisa got a bit carried away with the cuts--she almost forgot that all-important ritual--passing the offering plate. If your waitress needs to tell her story, a coworker grabs the heavy tray and lets her talk. Out here, she'd probably get fired for chatting so long with the customers.

It was the French Quarter Festival, an annual street festival they have every year. We spent some time listening to the music. But somehow, we managed to miss the jazz and get the pop stuff. Yet, on the streets, the street musicians sang and played the jazz New Orleans is famous for. You can't walk through that part of town without hearing music.

We went to the famous Cafe du Monde for beignets. Do not go to New Orleans without having some. Diets be damned. They're worth every calorie and it's open 24 hours so you can't say you couldn't find the time. As we walked back to the hotel to get ready to leave, an old guy started playing Amazing Grace on his trumpet. It was gorgeous and I couldn't help but sing along. He started singing a capella after playing one verse on the trumpet. I sang softly as we walked past. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up sign. It was a fitting end to the trip, somehow.

Because the ultimate contrast for me was that we went to help, yet they helped me more. They had every reason to whine about their lives. They had every reason to be angry with God or lose their faith, as many people do when faced with tragedy in their lives. But these people, not just those we met at the various churches, but even people like the waitress I mentioned above, who we met while exploring the rest of New Orleans, had a spirit and faith that humbled me. They put my life, which as many of you know, has been a struggle the past three years, in perspective. And I think their expression of faith helped when, near the end of April, Paul's mom died. They showed me how important it is for people to tell their stories, to share the important things that happen to them. Those stories, full of the richness of spirit they all expressed, are the main thing I bring back in my heart.

Even busier, if you can believe that.

OK, so here I am singing in three choirs and working and walking and doing all the stuff you have to do in life. What happens? The leader of the group Paul sings in that I wasn't singing in emails me to say he had an opening in the alto section. Wondered if I wanted to sit in and see if it works out. I did. And so now I'm singing in four groups. It's so much fun. And because I'm now singing 5 days a week, my voice is getting better. The voice is like any other set of muscles--working out helps it.

I'm still walking every day except Sunday. I probably won't walk tomorrow. Paul's getting a rare Saturday off. We're going to spread out the errands and chores over the weekend so we can have some time just to do something fun. I don't know what that will be, but I imagine it will involve lunch or dinner out and a walk and maybe a simple bookstore browse. We'd go to a movie, but there's nothing out we want to pay movie ticket prices to see right now.

Sunday evening we're going to a local church that does a Messiah Sing. They put together a small orchestra and the audience is the singers. We sing any part we want, including all the solos. It's the only time I get to sing the tenor solos at the beginning. But I sing the alto parts in the choruses. Sometimes I sing the bass parts up an octave. I don't sing the soprano stuff, though. It's too high because I never sing up there anymore.

I'm almost finished with my prayer shawl. I have a foot left to knit. Then I have to put the fringe on and I'm done. I should finish this weekend, a week before the deadline. It's going to be a good trip. We're looking forward to it. Even if it is in the 80s and humid this time of year. Bad for my sinuses and they took the teeth out of Sudafed, so it doesn't work as well. (sigh)

Once I'm done with the prayer shawl, I'll have a bit of time I can use for writing. Once I'm done inputting music into my computer for rehearsal CDs and transferring my part to my MP3 player, I'll have that time free for writing. The problem is I'm starting over with one of my choirs because we just started a whole new set of music. It's all good, though, because I have most of the stuff done for next year's concert, so I won't have to do it then.

I've given up trying to write in the blog on anything like a set schedule. I know that means I don't have many readers, but that's the way it goes. Maybe things will settle down more later in the year, if we manage to move out on our own again. Somehow, I suspect that being able to set our own schedules and have an office will make it easier to find time to write.

I used to have time to post

I used to have time to post almost every day. Now, I hardly ever post. I'm just busy. I have three rehearsals a week, plus singing in church almost every Sunday. It's Lent, so we have midweek service on Wednesday. One of my rehearsals is on Wednesday, so we leave church and walk across to practice. Luckily, the choir rehearses at my church. Makes things easier and we pretty much only miss the warmups. Not a problem; we warm up singing in the church service.

I've been typing my handwritten material into a computer file. Once I get it all typed in, which means I can read it in chronological order, I can put it into the manuscript and move on to the next part. I don't write in chronological order. My handwritten drafts are a mess of arrows and numbers pointing to places where I need to rearrange sentence and paragraph orders so they make sense. Anyway, I'm enjoying getting some work done on the WIP, even if I'm not writing new material right now and my progress bar is staying the same.

I started a prayer shawl yesterday. One of our former intern pastors heads two congregations in New Orleans. Some people from our church, including us, we hope, are going down after Easter to do some work for their people, worship with them, and we're bringing however many shawls people make as a gift from us to them. I think most people tend to think things are getting better, since so much time has passed since Katrina. But it takes a long time, a lot of money, and a lot of work to fix things after a disaster of that magnitude. It's nice to be able to do something, even if it's small like making a shawl to help them remember prayer--both theirs and that others are praying with them.

It's a busy week for the orchestra. Tickets are almost sold out for Sunday's concert. I'm looking forward to the concert. We're taking season ticket renewals, too. I've been living with my phone stuck in my ear last week and this week. It's way cool.

My mom's birthday was this week. We had a very small celebration, but it was fun.

Writing & Other Stuff

I don't have a lot to say about writing. Just that I've started working on my WIP again. I'm currently catching up on typing in the handwritten stuff. It's actually very helpful in that it makes me focus on what I wrote, which is helping me get back into the story.

I didn't walk this morning because it was raining pretty hard. It's stopped for now. If the sun stays out, I might go ahead and walk this afternoon. Otherwise, it's a mall walk this evening with Paul.

This week is an easy one. We only have two nights of rehearsals. I had Ladyesong on Monday. And church choir was after the Ash Wednesday service. Then we did the last hour of Funtimes Singers. So, we ended up with Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday nights off.

I guess I'll be working on getting files and software loaded on the notebook for a while. I don't want to put too much on until I get Vista loaded. It hasn't come yet, which is no surprise. I hope the software I use the most will work with Vista. I don't want to have to replace it. That gets really expensive.

I'm getting the music entered in the computer. It's so time-consuming and it's tedious, so it goes really slowly. But I'll get rehearsal CDs done in a couple of weeks, I think. I know I'm going to have a lot to do for the orchestra, though, so that may mean taking longer to finish the music.

Music, Walking, Gaming

My life seems to be mostly about music these days. I have a rehearsal almost every night. One of the women in one of the groups I sing with called me to see if I wanted to sing in a quartet. The song is one of my favorites, Georgia on My Mind, but I want to look over the music before I commit to it.

I'm working on inputting Ladyesong music into my computer so I can make rehearsal CDs. I hope they're helpful to everyone, even though it's just the notes and rhythms, no words. My plan is to do individual tracks of each part and one track with everything put together. I just hope it all fits on one CD. I guess I'll see how it goes this time and learn from anything that could be done better a different way.

I'm still walking. I haven't lost any pounds, but my wrists are smaller. My shoulders are getting bony. My pants are way too big in the seat and thighs, but not in the hips, so I can't fit into smaller ones yet. I need new shoes. I've walked this pair to death.

I spent the day with one of my sons yesterday. We had coffee. Ran a few errands. Had lunch at Togo's. Those of you who don't live around here need to have a Togo's sandwich if you ever visit this area. They're really good. I bought a couple of simple games. A version of Tetris, which I've enjoyed since the original Nintendo system introduced it to an unsuspecting world. And Jewel Quest, which I originally found on Gamehouse.com What I like about it is that as the boards get harder, you have the option of skipping and moving on, or playing it out. If you run out of lives, they start you with five more, but you don't have to start the game over. You just lose all your points. I don't care about points, so that's not a problem for me. Then I played the next bit of Final Fantasy XII, which I have to play at his house because I don't have a Playstation and TV. I try to go over about once a week and make a bit of progress on that game. David's been really getting into video games as a break from school and he's starting to get me going again.

Tomorrow my hubby and I are going out to dinner and a movie as a late celebration of Valentine's Day. We haven't picked out the restaurant, yet. But we're going to see the new movie with Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant. It's about music, too. Perfect for us.

It sounds like all I do is fun stuff. That's true, because I love my job, too. So fun is fun, work is fun and I have a really great life. All I need is a decent place, that will allow my cat, that I can afford to rent and I'll be all good.

New Stuff

I had an interesting weekend. Remember I said I was saving up for a laptop? Well, we went into the Sony store just to do research. Yeah, right. Windows Vista just came out. They had a great deal on their XP machines. So, I went to the ATM, checked my finances, and got a sweet Vaio notebook at a super discount. What's amusing is that I got the discount because the computer had XP Pro on it. And if I was willing to wait 2-4 weeks, I'd get Vista Business for free. I'll end up with the same computer I could have bought, had they had any Vista machines in stock, but I got a substantial discount--all because I can be patient and don't have to have the latest and greatest immediately.

I've been busily setting up the computer. I really don't like doing all that stuff because it's tedious, but when I'm done, Paul and I will pretty much have our own computers to use. It's been getting harder to share because I'm telecommuting to my new job. Paul and I both are inputting music for rehearsal purposes. And we were starting to have more time when both of us had things we needed to do on the computer, but only had one computer to use.

The organ recital was wonderful. I heard a lot of music that was different from what I've heard in the past. I usually hear organ music as part of the church service, so the music is pretty traditional. This was a lot of different styles, since the pieces were from all around the world. The organist chose a lot of the pieces to show off the wonderful organ our church bought about a year and a half ago. One piece had no pedal part and another was just for pedals. Fun evening.

We took our kids out to breakfast last weekend, too. We hadn't all gotten together since Christmas. We had a good time, as usual. We didn't do anything special. Just chatted and caught up on each other's lives. Teased and joked and ate great food at one of the few really fantastic breakfast places in the area, the Country Gourmet. They have a place in Mountain View, but we usually go to the Sunnyvale store because it's closer.

I've almost got my new notebook set up so I can write with it. I need to go turn off all the automatic junk, starting with the annoying grammer checker, that makes MS Word such an irritant. I don't want my computer to interrupt my work because the software geeks think I need help formatting a simple business letter. By tomorrow I can write away from home, which is how I get most of my work done. I think it's partly that if I'm not home, I'm not looking at all the other things I "ought to be doing" or "could do instead". If I take my stuff and go away, I can focus better. Unfortunately, it's supposed to rain the rest of the week. So, no walking for a few days. (Sigh)

I'll try to mall walk on Friday night. And I should be able to walk over the weekend, either mall walking or doing my usual outdoor walk. I think I've lost a few more pounds. My jeans are loose in the thighs and seat, and they don't stay up around my waist. These are my new, smaller jeans. I'm happy with that.

New Blogger and Other Stuff

I've switched to the new Blogger. It's not a lot different from the old one, but I see I have to redo my sidebar. Luckily, my template stuff is saved in a separate folder on my computer. It's weird, though, Wednesday when I switched, the sidebar and everything was the same. Oh, well. I needed to edit and update it anyway. My problem is finding/making the time to do it.

I'm writing along and staring at the new compose screen. There's a title bar at the top of the create post screen. And a space to put a label at the bottom. I have enough trouble coming up with titles. I have to do labels, now, too? I think I'll pass unless someone begs me to collect all my posts about one subject or other into a group. (Please don't beg me. I hate that kind of tedious stuff. (grin))

I've walked to Peet's yesterday and today. I had errands near there this morning. It's two miles one way, plus today I added the walk to do the errands. I need new shoes. I've walked this pair to death this year. I found the same size and type of shoe online for about half off, so I'm going to get two pair and alternate them. It's better for your shoes and your feet to do it that way, anyway. I'll get twice the wear out of the same amount of money, too. Good deal.

I've been reading and doing some of the suggestions in Barbara Sher's new book, Refuse to Choose. It's about the flakes of the world who can't seem to settle on one thing to spend their life on. She calls them "Scanners", not "flakes". A lot of the material is helping me to figure out how to get what I want to do done without having to figure out what to give up. It's a good book, if you're one of the people who thinks committing to doing one job for your whole life is like a prison sentence, since you have so many interests and things that you want to try.

I'm really looking forward to this Sunday. Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Saratoga is offering a free organ recital. The organist is playing a program that features music from around the world. From what my friend Barbara, who's heard him, says it will be great. It's at 7:30. If you're anywhere near the San Jose area and looking for something fun and free, you're welcome to come.

No Complaining Day

I had a weird thought the other day. I'd had a day where I was talking to a lot of people. I noticed that most of the conversation was about what's wrong with their lives. I'm not talking about problems they're working on solving. I'm talking about whining and complaining about things they can't do anything about. I do it, too. So I suggested to Paul that we should have a "No Complaining Day". And I wondered if people would have trouble finding things to talk about, if they couldn't complain. I think we all need to "get over ourselves" and find reasons to be grateful for the good things we have. But, that's just my opinion. YMMV, as they say online.

I'm still walking. I think I lost a whole pound in the last two weeks. It's winter and super cold. I suspect my body is hanging onto the fat to keep warm. I don't know if that's scientific, nor have I ever seen any research on it. But thinking that makes me feel good, so I'm going to keep thinking it. And keep walking.

Today is one day I don't have a rehearsal, but I have music to do every day. Practicing the songs I'm singing is the main thing. But I'm also working on putting the Ladyesong music into my computer so I can burn rehearsal CDs for everyone. I hope they'll help people, particularly those who don't read music, hear their parts and learn them accurately. It's so hard to do that when you don't have a way to listen to your own part, without the other parts muddling up the works.

Last night the San Jose Chamber Orchestra celebrated Barbara Day Turner, the founder and music director's, birthday with a fundraiser. It was one of those milestone birthdays, so they called it "Maestra's Milestone". Good food. Lots of cool people. Fun entertainment that included a bit from a concerto for harp that will be premiered in May. And a humorous look at the birthday girl's life, put together by one of the board members. All in all, it was a great evening.

Blogging

I suppose it's only natural that when you blog, eventually you'll write about blogging itself. It's an interesting phenomenon, this blogging thing. I'm noticing that many of my posts have been sparked by what I've read on someone else's blog. This is one reason I think blogging has become a kind of conversation, not just individuals musing about stuff and hoping other people will care about their musings.

I think the conversation aspect is also why people enjoy getting comments from people reading their blogs. Blogs have a connection between people that writing essays for traditional publications don't have. In traditional publishing, pre-blog days, you waited to see if maybe someone wrote to the editor about your essay. When you write a blog, you get instant feedback when people comment on what you've written. Today, though, even traditional publishing has that more immediate connection because usually you can email the writer directly. A lot of writers have blogs, too, and you can read more there and comment.

This all seems obvious, now that blogging has become so common. But blogging is such a recent phenomenon that it boggles my mind how quickly it's become a part of our culture. No surprise to me that us social creatures will glom onto any way to try to communicate with each other. Sometimes I wonder, though, if we're really communicating because, as with every type of communication, there's what we think we wrote, what we wrote, and what you read.

Stuff

I walked an extra day this week. Paul worked overtime and I didn't want to sit at home this morning. So I meandered off to El Paseo and had coffee at Peet's. That's two miles each way. I didn't push for speed because this wasn't supposed to be a workout, yet it only took me 50 minutes to get there. That's a ton faster than my normal walking pace of a year ago, and a year ago I wouldn't have been able to make it at all. I've come a long way since I started walking and that's a good thing.

I normally don't write fanfic. But I have one that won't leave me alone. It's in a world who's creator has said it's OK to do fanfic and I'm not going to post it up anywhere or anything. It's just for me to play with. The idea includes some types of writing that I've never done before and they're not needed for my current WIP. So, I decided to explore this idea and these writing techniques as a reward after I finish my work on 50 Ways for the day. It's a just for fun thing, and I'm always up for fun stuff.

Other than that, things are pretty much the same around here. Paul and I are celebrating the first paycheck of the new job by going out to dinner. It's kind of a ritual thing we do when he starts a new job. We hope this is the last one for a very long time. We have tickets to a concert tonight, too. We're not sure we're going because it's about 30 miles away and he's worked six days this week. A late night may not be in the cards. If he's too tired, we'll give the tickets to one of our sons and just enjoy a quiet dinner and maybe a browse in a bookstore.

Walking and other stuff

Walking is becoming a bit of an addiction, I think. I get grumpy if I can't walk. That's a good thing. I discovered I can walk to the mall that's two miles away, have coffee, and walk home without any problem. That's a total of four miles. I don't think I've ever been able to walk that far this easily. It's cool.

I'm thinking that good days to update this blog are Tuesday, Friday, and over the weekend, since those are the days I don't have rehearsals and stuff. That way I won't be taking time away from practicing music and writing in order to write in the blog. So, I don't think I'm sticking to my original plan of writing every weekday, not that I've been doing that recently, anyway. It's just that I'd thought of trying to get back to that original goal. My life is much busier now, though, and I don't have as much time to blog. A busy life is a good thing, so I'm happy with making that change. It's doable, so I'm more likely to do it.

I'm settling into a good routine for my new job, my music, church, and family stuff. I don't like rigid schedules, but a general routine is helpful because it allows your brain to think about more important and interesting things than, "When am I going to do this or that?" I started a to do list in my little calendar. I don't always get everything done, but I expect that and start with the most important things first. I put things on my to do list that are fun, rewards for doing the not-so-fun stuff. I'm not rigid about it, though. Sometimes I do the fun things first and sometimes I only do the fun things. But sometimes I eat dessert first or go out and get dessert instead of dinner. Life's too short not to enjoy as much of it as you can, as long as you don't become a total hedonist and ignore your responsibilities completely.

Things are Humming Along

All of my music has started back up. Paul has one group that won't start for another week. I've joined another choir, one Paul sang with over Christmas. It's called "Funtimes Singers". I need to get back in the habit of posting concert dates and info, in case any local folks are looking for something fun to do.

It looks like spring is bustin' out with show tunes. Two of my choirs are doing a lot of show tunes this season. It's going to be fun. The music for Funtimes isn't going to be too difficult, which is a good thing, since Ladyesong looks like there will be some super challenging stuff and lots of memorized music.

I like my new job a lot. It's another musical thing, in a way. I'm taking care of phones, ticket sales, and miscellaneous office work for the San Jose Chamber Orchestra. It looks like music is going to play a bigger part in my life, now that my kids are grown up and I have the time for it.

Writing may seem like it's far from my life, but it really isn't. I just haven't been blogging about it much. This past year I've been writing the occasional blog entry, emails, chatting, and doing lots of journaling. Lots of words have left my pen, but not much fiction. I'm not super upset about that. As I look back on it, there are a lot of good reasons more journaling got done than fiction writing. It's not important what they were. What's important is that things are now working better and I can focus on fiction more this year than last year. I knew it would work out this way. I just didn't know when. It's kind of ironic, in a way, that it all changed right at New Year's, since I try so hard not to make resolutions or changes at New Year's, mainly because doing it is sort of expected.

Anyway, I have a lot of typing of stuff I wrote by hand to do. And then I can write new stuff. It will likely be a couple of weeks before the word meter moves. I have a tendency to lose words, not add them, when I type stuff in. I don't change the progress bar when the word count goes down. I just wait until I've added more, as I always do. We'll see.

Still walking. When I started walking to the shopping center, it took me 45 minutes each way. Today it took me 35 minutes to get home. So, I'm walking faster. I wonder if the cold weather is partly at fault. I walk faster to stay warm. In any case, I'm enjoying my walks and coffee and private time to write in my journal.

Happy New Year!!

I don't do resolutions, so don't expect to see a post about them here. You'll have to move on to someone else's blog for that.

Here's an update on the ongoing drama that is my life. First, Paul loves his new job. It's working out great. Benefits start after only one month on the job. I see new glasses, dental work, and routine medical stuff on our horizon, finally. I can find out how to handle the health issues that have kept me from working the past few years. I am going to have to find the "dreaded day job", as artistic types call the money work that puts a roof over their heads and food on the table so they can devote some time to their art. It's just too expensive here in CA to rent a place on one average income.

I hope to finally get a notebook computer sometime this year. I'm doing some part-time work from home for a friend. It's not a lot of money, but if I save it up, I should have enough for the machine I want before the year is up. And when I get that regular job, I can add some of that money to the PT income.

I'm still walking. I was up to 3 miles on the track. After Paul started his job, I started walking to a local shopping center for coffee. It's about 3-1/2 miles, total. It surprised me how easy the walk is. I'm thinking about walking a different direction to a coffe place that's 2 miles, one way. At least while I'm not working and have the time to do it. I don't know what my current weight loss is or my blood pressure. I started walking mainly hoping to lower the blood pressure, so we'll see, come February, whether I succeeded in that. The last time I was on a scale, which was a few weeks ago, I'd lost 33 pounds. Not bad for a person who wasn't trying to lose weight. I used Christmas gift money for much-needed new clothes. 4 sizes smaller. I'm happy with that and, while it would be great to keep losing, I'd be fine with maintaining for a while.

I didn't post for the last couple of weeks because of the super busy holidays. We had the regular stuff everyone does, plus four choirs between us to do rehearsals and concerts and stuff. It was great!! Then it was kind of a letdown because they all took a break. We needed the break, but I still missed it. It's all starting back up again this week and I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to be singing in three groups this spring. The music looks like it will be challenging and fun.

Last, a recipe, sort of, to start the new year with. It's not a recipe as much as a technique. I've been experimenting with braising these days because all the cheap cuts of meat need long, slow cooking to be tender. And that's what's been on sale. I'm looking for really simple stuff, so I started experimenting with that pot roast recipe I posted a while back.

I got a large pork shoulder roast on sale a couple of weeks ago. I had them cut it into two smaller roasts. I decided to try to do one like Pork Carnitas and the other like BBQ Pulled Pork. So, I kept the idea of putting the roast on a bed of sliced onion and cooking it at 400º F. I added one large can of enchilada sauce for the Carnitas and two regular-sized bottles of BBQ sauce for the Pulled Pork. Next time, I think I need to double the amount of enchilada sauce so there will be enough to spoon on the filled tortillas.

I cooked them on two different days using the same technique. I put them in for an hour. Then I turned the roast and spooned sauce over the top. I cooked them for another hour, turned and spooned sauce over. I stirred the sauce in the pan, too, so it wouldn't be as likely to burn. The last couple of hours, I did the turning, spooning, and stirring every half hour. Because I wanted shredded meat, I cooked them for a full four hours. If I'd wanted to slice it, I'd have only cooked them for 2-1/2 to 3 hours.

To serve them, I used two forks to shred the meat. I put beans and cooked rice in the enchilada-flavored pork, but next time, I'm serving the rice separately. I thought the rice flavor covered up the pork flavor too much. I served the enchilada filling in whole wheat tortillas. I made sandwiches out of the BBQ Pulled Pork, using ciabatta rolls, rather than softer hoagy rolls. The BBQ sauce really soaks into the bread, so you need a hard roll or it will get soggy and hard to eat.

Both were excellent and better left over, as long-cooked dishes often are. Both of these are wonderful winter dishes. The oven keeps the kitchen toasty warm while you cook dinner. Mangia!!

News!

Ok, so Paul didn't get the job I mentioned in the last post. He got the one he interviewed for last week. Good job for him as it's his favorite type of work. It starts after the holidays. It's not a temp job, so all's good here. It's the best Christmas gift we can imagine. Maybe next year we'll manage to be celebrating in our own place. That's our next goal.

We've been super busy, since between the two of us, we're in four different choirs. Last week and this week are the two busiest for us. We've had rehearsals or concerts almost every night, and a few in the daytime, too. It's fun. For us, doing music kind of makes the holiday season extra special. So, it's been a good year for that.

We're still walking. I have no idea how much I weigh because I don't have access to a reliable scale, right now. But the jeans I bought are four sizes smaller than the ones I used to wear. I'm up to three miles in an hour, five days a week. The only thing I'm doing, really, is trying to walk at a challenging pace, which means gradually speeding up. My next goal is to add another lap without adding more time. There are people who walk a lot faster than I do, so I know it's an achievable goal.

I've decided to try a different approach to getting the writing done, once we're finished with super concert season. I'm going to reward myself for working on 50 Ways by playing with an "indulgence". It's something I want to write just for fun. I have some things I want to try, but they don't fit into 50 Ways, my current WIP. It will be a way to stretch my writing ability without waiting for a project that needs those types of scenes. We'll see how it goes, but it's going to be a bit before I can start because right now my life is so busy. The other thing I want to do is to post more regularly and let anyone who might still be reading this know how it's going.

I Hate Figuring out Titles for my Posts

I'm considering numbering them. lol I want to try to post more frequently, now that I'm getting out of the funk I was in for the first part of the year. We'll see how that goes.

Writing, Writing, Writing--

I figured out why I wasn't writing. I needed to do what my friends Sheila (PBW)and Holly did a while back. A lot of the blogs I read, whether by aspiring or published writers, are very focused on the publishing industry and how hard it is to get published. How hard it is to write to that standard. How hard it is to whatever. It's a very negative and discouraging message, especially with my current financial situation. It became too easy to think about needing money and how hard it is to earn it by writing. I needed to step back and evaluate my thinking, so I stopped reading blogs and stuff for a while.

If I'm tinking about needing money, I start to feel guilty about writing. I feel like I'm wasting time I should be spending figuring out how to bring money into the house--now. The picture painted of the publishing industry by people who write about it makes it seem like it's hard to focus on what you want to do--write--once you start to sell. Because there's the sales numbers and building "buzz" and working to create a career. But you can't build a career on one book. You have to keep writing more. And it seems like a lot of published writers are crazily being obsessive almost to the point of not having a life outside of their writing and career. I don't want to live that way. I like doing a lot of other things and I'm not willing to give everything up to be a writer. (Or to be any one other thing, either. But that's a subject for a different post.)

Another aspect of it is that worrying about whether the WIP might or might not be publishable or sell stops my creativity cold. I start judging the work almost before it's on the page. The best way for me to do my best work is to just write it. Put aside all thoughts of publication, money, sales, career, etc. I don't know how that will work when I finally do sell something, but the time to worry about that is later. After it happens.

These thoughts led me to is back to the WIP. I need to focus on the current project. I need to focus on writing the book that's in my head, getting that story on the page. That's it. To do that, I've decided to limit my blog reading and other internet stuff, so it doesn't overwhelm me. And not read blogs or do internet stuff until after the day's writing is done. So, if I don't post often to your blog, don't think it's because I don't read it anymore. I just don't read as often. I have to take the same attitude Sheila once posted about: Protect the work.

Other Stuff

Everything else is pretty much going along the same as it has been. We've learned that David and his team will find out at the con whether they came in first, second, or third. That's in LA the first weekend in November. So, I wish them the best and hope they come in first. :)

I'm B-a-a-a-a-ck

Blogger tech support has been very helpful and I can now post on my blog again. YAY!!

Woo Hoo!! David and Chris and Ann and Michelle and Andrew won a finalist's spot in the D&D contest. I don't know if they won first, second, or third, but two of them are going to LA for the convention to show off their video and have a great time with other role players. Congratulations to all of you. You done good!!

I'm walking 10 laps on the track, for 2.5 miles. On the trail, I'm doing one loop, which is about 2.25 miles, but it's a slight upgrade, with two small hills to get up to the bridge across the creek. So, it's a bit shorter, but as much of a workout. I decided to add some distance because I'm at about the top speed I can go at my current weight without getting strain on my knees. Current weight loss: 31 pounds

I looked over the manuscript of my novel. And I'm working on finishing up the first three chapters. Then I'm sending them out for critique and moving on to the next section. I have a good friend who offered to give me a daily nudge to help me stay focused. So far, she's been wonderful and patient with my start/stop efforts. I'll get back to the daily discipline, one little step at a time.

I'm enjoying my two choirs. We're gearing up for Christmas and I have a nice variety of music to sing this season. Paul is singing in church choir and he's found a couple of other groups to sing with, too. He's enjoying the variety of music, too.

And Paul has another job nibble. We'll see if this one works out. If we can get some money coming in, life will be extra blessed, instead of ordinary blessed. :)

Stuff

Stuff is one of my favorite words and I don't know why. It just is.

David's movie: Voting is open until September 30. Just click on the link in the previous post and rate it to vote. You can vote as much as you like. The deal with awarding the prizes is that the official judges at Wizards of the Coast will be choosing the top three from the ten with the most votes. So, the goal here is to keep his video within the top ten, but as high as possible so more people will see it. Thanks for your support.

I've lost 20 pounds and had to replace the boring stuff in a person's wardrobe. I also need new jeans. I used to have 4 pair, but I cannot wear 2 because they're just too big. And my belt is too big, too. I hate wearing a belt when they're this much too big, anyway. It's really uncomfortable. I'm still walking 2 miles, but I'm walking faster. I haven't decided whether I want to increase my distance next week or work on continuing to increase my speed.

Life is pretty much the same, other than that. I've been studying up on writing techniques, which is a good thing. I keep getting more ideas, but they go into the idea file. I learned a long time ago that new ideas need to simmer before you can write them.

David's Movie

My oldest son, David, and some other people, who he names in the email so I won't repeat it here, made a movie. It's a 5 minute video for a contest sponsored by Wizards of the Coast. He wants anyone who's interested to take a look and rate it a 10 so it stays near the top of the list. He's hoping that keeping it near the top will increase its chances of being watched and voted on. Anyway, he gave me permission to post his email with details and a link, so here it is:

Hi All,

My friends and family (Michelle Alvarez, Andrew Haws, and Ann and Chris Sprinkle) and I have made a movie for a contest. The contest is through Wizards of the Coast, the current owners (and manufacturers) of the Dungeons and Dragons game. The movie is intended to have to do with the game. I would appreciate your comments about the movie. It would help a lot if you would watch our movie [and give it a rating of 10 (out of 10)]. Even more important, however, is that we need your votes on the 15th of September, when the the real voting begins. Voting by the public is meant to narrow the entries down to the 10 most popular, from which Wizards of the Coast will choose the three winners.

Here is a link to our video*:

http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/5534

Although it will ask you to verify that you are at least 18 years of age, I can assure you that there is nothing more adult than the average PG movie.

I will send out another e-mail, on September 15th, to remind you to vote for our film. If you would prefer I left you alone, let me know.

-David

*Note: When I put in the code to make a live link, it didn't show up on the screen, so you'll have to copy/paste it into your browser. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks for your support, anyone who happens by and reads this. :)

Summer's Almost Over

Summer's almost over and fall stuff is starting again. I think September is more the new year than January. Community and church activities all seem to start their seasons in the fall. There are lots of ads for season tickets to the theater and music scene showing up now. I feel like I should be gearing up for doing something new and different. I don't feel that way in January. In January, I feel like I should be succeeding with the old stuff I always fail at, the old New Year's Resolutions thing. Maybe that's why I prefer fall new year to January new year--new and different are more appealing than trotting out the same old resolutions one more time. That's why I stopped making resolutions in January at least a decade ago. It seemed pointless to keep promising myself to do things I never actually do.

Ladyesong started up on Monday. We have some cool stuff for Christmas this year. And, as usual, the stuff I've sung before was different arrangements, so I have to keep them straight in my head. When the music is memorized, it's easy to goof up and start singing the old arrangement automatically.

Church choir starts in a couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to seeing what Barbara has in store for us this year. We do some really cool music.

I've lost 19 pounds, as of the last time I got on the scale. This is the weirdest weight loss experience I've ever had. It's the only time I've not followed a specific food plan in my whole life. I've been walking and eating the same stuff, but less because I'm not that hungry. I'm not losing it in the same pattern I'm used to. What I'm used to seeing is that I lose it in my face, feet, hands--basically the extremities first. Then, eventually the middle catches up. But this time, I've been losing it pretty much all over, pretty evenly. I measured myself for bras and I'm down a size. I've lost 50 pounds in the past without that clothing size changing. It's a good thing, in my opinion, that it's working that way. I also think I'm repeating myself, but it kind of amazes me because it's so unexpected. So I keep thinking about it and POP, out it comes when I start typing.

Nothing new with Paul's job hunt. I find between 2 and 4 jobs to send to each week. It's frustrating how often the same jobs show up. After six months or so, we resend his resume to those same companies, which keeps him in the system.

Yet Another Update

I can't believe I haven't posted since the end of July and it's halfway through August!! We haven't heard anything about the job. It's still posted on the web site, so we don't know whether to assume they didn't make a decision yet or just haven't taken it down. Oh, well, back to the waiting game.

Paul's birthday's in the first part of Auguest. We went to Red Robin for dinner. I like Red Robin because the food is fresh. They have a lot of fried stuff, including the best fries and onion rings. But they also have a lot of grilled stuff and salads. You can eat really healthy food, or not. And it's always fun to get my family together because they're a bit nutty and always have good jokes and stuff to tell.

Ladyesong starts up again next week. I've missed it and am looking forward to singing again. I'm sure church choir will be gearing up for fall, soon, too. Next week is the last of the summer choir sessions.

I've been writing in my journal a lot lately. I've been thinking a lot about why I'm not writing like I used to and part of it, at least, is just that I'm out of the habit. There are other factors, too, but I think we often look for complicated explanations for things that are pretty simple. I've been reading Twyla Tharp's book on creativity and she talks a lot about routines. It's interesting and I'll probably have more to say about it after I'm done reading it and start doing some of the exercises.

On the exercise front, I'm still walking 2 miles a day, 5 days a week. Paul says I'm walking faster, which is cool. According to David's scale, I've lost 15 pounds. According to my jeans, I'm losing inches in the middle, where you need to lose them for optimum health.

Update & Something Amusing

Update: It turns out Paul's job interview is on Monday morning. I'll keep you posted about how it turns out.

Something Amusing:

This came to me via Bob's blog:

Your Bumper Sticker Should Be

Even if the voices aren't real - they've got some great ideas

What Bumper Sticker Should Be On Your Car?

Perfect for a fiction writer, right?

Good stuff going on

First, I hopped on David's scale on Thursday and discovered I've lost 12 pounds. It's pretty cool, even though weight loss wasn't my goal. Two pair of jeans are nearly falling off, so I'm losing some in that all-important middle where they worry about the fat causing heart disease.

Second, Paul's passed the phone interview and is going to be interviewed in person next week, probably Tuesday, for a good job with a good company. This is a real job, not a temp/contract job. With benefits. Any good vibes, prayers, finger crossing, whatever you do to wish others well will be appreciated. Paul's birthday is a week from Tuesday. Wouldn't a good job be a great birthday gift?

I've been gone a lot this week.

It seems like I'm hardly ever home these days. My oldest son has been walking with us once or twice a week. Then he always seems to have an errand or two to run. It's no big deal for us to take him, so we do.

We're finally in the cooling off stage of that heat wave. We spent a part of one of the hottest days at the movies. We went to see Pirates of the Carribbean--Dead Man's Chest. I loved it. I'd already been forewarned that it doesn't wrap up the story in a nice, neat package. We have to wait until next summer for the end, which is fine with me. That's no different from the last two Back to the Future films.

Next week, Woody Allen's new film Scoop is coming out. I think we're going to go see it. We saw previews when we went to see The Devil Wears Prada and it looks good. A bonus for us fans of Anthony Stewart Head of Buffy fame--according to his official web site, he has a cameo in it.

Other than that, things have been pretty quiet around here. Nothing happening with the job hunt. The paper says there's been an increase in hiring, but it's mostly in the hospitality industry, not the tech industry. Paul's put in applications in at places like restaurants and retail, but they won't even interview him. I suspect it's because nothing he's done uses a similar skill set to transfer over to that kind of business. So, we're still looking at whatever's out there in engineering technician work. And trying to keep a positive attitude.

This is Fun!

It's summer! It's the middle of a heat wave. I don't feel like being all serious and "writerly" today. Besides, it's my youngest son's birthday. Happy Birthday, Chris! So, it's a fun stuff day.

From Evil Editor: Want to know what your blog or web site would sound like if it were written in jive? Go Gizoogle it. Warning: the language is a bit rough, so if that bothers you, don't go there. (So, now I've done it. All of you know my little secret. I'm really not a prude. (grin) I think writers cannot afford to flinch at any words. You never know which ones you'll need to tell a story. But that's just my opinion.)

As for Evil Editor's blog--go there. It's funny and informative. He skewers and revises one of the things all writers dread having to write--the query letter. I've learned a lot about how to write one and you will, too.

Another fun thing from my friend Andi's blog:

You Are Kermit

Hi, ho! Lovable and friendly, you get along well with everyone you know. You're a big thinker, and sometimes you over think life's problems. Don't worry - everyone know's it's not easy being green. Just remember, time's fun when you're having flies!

The Muppet Personality Test

I love Kermit and I agree--it's not easy being green! :)

I don't usually post on Saturday, but...

I haven't been home to write posts the past two days, so I thought I'd better write something, just so you know I haven't disappeared again.

My husband and I have discovered Sudoku. It's actually quite fun and it does make you work your brain. Keeping our brains healthy is as important to us as keeping our bodies healthy.

We've still been walking. If I lose another inch or two in my tummy, hips, or butt, I'll be able to pull off the jeans I'm wearing without undoing them. I think I need to buy a smaller pair of jeans. I don't get it. I've spent decades of my life exercising and following Weight Watchers and doing what you're supposed to do when you want to lose weight. I struggled so much, ending up following the usual pattern of losing weight and regaining it, although I never have gone back to my highest weight. I don't know if this weight loss will continue or how much I'll ultimately lose, but it's pretty cool that it's happening mostly in my middle, which is where you need to lose it if you're going to have good heart health.

I had a couple of writing topics I wanted to post about, but I can't remember what they were. When I do, I'll write and post them. It's so annoying to have that happen. I wasn't at home to stick the ideas in my file, so out of my head they went. Rumor has it that when you're finally through menopause, you stop having so many memory glitches. I certainly hope so.

Fun Stuff

Everyone is deserting us tonight. Chris has a D&D game. Mom's taking David out to dinner for his birthday. So, we decided to go to Red Robin instead of eating leftovers. We'll have the leftovers for lunch.

I looked at my list and discovered I have a lot of fun quizzes I haven't posted on here. I'm going to post a couple and save the rest for later.

Quiz #1:
Animal quiz: found on Stuart MacBride's blog

Your Animal Personality

Your Power Animal: Eagle Animal You Were in a Past Life: Whale You are active, a challenger, and optimistic. Hard-working, you are always working towards a set goal.

The Animal Personality Test

That's pretty true, even if I do get sidetracked from the goal every so often.

Quiz #2:
From Jean's blog:

Draw a Pig personality test

You drew your pig:

Toward the middle of the frame, you are a realist. True.

Facing left, you believe in tradition, are friendly, and remember dates (birthdays, etc.). My family's tradition is to not do traditions. We don't try to force traditional times to be the same every time we celebrate because sometimes it just doesn't work. I am friendly. I used to remember birthdays, etc., but I have trouble remembering what day it is at the moment. Rumor has it that when I'm done with this menopause stuff, my memory will get better again.

With many details, you are analytical, cautious, and distrustful. I'm not distrustful. I tend to be too trusting. But I am analytical and somewhat cautious, depending on the situation.

With 4 legs showing, you are secure, stubborn, and stick to your ideals. These are true.

The size of the ears indicates how good a listener you are. You are a good listener. I try to be, but my original family was full of interrupters. You didn't get heard if you didn't interrupt to make your point. It's a horrible habit I catch myself doing way too often.

The length of the tail indicates the quality of your sex life. You have a great sex life. I'll just say, "You all can figure this one out for yourselves." (grin)

Catching Up

It's been really busy around here. I haven't been home much to post. Sunday Ladyesong sang for the church service. I heard a lot of compliments, which is always appreciated. Then I conked out and slept for an hour or so. It's been hot and we've had the windows open. It's a noisy neighborhood so I don't sleep that well at night. Thus, I conk out in the afternoon. I'd rather not, but me and not enough sleep is not a pretty sight.

Sunday night we had a snack and listened to some music by a local singer. She didn't introduce herself while we were there, so I can't give her a plug. Then we went to Mel's recital. It was an interesting program, starting with music from a composer who lived in the 1500s, I think. (I don't have the program, so I'm doing this from memory.) The pieces moved forward in time until the last two, which were by Irving Berlin. The singers sounded great and it was a lot of fun.

After the recital, we still hadn't decided where to go for dinner. We were dithering between one of the restaurants at Santana Row and Max's. It was late enough that we decided on Max's. Max's is down the street from the church and we were hungry. Good dinner, as usual. All in all, we had a really wonderful anniversary.

Then yesterday we took David to run errands and he bought us lunch. The joys of adult children--sometimes they pay for the meal. I had Laydesong rehearsal last night, so I wasn't here to post. I've noticed I've been kind of serious lately, so I think tomorrow I'll look for some fun, silly quizzes to post.

Exercise, Patience, & Writing

First, Tech, who started it, has given me permission to link to The Great Slim Down. Anyone interested in joining the gang in our efforts to lose weight is welcome.

So, how does Thursday's essay relate to writing?

1. Just like you have to think of yourself as a thin person in order to be one, you have to think you're a writer in order to be one.
   
   If you call yourself a teacher or mother or volunteer or whatever, that's how you see yourself. Those roles are where you'll put your focus and energy. And you won't get much writing done because being a writer isn't in your list of who you are. You have to add writer to your list.


2. Just as you have to see your true image in the mirror in order to be successful with weight loss, you have to see yourself the way you are in order to write honestly.
   
   If you're hiding from the dark parts of your soul or hiding them from your readers, your writing will be "fluffy bunny". Nice doesn't catch people's attention. But dark does. Dark is where the conflict comes from. It's where your themes come from. I tried writing nice and I was bored. Good thing I didn't inflict that on any readers. I had to learn to kiss the monsters, a term my online writing group uses to identify the things you don't want to write about, but are the most powerful things you could write about. That's where honesty as a writer comes from, the hard places.


3. Just as permanent weight loss takes time, so does creating and selling a publishable novel.
   
   People want their novel, their first novel, finished--now. And sold and in the bookstores. More people want to have written a novel, and have it out there being bought and bringing in the bucks, than want to sit down and write the story. But neither writing a novel nor the process of publication is fast. If you need to be rewarded quickly for your work, don't become a novelist. It's a rare person who can write and sell a novel, first time out. Most published writers have more than one sitting in a drawer or on a hard drive somewhere that will never sell. You have to take the time to write the practice novels, where you go from beginner to publishable, plus the time to acquire an agent, plus the time it takes the agent to sell the book, plus the time it takes for the publisher to get it onto the shelves. Add that all up and you have a long, slow process. Weight loss seems easier and faster. (grin)
   


4. Just as you have to "use it or lose it" to get and stay in shape, a writer needs to write regularly or you "lose" it by becoming blocked.
   
   If you don't write, you "forget" how. Now you don't really forget. Like riding a bike, when you get back on, you remember. But you get full of doubts about your ability to write again. You say, "I'll do it tomorrow." And tomorrow is just as full of procrastination or other things that keep you from writing as today was. You have to write regularly, if you want to be a writer. It's kind of the definition of writer. Writers write.

It's Friday & I'm Supposed to Post

I even promised an essay. But my internet connection went down yet again and it's late. I just want to go to sleep. So, I'll try to get that essay written and posted over the weekend, even though it's a super busy weekend, with our usual Saturday errands, our wedding anniversary on Sunday to celebrate, Ladyesong singing for church and going to the recital Sunday night. That's not a complaint. I like busy. I just don't know when I'm going to have time to finish the post. We'll see how it goes. And if I don't get it done before, the gods of the internet willing, I'll post on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

Exercise & Weight Loss

I originally wrote this post for a blog that's a group weight loss effort. I'm not trying to lose weight, per se. I mostly post motivational things that occur to me. But since I've been walking, some thoughts occurred to me that I wanted to share with those who read this blog. I don't know if the weight loss blog is a public one, so I'm not going to link to it. Tech is one of the writer buddies I met on Forward Motion.

I'm up to seven laps on the track, three days a week. And a mile and a half on the Los Gatos Creek trail, two days a week. My jeans are getting loose, which is weird because usually when I lose weight or start exercising I notice it in my face, wrists, and ankles first. Not complaining, just observing. (g)

When I was reading Tech's post on patience, a couple of things occurred to me. One good reason to be patient is that it gives you time to see yourself as a normal person. We all think of ourselves as "fat people". Sometimes that image can derail you. It's important to see yourself as you are, not as you were. As you lose weight, take pictures of yourself in clothes that fit well. Post them up and look at them often so your mental image is the smaller you.

You can also use the set of pictures to help you see the weight loss. If you're really big, you can lose a lot of pounds, as reported on the scale, and not really see it in the mirror. But if you have a picture of yourself before you started, you can compare the current picture with the first one you took and you'll see the difference.

Also, even if you have to go to Goodwill or the Salvation Army or a consignment shop, as you lose weight, toss your fat clothes and get clothes that fit. Take more pictures. If you're wearing clothes that hang on you and look terrible and don't show your body at all, you can't get an accurate mental image. So you keep seeing yourself in your mind as the fat person who started this weight-loss program. And that's the person you'll keep trying to become. Plus, if you're clothes are too big, it's tempting to let yourself get big enough to look good in them again.

The other thought I had about patience is something my husband reminded me. It took a lot of years to put on these pounds. He's a bit discouraged because he hasn't noticed any weight loss and he walks a lot farther and faster than I do. (An aside: This is funny, since men tend to lose more easily than women. But if we diet, no exercise, he takes it off way faster than I do.) So his comment was that he doesn't expect to lose it quickly. And, he reminded me that it's about good health, not pounds on the scale.

We hope to be like the 90-something grandma of an online buddy of mine who slipped off a stool and broke her hip. She apparently recovered fine. But what's special about that story is that the stool was in front of a slot machine in the Bahamas. I'd love to be in good enough health to be able to travel when I'm in my 90s. And as much as we all want good health now, isn't it really about not being bedridden when we're really old? That's all about the true cliche--use it or lose it. I'm not saying that if we don't get that, it's our own fault. I just think there are things we can do to increase our likelihood of being that way when we're really old.

One more thing about exercise in general. I've been eating less food since we started walking. I'm not dieting or following any particular program. I just haven't been as hungry. That tells me I'm walking about the right pace and distance for me. I'm not overly hungry, as I would be if I weren't fueling the exercise enough. But, obviously, I didn't need as much food as I thought I did, either. It's not a huge change. Just substituting larger portions of salad and veggies for slightly smaller portions of meat and pasta/rice/bread, etc.

Ok, so what does all this have to do with writing? Well, it's already a very long post, so I'll do that essay tomorrow. Stay tuned. (g)

Nice Concert & Fun Stuff Going on These Days

We did find seats. The music was kind of blah. Then they had a break and fixed the drum mix. They added a second sax. And then they were cookin'. It was a nice evening.

I have a busy week coming up. Ladyesong is doing the special music in church this Sunday. The choir only does four Sundays during the summer. We're singing two pieces, both favorites of mine. "Steal Away" is hard for me because I memorized a different version for another group I sang in and sometimes I start singing the other version, out of habit. We're also doing a spiritual called "Witness", which is more upbeat and is a nice contrast to "Steal Away".

Sunday is our wedding anniversary. 29 years with the same guy and we're still happy, despite the job issues and stuff going on in our lives. We're going to splurge on dinner out somewhere and go to a freebie recital. Mary Elizabeth Enman (Mel), the founder and conductor of Ladyesong, is doing a duet recital with Kathleen Nitz Kazdorf. They will be accompanied by Michael Touchi. If you live in the area, the recital is at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church on the corner of Saratoga and Cox Avenues in Saratoga, CA at 7 pm. We might get a late afternoon snack and do dinner after the recital, so we don't have to rush. It mostly depends on how long the recital is and how late the restaurant stays open on Sunday.

Then, next week, Ladyesong has a concert at The Villages. It's a long one. We're doing 22 pieces and I'm trying to memorize them all because that shoulder/arm injury I had isn't 100% healed. It hurts to hold even one or two pieces of music, even without the folder, because in order to see the music, I can't move my arm. I have to hold it in a position that's awkward for the not-quite-healed muscles. I can use a stand, if I have to, but I'm hoping I won't because that's awkward, too. I'll probably end up tripping over the darn thing. My biggest problem with memorizing the music is that I haven't been home the past couple of days to work on it, but I've been able to listen to the rehearsal CD, which does help.

Anyway, I'm planning to post in here weekdays, as I used to, before I started into a downward spiral into a black hole you don't want to hear about. Paul and I started walking a month ago and it's helping a lot. We do the all-weather track at the local community center three days a week and part of the Los Gatos Creek Trail two days. I'm doing seven laps on the track and 1-1/2 miles on the trail. I must have lost some weight, too. The jeans I wore yesterday are getting way too big. And my appetite is down. I'm not eating as much because I'm just getting full. After our walk, I go get a plain, black coffee and write in my journal. The combination is making me feel, and act, like a normal person again. Whew!

We're walking with our son tomorrow and then we're going off to Target, because we both forgot to pick something up when we were there today. Carpooling is cool, especially when you actually like your kid. (g) I'm looking forward to it. He's done with school for the summer and it's nice to be able to spend some time with him.

Happy Independence Day to you Americans out there!

It's interesting to read what people are putting on their blogs to celebrate this day. I have four I'd like to link to because they said good stuff.

• Holly Lisle
• PBW
• Tamara Siler Jones
• Jean Schara

We're going to celebrate American music, I think. One of the local malls has a free jazz concert every Tuesday from May through September. They get great local talent and it's a fun time, if you can find a place to sit.