A Snapshot of the Past Few Months

I plan on blog posts that are more indepth about these happenings, but for now the past few months in brief:

August- A family trip to the zoo where my husband is noticeably walking oddly.

September- A Dr visit with notes of other strange symptoms, a video of the odd walking leading to a Dr. trying to suppress his panic. A few MRI's.

October- Appointment with a Neurologist. I decide I should go to work and start studying for my insurance license.

November- pass my license exam, go away for a week for corporate training, husband has a spinal tap. Husband is then diagnosed with  Multiple Sclerosis.

December- everyone is adjusting to this diagnosis and to me working

And then more of the same...
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It's been awhile...

But I will get this site up and running again.
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You Learn By Living

"The encouraging thing is that every time you meet a situation, though you may think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it you find that forever after you are freer than you ever were before. If you can live through that you can live through anything. You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, `I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' The danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it. If you fail anywhere along the line, it will take away your confidence. You must make yourself succeed every time. You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
— Eleanor Roosevelt
You Learn By Living (1960)

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Disappointment on early work and pushing through

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have.

We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

-Ira Glass

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Tigers

Beauty

My daughter loves tigers. Specifically she loves white tigers, but since our zoo doesn't have any she manages to content herself with the regular orange variety. I had promised her a few weeks ago that we would go to the zoo again before school starts and make it to the keeper talk.  During the keeper talk, the tiger keeper talks about tigers and feeds them meatballs through a heavy duty chain link fence.  We made it in time, but the speaker was broken, so we just watched the tigers take meatballs...and I took pictures.

Look at how powerful his muscles are!

A discussion over who goes first.

She waits patiently for him to finish

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Clothing

Over the course of this past  year (being that it was all four seasons) I spent approximately $100 on clothing for my three children.  Also, until a few weeks ago, did not purchase clothing or shoes for myself.
People have asked me how I managed this and I have been promising a blog post for awhile, so here it is...


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Last day of summer break

It went by too fast.
Last night we went to meet their new teachers. My oldest learned how to struggle with a locker. Old friends were seen, and last years teachers said hello to.  There was candy.

As with everything having to do with parenting, having them go back to school is bittersweet.  Summer was a blur of activity and I got nothing done that I wanted to, but the kids had a good time and I enjoyed having the time with them.  It is exciting to watch them go off into a new grade and have new challenges to take on, new friends to meet. Both boys will be playing violin in the strings orchestra, and I think I have them convinced to join the choir (they both are in that age where boys have beautiful singing voices). 

At the same time, it is watching them take on a deeper level of independence and a further realization of how short the time I have been given to parent them.  A privilege of time, really.  
So, tomorrow they go off on their new journey, and I begin the process of decluttering, repainting, cleaning carpets, and getting my house back into ship shape order.
Then next month I start back to school with a math class, philosophy of logic, and a psychology course...which will be my own adventure. 
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I miss her...

My mom and me May 2009

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Photos from our zoo trip

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The Problem...

with blogging consistently is that I don't have much to say. Summer days are filled with the rhythm of housework, keeping kids busy, many library visits, swimming, TKD lessons, cooking, avoiding cooking, gardening, keeping the chickens alive, keeping my brain alive, anticipating school starting back up and getting back into the classroom, planning fishing trips and wondering what equipment we really need, looking at my camera and thinking I need to take more pictures, trying to keep my head above water literally and figuratively. The sun feels wonderful, the heat I love more than any other year in memory.
(This post was completely gratuitous)
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On Good Work

“What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is that the Flaming Lips's new album is ravishing and I’ve listened to it a thousand times already, sometimes for days on end, and it enriches me and makes me want to save people. What matters is that it will stand forever, long after any narrow-hearted curmudgeons have forgotten their appearance on goddamn 90210. What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who’s up and who’s down, but what someone has done and if they meant it. What matters is that you want to see and make and do, on as grand a scale as you want, regardless of what the tiny voices of tiny people say.”

—	Dave Eggers

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The Courage to Write

"Advising writers to go ahead and ignore their anxiety and forge ahead is like telling a ten-year-old who's about to get a shot, "There's nothing to be scared of." That kid knows better. So do writers." (from The Courage to Write-How Writers Transcend Fear by Ralph Keyes)

I just started reading this book and am finding it tremendously useful. To be cliche',  writing is as essential to my life as breathing.
Even so, I love it and I hate it.
Getting the narrative out of my head and into print is freeing
Getting the narrative out of my head and into print is terrifying.


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Fireflies, photos and probable bad impressions

Last evening after getting the kids to bed I wandered outside because of the sky.

I stood and breathed and let my mind settle after a busy day. As the sun set further, the toads began to sing, then the jug-a-rum calls of the bullfrogs from the back ponds showed up. A high pitched squeaking with scrambling sounds came from the vicinity of the barn as the bats made ready for their nighttime exodus.
I stood and watched as the bats dropped out...they fall and swoop back up. Twenty one bats exited last night.


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Nighttime Adventures

Last night I went to bed late. Midnight to be precise. I was sort of ok with this, because 5 hours is the lowest amount of sleep I can get and still function semi decently. Emphasis on semi. Should I get 4 hours and 55 minutes, then it becomes semi indecently. Really, my mind just sort of implodes at that point.
Anyway, confident in a full five hours I pulled the covers up and started to drift off.
Mid-drift I heard growling, and snarling and thumping.
It came closer...
and closer...


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Without fail...

There is a phenomenon in my house that confounds me on a daily basis.  In fact, it is happening right at this very moment.
All three of my children were occupied, in separate parts of the house, everything was quiet and calm. I thought "Great! I have some ideas percolating in my mind, and I can get them out"
WRONG.

 I took my laptop into the kitchen and sat a the table, and sat down prepared to write.
The moment my finger touched the very first letter a giant fight broke out amongst the barbarians children. One wanted to do a Pokemon battle, the other one didn't. Apparently the one that didn't want to play promised yesterday that she would today.  This started a giant argument, and a third child got involved.
So now I am back to being referee, and talking to the upset child about why no one wants to play and suggesting ways that he might create an atmosphere that would be conducive to his siblings to want to play with him.

I am now clueless as to what it was I was going to write when I sat down.
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