Whole30 - Final Stretch - 2 Days Left

It took a LOT of willpower to sit back while my family pigged out on burgers, fries, and cupcakes for my husband's birthday.

I am almost done with my second Whole30 and for all the reasons I started it, I feel great. I feel like I have less stress, less cause for stress, and more control over my body, my mental health and my choices (both with food and otherwise). I wanted to feel like this, and I'm very happy I do. The only thing that makes me anxious is the possibility that when I'm done, I'll immediately go back to my old ways with food (I still crave junk food), which will end up erasing all this progress.

But I have a plan, and I'm feeling confident about it.

Only one indulgence a day (as small as a hershey kiss or as large as a cookie from Barnes n Noble, but only one...everything else I consume on said day has to be healthy and nourishing). Alcohol only on Fridays or Saturdays...even if I have a super stressful Tuesday, that's no excuse to crack open a bottle of wine. Every other meal/snack throughout the week should be nutritional.

I'm not gonna lie, I am very excited to reintroduce indulgences like a pastry or a glass of wine, and I'm feeling strong and confident that I'll be able to keep the indulgences in the parameters of the above plan. I'll also reintroduce sweeteners in my coffee/tea, because I really can't handle a cup of tea without honey or a coffee without a little bit of creamer. They'll be within reason and I think I can manage cravings otherwise even with a lightly sweetened English Breakfast tea at the book store.

Other benefits I've had from this Whole30...I've lost weight and inches. Maybe not as much as I did the last time I did Whole30, but I was breastfeeding then and weighed more when I started, both I think helped contribute to 10 pounds lost...this time it might be about half that much, but I'll report the total when I'm officially done on Monday morning.

It's nice to know I can come back to this "reset" every time I feel out of control. Now if only I could focus as much energy on other areas of my life (writing/jewelry)...I know I can, I just wish it was a consistent thing for me...like, my ideal life would be to have 10 extra hours per day so I could evenly split my time between family, work, writing and jewelry.  But sadly, that's not likely to happen.  If I could commit to allotting my time and making a habit of spending a little bit of my free time every day towards writing and building the jewelry shop, I'd feel accomplished. But it's so difficult to dedicate that kind of time every day. I've come to the conclusion that while my kids are young, I basically have to just stay up later than my husband and the girls, but when 10 PM rolls around and I have to decide between staying up an hour later than everyone to write or going to bed, bed usually wins out.

I'm going to boost my shop up again because it's easier for me to do jewelry related things with distractions than it is for me to write or edit.

Hoping this healthier mindset keeps me motivated and focused!

Need to Get Back on the Wagon

I haven't been doing any of my resolutions.  I haven't been writing, even though I set goals to get this book done by my birthday (March 3rd...probably won't happen now). I haven't been reading to my children. I haven't been making healthy choices (by any means, I am currently eating a lot of cheese curls and drinking a lot of red wine).  I haven't been meditating or thinking happy thoughts or being a happy person overall. I haven't been editing. I did order some blank aluminum bangle cuff bracelets that I'll stamp phrases on about liberal movements and then donate the proceeds.  Here's what I've got so far:

This is what democracy looks like

This is what feminism looks like 

This is what free speech looks like (NPR, AP, PBS)

No Roe, No Go (planned parenthood)

This Pussy Grabs Back (because this is hilarious and awesome)

Peer reviewed science > your opinion (environmental organizations)

Build Bridges, Not Walls

So hopefully I'll get those made and then listed sometime soon. The cuffs shipped today.  

Otherwise...what have I been doing? (Or have you been assuming I've been lazily avoiding all these things I want to do with my life?). 

I've been working. Working a lot. Two weeks ago I started working all day every day for a conference I had this past weekend. No appreciation for said work. No pat on the back. Just a whole lot of "we're all in the same boat". But did they pass on the thank yous? Nope. Then I had a big hefty newsletter to finish putting together (even though no one appreciates said newsletter either).

Anyways...tomorrow I'm going to a free Pikes Peak Writers Conference...it's a half day of awesomeness and I am going. Maybe I'll meet someone who thinks my writing ideas are awesome? Maybe I'll learn some amazing thing that helps me write more often, or get myself out there more, or get me an agent.  Maybe I'll meet agents.  Maybe it'll just give me a few moments of a day dedicated to what I want so badly to do (not joking, I even contemplating doing something illegal so I'd go to prison....where I'd have time to write. Seriously. But I have kids, so then I thought, not until they're older).  

And writing this post has reminded me why I want to do all these things and make myself feel more satisfied and more accomplished and less like I'm not neglecting all these things I want so badly to use my time for.  So I'm done with that shit. With feeling guilty for not working as many hours as the people I work with. I work full time hours and I am no longer doing more than that on a regular basis. I'm just not. And that's that. I will happily get my work done, but I deserve time to myself for my family and for my own personal interests.  And my job already gets more of my waking hours per week than my kids and my interests, so I'll no longer let it have more than that.  Regardless of what my coworkers do. I'm old enough to know how to separate work from home life. And I'm wise enough with years to know how very necessary it is. 

Or I'll implode. I'm tempted to block certain people from calling/texting during off hours.

I love my job, I really do. But I also want my life. And I don't want one to overlap the other. So it won't. From now on.

Time to watch some comedian's new show (husband's choice...ughh...can't win them all).

Healthy Choices are Hard

I lost steam SO fast this year. I did the guided meditations, still do them most days, but I lost my motivation to eat healthy. I have been reading more to my daughters, which is a win, and I've been writing almost every day (this is something I most want to do this year, I don't care if I gain 50 pounds, if I do it while writing every day, that's alright...I mean, it would kind of suck, but at least I'd have one thing to be proud of for myself). Okay, just to specify, if you're sitting there thinking "Gaining 50 lbs in a year shouldn't be something you get down on yourself for, it's what your image of your body is that matters most" then I call bullshit. Because if I gain 50 lbs in a year (without creating a baby in the process), it's not healthy...it's extremely unhealthy and will probably severely impact my overall quality of life...I don't want to make healthy choices to look good, I want to make healthy choices to FEEL good.

Okay, sorry for the tangent. 

So I'm taking every day as a new day...writing some short stories, writing as much as I can toward my current manuscript project, exercising a bunch more (5-6 days a week ..for 2 weeks, haha). Haven't listed a new item in my jewelry shop yet that will serve as my "proceeds go to a charity that will be in danger under new POTUS administration"...but I'm trying to come up with something that will look good as a piece of jewelry but will also serve the purpose of making a statement. Haven't had any worthwhile ideas yet, unfortunately.

I'm extremely tempted to subscribe to Publishers Weekly as my birthday present (March 3rd...so a little while from now). It's expensive (in my opinion)...but I feel like I'll enjoy it and it'll help me understand the publishing side of writing better.

These new resolutions have sort of masked the fact that since 2017 began, I've made myself extremely busy. Getting up super early to exercise, working all day, writing/reading/spending time with the family every night, working late on a couple of fun work projects, socializing. So today was a lazy day, a free day between two days off (tomorrow is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day). We were supposed to get snow but that didn't really happen...although it's coming down now that the sun has gone down and we'll miss the pretty part of freshly falling snow. Yesterday I went to Barnes n Noble and went for a run, then we had friends over. Tomorrow I'll clean the house, hopefully work out at the gym, and hopefully go to Barnes n Noble again. But I'm very happy I had today to do nothing. It has been a very long time. I wrote, read, and laid around lazily for 12 hours so far. Cleaned a little bit, but not enough to make me resent it.  Now I'm watching the Steelers with my husband. Gonna go make myself a drink. Probably go to bed early. One of those days I always wish for but rarely take advantage of...I'm the type that feels a major amount of guilt when I'm being lazy. I wouldn't let myself feel that way today.

So looking over everything, the real area I'm lacking is eating healthier. I suck at it. I drink too much and eat whatever I want all day long....damn it! I'm not overweight, but I'm gaining weight, and my running is slower. I also don't want to buy a new wardrobe because I keep busting out of the clothes I already own. Seriously...I discovered a hole in one of my favorite pairs of jeans yesterday (right below the crotch...it was worn away from my legs rubbing together...just the worst, right?)...then today in my other favorite pair of jeans, a pair that used to be loose, they are super tight AND the loop that connects to the buckle thing is ripping because my big belly is pulling it too tight. Damn it!! 

 

In summation, even though I'm doing good on MOST of my resolutions, this one is really in my face right now...gotta take it more seriously. 

As I sit here drinking a third beer.

Ugh...

Oh well, Go Steelers!

Scrivener for iOS is AMAZING

So I'm just now really taking advantage of Scrivener for iOS.  I bought it almost the second it became available even though at the time I was only using an ancient iPhone 4S (that’s a long story…I had an android Samsung Note 4 and a little after a year of usage, it started shutting off sporadically…then so frequently that I couldn’t use it anymore and had to beg friends and family to send me an old unused phone…my awesome friend Laina in PA mailed me her old iPhone).

Even on the small screen of the 4S, it was a great program.  A couple of months after the release, I splurged on an iPad Pro 9.7 inch (my husband was away and I was single parenting for 3 months…it was sort of my “thanks for doing all that” gift). Then our upgrade became available for the phones so I’m also using it on the iPhone SE (rose gold…it’s so cute and perfect and reliable and after all the issues with the phones over this past year, I am SO appreciative of all the things these amazingly smart devices can do).

On the iPad I started writing a new project for NaNoWriMo. Except I was still mostly still writing on the Windows OS (I also have a Microsoft Surface 3…I’ve got a disgusting addiction to technology)… I liked that I could still enter full screen mode on the Windows version of Scrivener.  Somehow, that helps me shut out every other digital distraction so much better.

Until recently, that is.  I was messing with my screen on the iPad version of Scrivener when I realized I could “zoom” in on my text.  My issue with the full screen mode in iOS was that the text was so tiny on my big iPad screen.  But zoomed in, and using the typewriter mode, and narrowing down the margins, and using my iPad smart keyboard, it’s like I can shut out distractions almost as easy as I do on the Windows version.

And the real thing I discovered recently and LOVE is the fact that when I tap on the word count, I can set an overall target word goal and a session target word goal. I’ve been telling myself I need to do 3 sessions a day of 250 words each in order to help maintain my progress and make this a better daily habit and this feature in Scrivener makes it a lot easier to visualize that progress, both overall and within each session.

I keep discovering all of these amazing things that Scrivener can do (on every version of it, haha…I’ve purchased all 3), and I keep falling more in love with it.

So yea, I highly encourage you to use Scrivener (they have a 30 day trial) if you like to write (at all) and also like to feel organized.

NaNoWriMo2016 - Day 5

I got to sleep in late this morning.  It's rare that I get up anywhere past 7:30 in the morning and today it was after 8, which is unheard of.  Not that I didn't wake up a few times beforehand...like in the middle of the night when our 6 year old came in the room complaining that she's afraid of ghosts (we made the mistake of letting her watch the new Ghostbusters movie with us last night...she went back to bed when I negotiated that she could keep her door open and our door open, in case she needed a quick getaway to a safe place in the event that a ghost showed up in her room) and at 6:45 this morning when our younger one came and crawled into bed with me for 10 minutes before I convinced her she needed more sleep (it worked, which is also very rare).

After breakfast (made by the newly returned husband) and a fun trip to stores to get unneeded things (like the ingredients to no-bake cookies, also made by the newly returned husband) (and the ingredients to cereal mix, made by me, currently in the oven)...we got home and had lunch, then I got my younger girl to bed for a nap and I went out to Barnes n Noble for 3.5 hours to catch up on my word count.

I got to 2,550 words and feel mostly satisfied with the quality of what I added to my story.  I'm still feeling like I have plenty of content and plenty of story line left to fill the pages.  And I like my idea...the female protagonist makes "memory movies" in the future...no one spends real time with anyone else...everything happens remotely with virtual reality...weddings, birthdays, anniversaries...and she creates them out of nothing but photos, video clips, and requests from her clients.  This way they can pretend they spent real time together with their new spouse or family celebrating a birthday, or friends celebrating a graduation, when really they only ever interact online.
Human population numbers are low, birthrate is low, etc. But for the most part, people are happy.  The female protagonist isn't though.  And the male protagonist wants everyone to be happy.  He wants to become the next president, and he probably will.  He wants to do a good job, fix the country's problems, etc.  The female and male protagonist get "matched" which means they're considered compatible by a system that reads and analyzes their user profiles, their online activity, etc.  They've both had unsuccessful matches in the past and are both pretty much sure the system is a joke, but they like each other, despite themselves.

She gets framed for doing something that's illegal in the future (lying online). Gets kicked offline.  He knows how dangerous it is to be offline and goes to look for her. Her best friend, the one who framed her to get her kicked offline, also comes to find her.  She tells her she's met communities offline that are full of loving, good, innocent and harmless people, they're repopulating the world and she didn't know another way to get them help.  She didn't want to put her friend in harms way, but knew she could influence the one person that could help these people.

Just realized I basically wrote another synopsis, which is basically the same as what I posted here a few days ago.  Oh well!

I love November (not sure if I'll be feeling the same way on day 15, haha).

And then you blink, and it's November

I'm committing myself again this year to participating in NaNoWriMo.  Fifty-thousand words in 30 days.  I have been outlining an idea for the past few weeks, an idea that surfaced over a year ago and now I feel the same unavoidable urge to get it out as I did with my first manuscript.  It's set in a future where people stop interacting in person and the human population keeps dropping.  It'll be set from the point of view of two people (man/woman).

I'm listening to the NaNoWriPod podcast and feeling very frustrated with myself for not staying up until midnight last night to write.  It never even crossed my mind, to be honest.  After trick-or-treating with the kids and trying to fit in some mind numbing TV time, which followed a full day of work and editing my WIP from several years ago (I've been sending queries out again and have already been getting those form letter rejections, trying not to take it personal again), I was just exhausted.  Actually, it's probably best I didn't stay up, since my 2 year old crawled in my bed at 1:45 AM for about 10 minutes before I forced myself to convince her that sleeping in her own bed would be better.  It actually worked...she stayed in her own bed the rest of the night, but that short middle of the night interruption is something I'm not used to now that both my kids sleep through the night.

In conclusion, for better or worse, here's to another month of committing my free time to writing! Good luck to anyone else starting this adventure today!!

I am keeping a food journal

I always feel more invested in things like this when I put it out there in the world...so here it is.  In 2008, I kept a food diary (on Calorie Count) and I lost more than 20 pounds.  I have had 2 kids since then and fluctuated way back up again and way back down again (with the help of the Whole30 diet...which I completed, though it was not easy and I'm very hesitant to try it again...one major reason is that I love alcohol and the thought of going 30 days without it again just seems ridiculous).

So with running (and training for) a marathon, I got into the habit of eating whatever I wanted.  And I may not have gained much weight through that (and ate A LOT), I definitely didn't lose any.  So now that I'm running less (only between 3 and 4.5 miles per run...but I've been running more often, almost daily)...I'm still eating a lot and feeling pretty down on myself.  I also drink too much...not for alcoholic type standards, but there are a lot of calories in wine, so having 2-3 glasses on any given night AND snacking regularly like I'm some kind of calorie burning queen is not a good combination for me, or my body.  I'm still at a healthy weight, but I suspect I'm at the high end of healthy...borderline overweight.

That's not who I identify as...and my clothes agree. So I started the food journal yesterday, this time with My Fitness Pal because I have a Garmin VivoActive HR and they play well together.  I ate over 2,500 calories (that's including the 2-3 glasses of wine) and then gave up tracking what I was eating.  But this morning, instead of feeling discouraged, I woke up feeling determined.  I've done this before.  I've done a million things harder than this.  Not to brag, but I've pumped (breastmilk) while driving...I've breastfed and pumped while at work for 2 full years of my life.  I've trained for and ran a half and full marathon.  I completed one Whole30 (which really felt as hard for me as my first two examples combined). I've written 2 full books, one during NaNoWriMo (not that I've been able to get either published, but still..).  I've definitely had a crapload of determination to accomplish goals that I've set my mind to...so I can absolutely watch what I eat, set a calorie deficit goal, and lose 5-10 pounds (15 would be ideal).  Right? Right??

Yea...so, I'm off to the base with my kids so I can run on a trail before getting some healthy food.  I'll try checking in again with my progress soon (of course, if you don't hear from me, that's probably not a good sign).

Tequila

The kids are playing with iPads (shut up, it's a Friday night), husband is watching the Celtics, and I'm drinking tequila...well, margaritas.  I'm now suspicious that every margarita I've ever ordered from any restaurant has basically been a mix of some lower shelf tequila and the standard margarita mix you can buy for $3 at any grocery store.  I'm not complaining, I'm just saying, those are some overpriced drinks.  I'm waiting for my kids to go to bed so I can eat the chocolate I have stashed upstairs in the cupboard.

I've been editing the manuscript I'm most emotionally attached to (I've got two...not that big of a deal, but two is a lot compared to where I was about 5 years ago) over the past couple of months and I'm feeling really good about it...this is my year, people...my 33rd year of life...I will polish up this thing and send it out and I will get an agent and I will sell this thing.  Oh god....wishful thinking is so amazing...and then heartbreaking...and then delusional.

A co-worker/friend offered to read it when I'm done editing it again (well, I sort of asked her to, what was she gonna say? No?).

What if I really do sell it?  It's a YA romance type with a love triangle...I love books like this so what if it really sells and people love it?  You know...my god...it would be everything I've ever wanted.  Well, not everything I've ever wanted.  There are some things I want that I can't ever have, but that's life.

I'm going to go ahead and shut this down now...the tequila is writing things now that I have no control over.

Good night.

Haha, and I just watched the end of Tropic Thunder and I still love Ludacris...I don't care how old I am and how many kids I have.

Wine, Friday, Nora Roberts, and 9 minutes until Dinner

I started listening to another Nora Roberts book on Audible a few days ago.  I don't know why, but every time I read/listen to one of her books I get this wildly intense desire to write.  Maybe it's because I love the way her stories make me feel (like a glass of wine and a slice of pizza are nothing to be ashamed of and I can still be beautiful and desirable while I consume them).  Either way, I'm literally drinking a glass of wine and listening to the book right now (Angels Fall).  It's good, but let's be honest, they're all sort of the same book with different names and settings (and I'm completely okay with that).

Also this week I've decided to stop giving a shit about what people think of me.  Also whether or not I have anything to worry about now that I'm working remotely.  What could I possibly accomplish, worrying all the time?  Nothing.  So who cares?  Why should I keep perpetuating the self-fulfilling prophecies?  If I keep asking myself why people might be upset with me, I'll come up with, or create reasons for them to be upset with me.  And if I keep worrying about things I have no control over, I'll only drive myself crazy and not gain anything in return.

So I'm going to start writing again, editing too.  Like crazy.  I turn 33 in a month, less than.  And I can't control what people think about my writing but if I want to do it, I should do it.

Dinner is in 3 minutes.

Chicken Enchiladas....the Stouffer's kind. Yum!!!

In a Rut

I was doing fine...staying up late and writing and/or editing nightly for over a week...then I had some recurrent shingles pain so I took a pain medication and the next day felt like I was afflicted with vertigo or something.  I felt nauseous and like my brain was swimming around in some kind of thick liquid, like I couldn't think clearly and felt swollen and noises echoed and I was dizzy and I had motion sickness all at once.  It was the worst kind of feeling, and it lasted into the next day so I took two nights away from staying up and dedicating time.  Then, worse, a negativity and insecurity settled in and I haven't been able to shake it since.  The questioning of myself, but worse this time, than normal.  The idea that I could ever write something like a readable, publishable, full-length novel...it's ridiculous.  It's like winning the lottery...so unlikely and so out of my reach.  What was I ever thinking?  All the work I've put in up to this point and for what?  Two books that I've already reread dozens of times and have never once thought "I think this is close"...I've never felt like my work has been anywhere near the realm of truly publishable.  It all feels a million miles away...a million hours of work away.  A million re-writes, a million re-reads...it's never going to happen.  Give up. Give up. Give up.  That's where I'm at so I have been avoiding it.

In other news, I'm flying to Phoenix on Wednesday for work and I couldn't be more excited.  To finally be the one to leave for a work commitment.  Makes me feel so much more than just a mother and wife...for once.  I mean, working itself is one thing, but flying to work is so much more legit...right? I also can't wait to see my co-workers...who(m?) I love.  I miss them so much.  I see them sometimes on Skype for staff meetings and random calls but it's so not even nearly in the same realm as working with them in the office.  This new arrangement is fine...I'm certainly more productive working at home with very few distractions, but as I suspected, I miss human interaction.  And I miss my friends from work.  I've moved from Pennsylvania to Louisiana, back to another part of Pennsylvania, then to Arizona, and each time I worked at new places and met new people, and each time I made friends I still keep in touch with.  And now I'm in Colorado and I'm afraid I won't meet anyone in this new city.  I'm not outgoing enough to join groups of any kinds or to find mommy and me type things (yuck).  There's a really good chance that I won't make any friends in Colorado Springs.  On a lot of levels I'm fine with that.  Especially right now, when it has only been a little over a month since I left AZ.  But in a year, I know I won't be okay with that anymore.  And for the 3.5 months that my husband leaves again I really won't be okay.  At all.  I can't even think about it.

So here's to traveling by yourself, something I can look forward to...not needing to answer to anyone on a plane or in an airport.  I can drink what I want, eat what I want, read what I want, watch what I want and I don't have to worry about any interruptions...It's the very rarest of pleasures for me (I've always said my favorite thing to do is to fly...the people watching ...the fact that there's literally nothing to do but what you brought with you ...browsing airport shops...taking your pick of the various variety of airport foods...and on the plane itself you get uninterrupted hours of leisure...it's the best...and I haven't flown anywhere by myself in ...over...2? years?...maybe more...and it's really one of my favorite things to do).

I leave the day after tomorrow.  I'll be gone for 5 days...I will very much miss my children and I hate that they will be missing me, but I'm not going to feel bad about looking forward to this trip.  Maybe I'll even find my way back to writing with all the alone time and people watching at the airport.

Writing and Time

My new year wasn't full of its regular resolutions.  I think I threw a few together in my drunken state some evening before the ball dropped but I haven't taken anything seriously in the week+ since 2016 made its appearance on all of our calendars.  So this morning, while laying in bed, trying to squeeze out a dozen more minutes of lazy half sleep, I realized that I'm not doing anything to dedicate time to what I really want to be doing with my life.  And now I have all the gadgets I could ever desire to facilitate that process and I'm still pretending I can just wait until another, less busy, time of my life.  But that's such a delusion.  So I've decided to put aside another chunk of daily time to dedicate to writing or the process or editing.  Any time throughout the day is almost impossible to set aside without inconsistency or other equally important priorities like exercise and children and work and doctor's appointments interrupting the schedule.  Right after the kids go to bed would take away a good chunk of real quality time with my spouse, so I had to sacrifice that possibility.  I'm more anti-morning person than anyone I know and would fight it and skip it regularly with excuses like "my kid woke me up for no reason at midnight"...so that leaves me with the one true time I have ever successfully managed to set aside for writing.  After 10 pm. But instead of the 2 hours I dedicated nightly back when I did NaNoWriMo in 2014, I'm going to set aside 1 hour and look at this as a permanent, year-long solution.  From 10 pm (or 10:15, depending on if my husband  miraculously stays awake for a whole movie) until 11 pm (or 11:15 pm, depending again on the husband, who is usually drooling with his head to the side in front of the TV by 9:30) every night, starting tonight, I will sit on this beautiful, convenient, reliable (knock on wood), Surface tablet and either edit my Earths Project manuscript or come up with a plan for a new book...or both.  And if I want to stay up later working, all the better.  All around I think this will leave me feeling more satisfied with my days and my choices with time.  I think it'll make me more mindful throughout the day, and it'll give me more motivation to research agents, edit my query letter, etc., during my daytime hours.

Today, I'm going to the Apple Store in CO Springs to see if they can please find it in their hearts to replace the screen on my beloved iPod Nano (mostly lightly used with no screen crackage of any kind but suddenly there's a bleed in the ink under the screen, which I'll live with if they don't replace, but it'll make me really, really sad).  If they say it's not covered under warranty, it could cost up to $100...which is just ridiculous.

Maybe I'll head over to Barnes n Noble after this trip for a little extra writing time...still staying up tonight for it though!

Super psyched about my new plan!!  Love feeling the resurgence of motivation!

So many things.

I don't know where to begin.  Single parenting is so hard.  That's the root of this thought but by no means the end of the story.  But there's so much I can't write here. So many things I have in my head that I can never put down onto paper or into words...I can't even say them out loud.  And the moral of this thought is that I want to write.  Not this post, not in my journal, I want to write for real. I want to be a writer, get published, write more, become compensated for my writing enough to justify that it's all I do.  It'd be the only version of my life that I could truly love.  I love my children and my job but when I shut my eyes, I can only see that yearning to do something more.  To contribute something more, not just to my family, but to everything.  This is all selfish but it's the only way I can make myself get through things that are too hard to see past otherwise.

My younger daughter was bullying another little girl at the daycare at the gym this morning.  I was only 3 miles into a very good run that was going to go on for at least another 2 miles when I got called down.  The thing that bothers me is she's not even 2 years old and she seemed totally happy and harmless when I came in...but they claimed they couldn't put another girl down without my daughter trying to tackle her.  So as soon as I stayed for more than 2 minutes, trying to figure out what to do, my daughter started crying to the point where I knew I couldn't just have a talk with her, put her down, and go back on my merry way.  So we left and came home and I had a good cry on the drive.

Of course, this self-pitying moment let my mind spin out of control until I was thinking the deepest, darkest reasons I have to be sad.  The things I can never write down.  And the only thing that pulled me out of the new, overwhelming despair I'd fallen into, was the thought that my life could be different if I could write.  If I can focus all my extra minutes, every moment I have that isn't consumed by jewelry, children, work, house, if I can really apply myself, then maybe I can pull myself out of this ongoing failure I feel.  I can gain some independence from some things.

Now I'm begging my older daughter to take her nap and threatening her by claiming I won't take her to the pool later, like we had planned, if she doesn't quiet down and fall asleep.  In a few minutes, I need to work on jewelry.  Hopefully that won't take too long because I'd like then to spend some time doing something to dedicate my every free minute to writing.  Writing here counts because I'm committing myself beyond just my own thoughts.

If nothing else, dedicating my time and efforts toward making this lifelong dream a reality always seems to make me feel better in the interim.  So there's always that.  It's good for my mental wellbeing.  Also, I've never felt more drive, more confidence about something being a possibility than I do about this.  So even when every other thought sounds like: "so many people have this same dream that try a thousand times harder and never make it a reality, why do you think you'll be any different?", the in between thoughts are so much the opposite that I know I can't just give up on this.

Time for jewelry.

I'm an emotional mess.

My 5 year old daughter and I were watching Disney short films this evening on Netflix and The Little Matchgirl came on...I must not have looked up until the very end when she was lighting her matches and seeing amazing things like food and a warm place to sleep.  Then she freezes to death and a nice old woman spirit (grandmother?) comes and carries her soul away....can you blame me for being emotional??

I spent the following 15 minutes trying to make my daughter understand how lucky she has it (in between choking sobs).  She didn't get it at all, which is good on the one hand, but also so depressing on the other.  I hope I didn't just scar her in some way.  I hope she'll be a little more cognizant of the fact that not everyone has the same opportunities as she does.  She's still so young...but she's well past the point that children living in poverty have already come to fully understand their situation.

Now I can't remember what I was planning to write about earlier this evening.  Oh...NaNoWriMo...that's a no go for me this year.  With work, jewelry, husband being gone, kids, house, moving in December....there was no way I'd be able to accomplish writing 50,000 words of a new novel without needing to be committed for some sort of mental breakdown by December 1.  I do have goals, however.  I'd like to really get a good chunk (if not all) of editing done on the Earths Project book I wrote a few years ago.  I've edited it two times already and it still needs an overhaul..but I still have confidence in the story and the characters and I've never given up on believing that it has potential.  So if I go through it again, maybe I'll be able to start querying agents again by 2016....then maybe (oh, please!!) I can get a book published when I'm 33....my favorite number is 3 (and it's more than just a preference, I really feel like luck happens for me when there's a 3 involved).

So now that I'm emotionally drained and can barely see through my contacts, I'll go pour a glass of wine and try some mindless TV watching.  Hopefully there's a new episode of The Affair available.

Good night..

Long weekends always go too fast

It's the worst, coming to the end of a long weekend.  This weekend was especially long and especially refreshing.  I'm just now starting to stress again about work and real life.  It's like we spent the past 3 and a half days in a family bubble.  No responsibilities other than exercising (which Steve and I are both into right now) and cleaning/making jewelry.  Plus, I got to spend real quality time with this new Macbook Air (I'm typing on it right now...it's wonderful).

I'm currently waiting for Steve to finish studying a chapter in his officer training book so that he can watch the girls while I go back to make 4 keychains and a bunch of necklaces.  The four year old is trying to cut a thick piece of cardboard with baby scissors and the 18 month old is trying to crawl up onto the table.  She's big into climbing now.  It sucks.

Friday I spent most of the day waiting around for the Macbook Air to get delivered.  Fedex didn't show up with it until almost 5:30 that evening so it was mostly a wasted day.  Saturday I took the girls to the gym then went to Barnes N Noble during naptime.  I wrote a lot that day, it was awesome.

Yesterday I went for a 7 mile run/walk and felt great afterward for pushing my limits so much.

Today I plan on finishing up this jewelry, then going to Barnes N Noble, then taking the kids to the gym with Steve and hopefully spending some time at the pool afterward.  For now, Steve's done with that chapter and is tagging in on parent duty.

Macbook Air

It finally happened.  Steve is going to Officer Training School (he calls it COT for some reason even though I thought it was OTS...must be a different name that I'm sure he's told me, I just can't remember).  Anyway, he needs to take a computer with him so he can study and pay bills and have a way to do homework while he's there so he decided we need a more reliable laptop for the family that he can use when he's gone.

So we're getting a Macbook Air.  It was ordered today.  I get to essentially call it mine from now until he goes to training in October, then again after the training is over.  I couldn't pass up the opportunity to write a post about it considering it's something I've wanted for years.  We got the most limited version but it doesn't matter to me, it's 11.6 inches, weighs less than 3 pounds, and has a long battery life.  It'll be perfect to take with me to Barnes N Noble, use at home, and it's bigger than the tablet I'm currently using, which is the 8" Asus VivoTab Note 8. I'd use this table as an actual tablet, which I rarely do now because I have it in a bluetooth keyboard case.  The Macbook is also reliable and fast and has been my dream computer for a very long time.  I'm so thrilled that we'll finally have one.  I'll be sad to have to relinquish it to him for two months, but it'll be great to have until he leaves.

Of course, I'll also be sad that he's leaving for two whole months while I stay home and keep working and watching the girls.  Thanksgiving will just be the three of us.  We're not positive his training starts in October, but he's friends with the woman that sets the class dates for the new selects, so it's likely.  Everything seems to be happening so fast.  I can't wrap my head around it.

I plan to talk to my boss to see if she'd consider continuing to employ me (even if it's just on a consulting basis) after I leave.  Most of the things I do can be done from anywhere, especially once I get our shared files off the server in the office and onto a cloud service.  And I started uploading everything to a trial version of Dropbox for Business and it's working great.  I've already uploaded more to Dropbox in 24 hours than I was able to upload to OneDrive for Business through over 4 weeks of working on it.

My other responsibilities include creating newsletters, an annual calendar, the annual report, and maintaining our websites and database.  It'd be beneficial for them too, to keep me on to get those things done throughout the year...they wouldn't have to rehire my position or try training other people to fulfill those roles.  It would be awesome for me too, not to have to find another job.  I worked remotely from Pennsylvania for a job I had in Louisiana and did so for over a year, but in that case the job was part time and I also worked a full time job in PA and went to school online, so I couldn't maintain all the things I was trying to do, especially once Jane was born.

I emailed my boss this week to see when we could meet to do my annual evaluation, so I'm hoping to talk to her about it then.  If she says no, I'll be disappointed and it'll be sad to have to give up this job, but I've got a lot of education and a good resume, and the possibility to live longer at our next base, which might make it easier to explain to my next employer why my resume keeps jumping from state to state.  These are the sacrifices I make for the sake of being a military spouse.

After Steve's COT or OTS or whatever it is, we will either be moving to our next base, where I'll stay for 4 months while he goes to Vandenberg, CA to train for his job, or we'll go to Vandenberg together and I'll live at the beach in California for 4 months with the girls and the dog while he finishes his training.  That wouldn't suck.  Worst case scenario is we go to the next base and he leaves me there alone for 4 months, but apparently that's pretty likely.  It sucks (for me...obviously the reasons will be different for him) because if I don't get to keep working for this job, I'll have the girls and no job and the challenge of not having anyone to watch them while I go for interviews.

Maybe I'll get my shit together and finish a book and get an agent and get a book deal.  That would be my dream scenario.  That's always my dream scenario though, no matter what's happening in real life.

Time to get my butt back to editing.

Journaling

I started this evening being stressed about work so since Steve is away for a few nights I decided to write in my journal.  Over the past few entries, I've been writing what I like to call poems.  The last blog post was one of them.  It's my way of getting through the rest of the journal before it falls apart, literally.  Years ago I'd write 2 or 3 journals a year.  This one I've had for about 3 years.  It's tough, having two kids, a full time job, a jewelry business and the everlasting desire to write fiction rather than keeping up handwritten daily thoughts.  I've still got a lot of blank pages to fill but I ended up spending the past two hours of my evening reading every entry I'd written over the past year and a half.  

Things were pretty great for me and my family, aside from the stressors of work and jewelry.  I feel like I've reset my current stress levels...looking back on all the things that I've juggled since being pregnant with my second daughter. I've managed a lot of things at once and it makes my current issues seem silly in comparison.  

Now that it's after 9, I'm feeling ready for bed, but I don't want this evening to end yet.  I want to keep going with this self-reflection.  There never seems to be enough energy left for these moments.  The moments that I have the motivation and desire to pick up where I've left off in the writing.  My mind gets all scattered after the kids go to bed and the day is so close to an end.  Every day whirls by...like I'm trying to get through a hurricane in one piece.  And I usually just give in to the exhaustion.  It doesn't help that my dog has already called it a day and is in his bed in our bedroom.  Makes me crave sleep that much more.  If Steve were home I wouldn't have dedicated this much time to reading my journal, writing a bit, then coming on to blog about it.  We'd have watched an episode or two of television and I'd be going to bed now after a short-lived mental battle that I almost always inevitably lose (or win, depending on how you look at it).  That's my life right now.

And I have to say.. this whole deal with only needing one space after a period at the end of a sentence is going to be a really challenging obstacle for me.  I am mentally programmed to put two spaces after a period.  When I don't, my mind stops putting words on the keys.  

Got a little off track there...but now you see what I mean about exhaustion getting the best of me. 

So this is my life right now.  Maybe things will get easier, but I suspect they won't.  I've been able to set aside writing time through all of it, so I just need to keep doing what I can...maybe someday things won't be so hectic.  Or maybe someday all this hard work will pay off and I'll be able to focus more time on writing because of some awesome turn of luck (like getting an agent, then selling a book...).  

Wishful thinking keeps me motivated the best.  And it's all under my control.  Whether I go to bed early each night or stay up and edit or write...that's all up to me.  I try not to be too hard on myself but if I can spend a month staying up to write 50,000 words during the busiest jewelry time of the year and still manage work and family time, I know I can keep focusing more time towards this thing that I love so much.  I just have to make it more of a habit again.  Why are good habits so difficult to maintain when bad habits come so naturally?  Like eating bad or scrolling through Facebook when I should be cleaning or doing something more meaningful with my time?  

I will go edit now.  I'll make more of an effort now.

Facebook is evil

I really have a love/hate relationship with Facebook, minus the love half.  So many countless times in the mornings and evenings, and basically any other free moment of my day (getting gas, waiting for pizza, waiting in any line), I have found myself on facebook feeling disgusted by myself, by people in general, or just displeased with my overabuse of it.

It does sometimes make me laugh, yes....and it is my last strong link with people I no longer get to see regularly but still want to have in my life (especially considering I'm in a military family so there is a huge benefit to having a way to keep in touch and to keep my family and friends involved in our life).   But I seriously fucking hate it.  I hate that when I pick up my phone, it's the first app I open.  I hate that sometimes when I close out of it in search of something more fulfilling or substantial, I mindlessly find myself going back into it minutes later.  I hate that, more often than not, I'm annoyed or repulsed by the things I see people posting in it.  And for whatever reason, I keep going back.  It really feels like a sick addiction sometimes.

Maybe I really need to draw some lines for myself.  I feel like there has to be a healthy balance between keeping a link with friends and family while not feeling crazy every time I need to peel myself away from it.

Maybe I'll benefit from hiding the people that I really don't talk to anymore and never really talked to and plan to never talk to again.  Like cleaning my closet...clothes I haven't worn in forever and plan to never wear again get donated....I should do this soon.  It might help.  It might not leave much left in my news feed, but maybe that's another benefit to cleaning up.

As for tonight...Steve stopped and got me a coffee after Jane's soccer practice...I wanted it to keep me from falling asleep so early...I don't need over 8 hours of sleep every night...I need to feel like I'm not a huge failure in accomplishing the things I really feel passionate about, and in order to find time for those things, I need to create time for them.  And like in November I've found that, for now, the only time I can spare are these hours past 9 when everyone in my house (including me if I didn't have coffee) is ready for bed.  So hopefully after I finish up this rambling about nothing important, I can muster up my motivation and creativity and finish this short story before the end of March.

Wish me luck!

Busy Saturday

Jane woke up today at 5:30 am.  Steve got up shortly after and they sat on the couch reading or something, I don't know exactly because I tried my hardest to stay asleep, but only succeeded in another half an hour of broken up rest.  Around 8:30 I took Abby out for a run in the jogging stroller, which I'm proud of because I slept so little and drank a few glasses of wine last night.  The run was slow but I did a full 5K, so I'm fine with it.  Then we took Jane to her second soccer game ever and she did so much better this week.  We rewarded her (and me) with McDonalds.  Now I'm at Barnes N Noble attempting to write more of my story before March is over and cringing as I type this because of a cut that won't heal on my index finger:

There's no worse place for a deep cut.  I got it at work on Thursday and it keeps opening up and bleeding again every time I do something without remembering that my finger hurts.  

In about 30 minutes I'm going to drive into Phoenix to meet my friend Christine at a frozen yogurt place by my office.  I've eaten there before a couple of times with coworkers so I'm hoping I can find it without GPS...I'll probably still get lost.  I wish I had better directional skills.  I have none, to be honest.  If anything, I have a compass that's constantly flipping around and making me think I'm going the right way when I'm always turned in the wrong direction.  Whenever I move somewhere new I eventually learn enough of the streets to make my deficiency manageable, then we move again. 

I should stop torturing my finger on this blog post and finish up a little more of the story before I have to go.

Today (edited to add: up to this point) was a really great day.

I should really knock on wood (I just did, for real), because I don't want some catastrophic thing to happen after I submit this post considering it's only 6:15 and both my kids are still up and I'm leaving to get pizza soon.  I guess I should say today up to this point has been a really great day.  Okay, I got really superstitious and changed the title of this post.  Whatever.

So the day started out early, like always, but it was shortly followed by pancakes, which is awesome.  They were funfetti.  I ran to Walmart (which was mostly empty at 8 am...the only way I can stand that place) to get a new tire for one of our jogging strollers...the single capacity one...then fixed the dead tire and we all piled into the car to go to Jane's first ever soccer game.  As a four year old with no experience in a team activity, she kind of sucked, but it was a lot of fun watching and getting to use our fancy camera to capture the event.  There was a lot of placating to get her through the whole thing without too many tantrums but all-in-all I think she enjoyed it and it was a good experience for her.  Abby had a great time too.

Naptime came next (yay! I always feel a little bad when I express my true feelings about naptime, but I know I'm not the only one who thinks kids were biologically inclined to nap in order to sustain the human race, because without naps, I think a lot of parents would go insane).  I went to Barnes N Noble and drank an iced coffee, read some of my Earths Project book and jotted down notes on it (why it sucked, then why it wasn't so sucky), then I wrote some of a short story I started after that one blog post a couple weeks ago...it's going well.  I even re-read a chapter of the book I wrote last year during NaNoWriMo and felt really proud of it...which made me feel a little less like I'm wasting my time (always an underlying fear I have about this thing I do).

I got home and played with my kiddos, then took Abby out in the jogging stroller that I fixed this morning...we did a slow 5K and I took a cool shower after (so refreshing).  Now I'm drinking a glass of wine and getting ready to leave to get the pizza.  So that brings us up to speed...great day so far, right?

Hopefully everyone stays injury and illness free for the rest of the evening so I can feel a little less superstitious about stuff.

Such a clean house

I didn't do very much cleaning last weekend, obviously...then I had off two days this week and took of a third...didn't do any cleaning then either.  Whatever.  So today, my house was gross.  Disgustingly gross.  And now it's so clean.  I feel bad for my younger daughter on days like this because she usually gets neglected and strapped into a high chair for as long as I can keep her occupied with snacks and iPads and empty paper towel rolls.  But I was able to mop, vacuum, clean toilets, clean bathroom sinks, dust, sweep off the back porch, make jewelry, feed kids lunch, all before 3 o'clock.  Sadly, the kids' naps are almost over, so I'm sure the house will look like a disaster again in about ten minutes.

They're up now and we're home from going to one of those huge local furniture stores (not IKEA, unfortunately).

I could probably go to sleep right now.  Finishing up some jewelry, then writing a little and taking the dog for a walk...then the weekend is over.  Bummer.

Oh, and I got a Kerastraight Ultimate treatment done to my hair on Friday.  Waiting for the shampoo and conditioner to get here in the mail tomorrow before I make a definite opinion about it one way or the other.

Man, I'm boring today.