Articles

Keeping Time

“Watch” Me!

A friend and I were recently chatting about time, and being on time (or not), and we segued into the subject of wrist watches. Said friend is like my husband – which I tend to refer to as “time-fluid”. I am far more “time-strict” naturally, though I’ve chosen to become more fluid to avoid the stress that comes with trying to convince a time-fluid person that being late is actually a thing that should matter more than it does to them.

In the grand scheme of things, I decided it wasn’t worth fighting over, so while I’ll never be “comfortable” with it, I have gotten used to not worrying so much about when I get where. Though I can assure you if left to my own devices, I am generally a fairly prompt person overall.

I attribute this to my dad, who bought me my first watch around the time I went to first grade or so. It was plastic with a cloth red, white and blue band, and large numbers so I could learn to tell time, and it needed to be wound once per day. This was in the days before cell phones, of course, and I was expected to be in certain places (like home or school) at particular times, so learning to tell time and knowing what time it is was an important part of that.

There was a big hulabaloo, of course, when I wanted to wear my watch on my right wrist. My dad explained to me that right-handed people wear their watch on their left wrist, and vice versa, so they can look at the time more easily while writing and doing other tasks. Which didn’t make sense to me, because my eyes were already on my right hand – why not have my watch right there on my right wrist?

Needless to say, I still wear my watch on my right wrist to this day, and occasionally someone will ask if I’m left-handed. Funny how ingrained some things are in our society, isn’t it?

In any case, I developed an affinity for watches, and have worn one pretty much non-stop ever since. Before smartwatches, I used to get a new watch every year or two, and often several so I’d have both fun and more professional looking timepieces. Some of my favorites were a Pepe le peux watch, and the Timex Indiglo line (seriously – a light up watch in a movie theater or concert? It was revolutionary at the time.). I have one that’s solar powered too, which works great when I’m on vacation in Florida. Not so much here in the north, especially in deep winter when our days are very short.

I’ve carried pocket watches, and pendent watches as well. I have a decent collection of favorites that I’ve saved over the years, and I have a giant Smurf watch hanging on the wall of my dining room (yes, it still works).

My daily watch now is a Galaxy Watch 6, which is for time keeping, of course, but also for message notifications, task reminders, workout tracking, timing tea and aquarium water tests, and a calculator which is surprisingly handy and easier than expected to use on such a small screen. This watch is probably capable of more than my first computer was, which is kind of mind-blowing when you think about it.

Do you wear a watch, smart or otherwise? Is it for punctuality, or just notifications?

Writing News

I’ve been involved with a couple of work projects lately that pretty much leave me completely drained by the time I get home. Between that and still dealing with some pain, I haven’t felt comfortable dictating while driving (though I’m feeling quite a bit better this week, so we’ll see). I did do some plotting and planning, and I think I finally nailed down the story line for Alex’s next DBV story, so all was not lost last week, but I’m sincerely hoping I can make some actual “getting words down on paper” type progress instead this week.

Recommendation(s)

The last season of Disenchantment is on Netflix now, and we finished it this past weekend. If you’re looking for a light, funny, upended fairy tale in cartoon form, check it out. I thought it was great, though honestly, the first few seasons were the best (as usual).

That’s it for this week! If you have a favorite thing to share, or want to recommend a book, TV show, video or podcast, comment below, email me at jamie@jamiedebree.com, or catch up with me on Facebook or Instagram.


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Reader on the Sidewalk

My local bookstore is just a couple blocks away from my day job. It’s moving in a couple of weeks, so soon to be a few more blocks away, but still in walking distance. I work downtown, so there are lots of local shops in a relatively small radius that I like to frequent on my breaks when I can.

The bookstore has a rolling shelf of free books that they put outside on nice days, and anyone can come take whatever they want off the cart. I’ve nabbed a few good books from there myself, and it seems like an excellent way to thin the non-selling stock and give to the community at the same time.

Our homeless population tends to mill around the downtown area, and one man in particular has stood out to me in recent months. He’s older and has a walker that doubles as his chair. I’d seen him around before, but the thing that caught my attention recently is that after our bookstore started putting out the cart of free books…I now rarely see him without a book in hand. He sits in the same spot day after day just a few shops down from the bookstore, smoking cigarettes and reading. Always reading.

He’s never really had that “listless” look about him that some homeless people have – he’s always struck me as someone who probably has some interesting tales to tell. And to see him devouring books so voraciously, spending his days just sitting there reading…I find myself envious in a way. Not that I’d ever willingly give up warmth or showers or a cozy couch, but if I did find myself with nearly nothing at some point in my life, I’d be happy to at least have access to books.

He does seem content, and when the bookstore moves, I hope he’s able to find his way to the new space for more books when he’s ready.

I often wonder what his story is, but rather than ask, I prefer to speculate. The inkling of an idea has sprouted in my mind, and every time I pass him, it grows just a tiny bit more.

I think he may be showing up in one of my stories (or maybe more) someday soon.


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Hitting Reset

It’s been a few weeks, hasn’t it? Things have been a bit crazy, to put it mildly. A quick run-down, for anyone who doesn’t follow me on social media:

– Got my second covid shot and immediately got a norovirus the same day, so that was super-fun. I was sick for a week, couldn’t eat for a good 24 hours, and couldn’t eat anything substantial for the next five days after. Good times. Bonus: I have no idea if I had side-effects from the shot or not.

– My dishwasher broke, and is still broken. I finally got an appointment to have someone look at it…Tuesday. Have I mentioned I hate, hate, hate doing dishes by hand?

– I broke my 100 daily words for 100 days streak when I was sick, and with the dishwasher being broke, I haven’t picked it back up because my writing time is late at night after the kitchen is clean, and the kitchen takes me twice as long as it used to now.

– I got my hair cut for the first time in a year, and that was a far better experience than I’d hoped for. I like the new stylist, she was very thoughtful and careful with how she cut my hair given my grow-out goals, and I can let it grow for the next six months now and it should grow out very nicely.

So. Lots going on. Ironically, I feel a lot better overall since the norovirus/full-body-purge…some other health issues I was having seem to have magically gone away/fixed themselves since, which is actually pretty awesome. So much so that I’m considering doing a planned 24 hour fast every so often, just to sort of “reset” my physical systems. Gotta do a little reading up first, but it seems like it might be a good idea. Anything that keeps my body running smoother as I get older is on the table, as far as I’m concerned.

I am getting somewhat faster at doing the dishes (and eating out an extra night or two per week), and my writing issue is more of a “pouting” issue, so there’s really no reason I can’t sit down and whip out 100 words and still get to bed on time, other than attitude. So, I need to give myself a stern talking-to, and get my butt back to writing. I have a very nifty new planner that’s basically just habit tracking for writers, and it actually makes me want to write so I have something to record daily. Whatever works, right?

As for my hair…I’ve got some new routines forming due to both the longer length and the silver growing out. I watch YouTubers who are growing out their gray hair too (judge all you want – everyone likes company when embarking on a new adventure), and one of them mentioned that something she wished she knew before growing her gray out was that makeup will get in your white hair, and you can *see* it (because…white), and you can’t get it out. So you have to put your hair back when you’re doing your makeup, which is something that never crossed my mind, but makes total sense to me. So I’m changing up my routine since I do already have a lot of white right up near my face. I used to shower, then do my hair, then do my makeup (and my hair would often get in the way, because it’s “poofy” when I blow it out). I’m switching it up, and after a shower, wrapping my hair in a hair towel (women and long-haired men, have you discovered hair towels yet? If not, do!), go do my makeup and get dressed, and then do my hair last. Voila! No makeup in my white hair. It’s the little things…

Also, the new cut has taken away the worst of the “flips” at the end of my layers that forced me to take a shower and wash my hair daily for work, so I could tame those silly flips with the blow dryer. Now, I find that my hair just flattens out a bit on the second day after a shower, so I can skip the shower and hair wash every other day, which is far better for my scalp, my hair *and* my skin! Huzzah! I celebrated by ordering a flat iron and a heat-resistant mat for the bathroom counter, so on days I don’t need to shower, I can either straighten or curl my hair (or leave it alone) as I feel like it. It’s a new era, which is awesome, and exactly what I was hoping for. So yay!

In other news, we’re back to yardwork again, and I tell you what – nothing gets those muscles screaming again like shoveling a bunch of wheelbarrows and buckets of dirt to fill garden beds and pots. I am *sore* today, I tell you what. But we got a bunch of tomatoes planted this past Saturday, and I moved my hardy geranium into the brick planter in the front of our house. It’s a start.

In any case, things are slowly getting back on track *again* (though the to-do list is longer than ever), and with any luck, they’ll stay that way for awhile this time. One can only hope, eh?


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On Loss, Remembrance, and Renewal

Last Wednesday, we said goodbye to the Murphy-dog. I’m still not one-hundred percent sure what happened, because he was doing better, and then just sort of crashed, but due to several other health issues he’s been dealing with, we opted not to treat this time, and instead had him euthanized. Thanks to our amazing veterinary team, it was quick, peaceful, and I was able to be with the Murph right up to the end, even with pandemic precautions still in place.

Murphy was one of the best dogs we’ve ever had, bar none. Sweet, kind, independent, stubborn, smart, lazy, loud and seriously goofy. There will never be another quite like him, and I’m so glad we got to have him in our lives for the last five or six years.

As we all do, I deal with the grief and letting go in my own way. The day of is the hardest, and the next few days after a mixture of loss and guilt and second-guessing. Distractions are welcome from that point on, so things can be dealt with in small bites rather than big gulps. As I move through the next few weeks, I’ll remember the small moments as I move through my days, a sort of ongoing tribute as time passes. And much like Murphy’s head prints in the snowbank outside my back door (he loved to go out and rub his face in the snow, which always made me laugh), the pain will gradually fade and the memories will make me smile when some small, everyday thing brings them to mind.

After awhile, when you’ve lived and loved enough, this sort of ongoing random tribute happens a lot. I’ve said goodbye to seven dogs now, and I still remember each of them often, for specific things they liked and did and disliked. They are each always with me in spirit. I love that.

For now, it’s just Athena here with us, and she’s dealing with the loss in her own way. The happy howling is on hold (I miss that!), and she’s quiet, unsure. But like the rest of us, she’ll get through this, and soon enough, she’ll have a new friend to bond to and play with. Sometimes it takes awhile to find the right fit, but we’ll start looking this week.

Life will go on, as it always does. Happiness will prevail, as it always should.

We will make sure it does.

Rest well, my big, gentle goof.

Re-calibrating

While a good portion of my Facebook friend list has been baking their way through this pandemic thing (something my waistline really can’t afford), I’ve been doing the Animal Crossing New Horizons (ACNH) thing, which is fun, relaxing, and easy on the blood sugar. But…hiding in video games comes at a cost too, and as in all things, there comes a time when healthy boundaries become necessary. While I may not be gaining weight, I am dealing with neck soreness, pinched nerves in my back, and eye strain that’s threatening to become more serious if I don’t get away from the screen more often.

That’s not to say I’m giving up ACNH. Not at all – I love the game. But it’s time to re-calibrate and start moving forward again.

I’ve started writing again, which is one of the most important things. A few sentences at a time, longhand, but whatever works is what I’ll do. The weather is getting nicer, so I’m getting out to walk the dogs instead of sitting on the couch all evening (good for my neck/nerves, and also for my eyes if it’s not windy). I dyed my hair, because after waffling for a few days about whether to do so or just let it go natural since I can’t get it cut, I’m just vain enough to not be ready for the salt & pepper look yet.

I trimmed my bangs up out of my eyes – I’ve always had bangs, because I have a high forehead and can’t stand not having it at least partially covered. So that’s not a drastic change for me, it’s just general maintenance, no matter what length my hair is.

I changed my earrings (the clovers were a bit “over”), did curbside pickup for my comic book pull list, and created some new routines based on my projections of “life going forward”. I realize I have that luxury because my job is the same as it always has been, and I’ve been working all along, so my life really hasn’t been impacted nearly as much as others have been.

I do see less people now, but honestly? That really doesn’t bother me. I see my husband, of course, and the two people I work most closely with at the office. Other than that, I see a few random strangers that I automatically give space to like normal (I have a huge personal space bubble, pandemic or no), I still walk the dogs late to avoid all the people walking dogs earlier (normal), and I talk to my mom on the phone once a week or so (I’m not a “visit/talk to mom all the time” kind of daughter – I need my space). I have no issue with being home in the evenings, and not having anywhere to go. That’s my preference by default, so…I feel for the people who are itching to get out and do stuff, but I’m not that person. I’m perfectly happy with this state of being. If I didn’t want to pick out my own produce, and the dogs didn’t love going for a weekly ride so much, I’d have my groceries delivered too and see even less people.

Alas, it’s good for me to interact with strangers in person at least once a week, because the biggest issue I have with this whole staying home thing is getting “too” comfortable. I have to force myself to be social on normal days, and I have to keep interacting with people at a certain level regularly in order to be comfortable with it. So being “allowed” to not be social is a bit dangerous, in that the longer I get to do that, the more uncomfortable I’m going to be the next time I have to be around more than one or two people, in person, again. That will actually be far more stressful for me than staying home and keeping to myself. Not due to fear of a virus, but simply the stress of social interaction. So that bit of re-calibration is going the wrong way, but…it can’t be helped at the moment.

Next week, we’ll get back to the new blog format again. I haven’t been taking many pictures, and honestly, I’ve just been playing too much and being lazy about things. But I’m working my way into a “new normal”, with new, more productive routines, so…stay tuned!


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Barriers, Sore Muscles, & Reflections at 45

This past weekend, the hubby and I installed a wire barrier in the Subaru between the back seat and the hatchback. Normally people do this to keep their dogs in the hatch, but my dogs ride in the backseat (I mean, that’s where the windows are, right?).

The thing is, just before Christmas, Athena-dog decided to eat a chocolate cookie while we were out grocery shopping. She climbed over the back seat and into the hatch to get to it while we were inside our last grocery store of the day.

Then the next week, I put most everything into a zip-top cooler, but left my bags from the bread store out (because it’s bread…not much of an enticing smell, or so you’d think). she ate an entire package of english muffins that day.

The week after that, I put everything into a sturdy zipper thermo-bag, and when I came out of the last store, I found a burly, tattooed guy in a big red truck towing a compressor sitting there in the parking lot, laughing at Athena as she ate her way through the top third of a beef liver container (it was half-frozen, thank goodness). He had a great time, she had a great time, and the dogs had slightly less liver in the batch of food I made that week.

So, we installed a barrier to keep the groceries safe from my little perpetually-hungry boxer. And it works great! The groceries are safe, Athena-dog only pouted a little bit, and I don’t have to worry about catching a dog before she can run as I open the hatch to put more groceries in. Win-win for me!

However. I am so, so very out of shape – something I didn’t realize until the day after kneeling/squatting in the back of the car for 30 minutes to install that wonderful piece of equipment. I tell you what – my butt, the backs of my thighs and my inner thighs were all in *so much pain*, they were just burning up. Walking hurt, sitting hurt, standing hurt…I haven’t been in that much pain in a long, long time. Even my back and knees got in on the “let’s remind Jamie she’s not getting any younger” bandwagon.

Ouch.

Yesterday was only slightly better. I did yoga, but it was the slowest I’ve ever done, and it hurt like hell stretching those poor, sore mustles out enough so I could make it back up the stairs. I tried not to sit for too long of time periods at work, but my inner thighs (abductors? Adductors? I can’t remember) are still painfully sore and hurt whenever I sit down or stand up. Or walk, to an extent.

My back, ankles and knees still aren’t happy either. Part of the back/shoulder/neck issues is all the crocheting I’ve been doing to get that shawl done…but I should be able to do that without hurting. And I would be, if I were staying in shape in the first place. *sigh*

I used to recover from such things far more quickly, but alas, I think I still have a day or two to go until I can comfortably sit down/stand up. It was a stark reminder of how out-of-shape I’ve allowed myself to get, and also how much longer it takes to recover now that I’m right at my mid-forties.

Yes, I turn 45 on Friday, and I know people in their 60’s who are in better shape than I am. So…I really need to do something about that, especially since we’re headed back to Universal Studios and Disney World in Orlando this coming fall. I see new, more intense workouts in my immediate future. You know. After it doesn’t hurt to move again.

I’ve been thinking a lot as I approach what is probably close to the midpoint of my life, about the life I’ve lived so far, and the choices I’ve made. I don’t regret anything, really – I’ve found regrets are pointless for the most part. I do wish I could believe in reincarnation or some such philosphy of infinite do-overs. Not because I think I *should* have done things differently, but I so wish life could be like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure novels. I think it would be fun to be able to go through life, making the choices you make, and then at the end, be able to start over again from the beginning and make just a few different choices, to see what that life is like, and then do it over again to see what *that* reality is like…don’t you think that would be fascinating, especially if you could remember it all?

I like the life I’ve built, but I’m also constantly wondering “what if?”, and I think it would be fun to be able to explore all of those possibilities. Alas, it’s not to be, but perhaps that’s why I’m a writer, eh? To explore all sorts of different lives without getting into too much trouble, hurting too many people, or getting thrown into prison (*ahem*).

What’s one choice you made a long time ago that you’d like to know how it would have turned out if you’d chosen differently? Or do you already know how it would have turned out, and would just like to go back and…do that, for the experience? Inquiring minds…


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Not Right Now

I talk (whine, whatever) a lot here about things I want and can’t have. The list is actually a pretty short one – fewer than five items, really. But what keeps me from those things is a pretty short list too, and my own name is at the top of that list.

I hate it when people say things like:

  • You are your own worst enemy
  • If you want it bad enough, you’ll make it happen
  • If you’re not getting what you want, your priorities need to change

I hate it mostly because it’s all true. The reasons I don’t have the things on my “short list” are mainly self-imposed restrictions and rules that I’m hell-bent on following mainly because I feel that’s the “right thing to do”. Priorities that I could change, but won’t. And obviously I don’t want any of those short-listed items enough to “make them happen”. The personal cost is too high, or so I perceive it to be.

Some days, I really wish I were that person. That I could just change my priorities, drop everything holding me back or slowing me down, and run get the things I want with wild abandon. But I’m not, and I can’t. So I struggle with things daily, trying to make room in an already full life for just one or three more things that will not fit, no matter how badly I want them to.

This mostly ends up with me feeling defeated and beat-down, resigned to leaving those things on the short list unresolved. I’m tired of trying to shoehorn things in where they don’t fit, fighting all the external things that seem to be actively fighting against my best efforts, and the only thing that keeps me going is one minuscule sliver of hope:

What if these things are meant to happen in the future, instead of “right now”?

Looking back, there are a lot of things in my life I’ve had to wait a lot longer for than I’d have liked. Some of them I even gave up on while I was waiting, resigning myself to the fact that they were never going to happen, and learning to be okay with that. When they finally did, I could see why I needed to wait, how the base was being established during that time period, and how things fell into place how, and more importantly, when, they were supposed to. Like fate, or karma, or magic, or whatever you want to call it. They couldn’t be forced. They had to happen organically, in their time, not mine.

There are a lot of things I’ve wanted and never gotten too, of course. And that’s just life – often for the better (though not always). But maybe I just need to stop trying to force my short list to happen, and resign myself to the fact that if an when those things are supposed to do something, they will. Until then, I need to be patient, and work at building the foundations that need to be in place first. Having a good foundation never hurts, even if nothing is ever built on top.

It’s so annoyingly slow though. Decades, in some cases. *sigh*

I guess only time will tell. Patience is, indeed, a virtue, I suppose.


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On With the Crisis…Off With Her Head!

Tuesdays really seem to work better for this weekly post than Mondays for me (oddly enough), so…weekly posts will now always be on Tuesdays. Until they’re not. Because…life.

Also, if you missed last week’s post, this one may not make much sense. We’re talking about mid-life crises this month. You can catch up with this post, and then come back. Or just jump in and read on, you adventurous soul, you…

Now, where did we leave off last week? Oh right. Existential questions like whether I’m beige or not, whether I married the right guy or not, and whether or not I was living the life I was meant to live, or if I’d picked the “wrong things” altogether, and completely missed my “calling” in life, dooming me to be miserable for the rest of it if I don’t drop everything, do a 180-degree turn and start all over again.

I know, I know. Dramatic, much? But that’s how it feels to go through this sort of thing – or that’s how it felt for me. I suddenly understood why people just up and walk away from everything they have, even if it’s good, to start over and build a new life from the ground up. I understood why people buy sports cars, and maybe go clubbing, flirting with not-their-spouses and generally behaving like teenagers in adult bodies.

Luckily for me, I generally tend to err on the conservative/responsible side of things (always have, even when I was a teen), so while I did have some major mental gymnastics going on, I managed to keep the collateral damage to a minimum. Not that I didn’t entertain leaving my life behind and starting over, mind you. I don’t like admitting that, because I love my husband and we have a good life together, and I’d never leave my dogs no matter what.

There was an inciting incident, of course…I can pinpoint the exact second it started. I’m not going to share that, because…well, while it seems like I share all my innermost thoughts here, there are still certain things I keep close to the vest. Let’s just say that this incident led to a lot of…feeling like I’d made a wrong decision somewhere, and that I might be missing out. And if I did that with one thing, how many other things would that decision have affected?

Needless to say, I spent years (yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I do mean years) trying to deal with these feelings of wanting things I didn’t have, but not wanting to give up what I did have to get them, and going back and forth, back and forth trying to figure out how I could literally “have it all” without losing anything I already had.

Newsflash, ladies: If you haven’t yet figured out that our moms were wrong, this is when it happens. We actually *can’t* have it all – not without hurting people we love. We have to make a choice. Often it’s the same choice or set of choices we had years ago, but this is when we revisit those choices and decide whether to start over or not. It’s crazy-making, and I tell you what – I had lots of mental temper-tantrums (and some verbal too, when I was by myself, or ranting via email to my bestest buddy). It was horrible. Like a big, ugly, take-the-whole-chalkboard math problem that was completely unsolvable, but I stil had to try.

And I had to try to act and interact with other people as normally as possible while the mid-life crisis was doing it’s best to ruin my life. Which isn’t easy, especially when you have to focus on interacting “normally” to begin with.

In the middle of all of this, when I already felt like I was losing my mind, my boss announced he was retiring. Quite a few people thought I should apply for the job, and I thought about it for months, going over the pros and cons, and running it through the same mid-life metrics that had been running through my head for at least a couple years by then. Is that who I wanted to be? Is that what I wanted to do with my life? Would I be giving up other opportunities if I did that? Would I be closing doors I didn’t want to close if I applied? Or if I didn’t apply?

Had I not already been questioning practically everything about my life by that time, it might have been easier. But I had been, and it wasn’t, and I agonized over the decision until finally I decided that no, I didn’t want to do that kind of work, or be that kind of person, or close the kind of doors that might have closed (I know that last part doesn’t really make sense out of context – but it does if you’re in my head, so just go with it). I disappointed nearly everyone close to me, but it was the first decision I was really and truly happy with in a long time.

It was also the first time in a long time that I felt like I was in control of my life. I’d made the decision solely with my own interests in mind – no one elses, and that felt really good. It had been a long time since I made a major life decision without first weighing the potential ramifications it would have on other people (and usually deciding in favor of whatever would make other’s lives easier).

That decision started a chain of new decisions that helped me start crawling out of crisis-mode, even though that would take another year, year and a half. Fairly soon after that, I made an appointment for another tattoo.

Which is the part of the story I’ll tell next week…

Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Trails, Happy Writing


Happy Thanksgiving

Last week was an odd one around here, even for a holiday week. We broke with tradition for the first time ever, and ordered our Thanksgiving meal from Lucky’s Market to share with my in-laws. And you know what? It was really, really good. The turkey was so moist and flavorful that I don’t see any reason at all to slave over one of my own all day ever again. An hour and a half to reheat, and we had one of those perfectly roasted turkeys that everyone wants to make, and almost no one ever achieves. The sides we got with it were good but not spectacular, so that might be something to just assign out next year, but the turkey? Yeah. I’m all about ordering one up and calling it good. The pies were fabulous too. We got pumpkin (for me and my father-in-law), and pecan (for hubby and his mom). I don’t remember which my brother-in-law had…but we were all duly impressed (and way too full).

We went to my brother-in-law’s house, started watching a movie while dinner heated up, ate, finished the movie, and I worked on a pair of slippers for my husband while we sat and digested (and then ate yet another slice of pumpkin pie…because…do I even need a reason for that?!).

Even my mother-in-law proclaimed it a really great day, which she seldom does with any holiday. So mission accomplished, and I have leftover turkey for pot pie and maybe a turkey curry, and the carcass in the freezer for stock and soup when I have time to boil it down (next weekend while I’m decorating for Christmas, methinks). Mmm…leftovers.

Happy Trails

Friday, we worked. Saturday, we drove the hundred miles or so to attend my grandpa’s funeral. My grandpa was the quintessential country man – he trapped and hunted and kept bees and worked leather and loved dogs and all that was after he was a sheep rancher in North Dakota. He played pinochle with my parents and gin rummy with us kids, and went to bed at 8pm so he could be up at 4:30am making silver dollar pancakes and being far, far too chipper for my night-owl self while I stayed with them for a week or two each summer and over Christmas breaks too when I was young.

I never hunted with him (I’m too lazy for hunting), but I helped him and my dad cut up many a deer and antelope carcass. I had warm honey and beeswax from his hives sitting in the truck when we went to check the bees in the summer, learned simple basics of leather working as I watched him and played with his tools, read all the western novels on his bookshelves, and yes, I snapped the suspenders he always wore over his plaid shirts at least once every time I saw him until I was approximately 20-something. I hated how he chucked me under the chin, so the ‘spender snapping was my retaliation. It was our thing.

The service was nice – not too long, and simple, as he’d have wanted it. Lunch after was kind of an impromptu family reunion, as all seven of his kids and some of their spouses were there, all but three of us grandkids (I’m the oldest) made it, and several great-grandchildren were there as well, including the youngest who is just a few months old. Cycle of life, right there in the Forsyth Baptist Church on a sunny Saturday morning.

Happy trails, Gramps. And thanks for the life lessons and memories.

Happy Writing

I’m throwing in the towel on NaNoWriMo this year…calling it a “loss”. There’s no way I’ll reach 50k words by the end of the month, so in that sense, it is. But I’ve gotten a good start on a book I’ve been wanting to write for a year now, and I think it’s really coming along well. I’m excited to keep working on it, but I’m also kind of excited to “give up” on the challenge, so I can work on two other drafts I have going as well again. I like how they’re shaping up too, and I want to work on them. I want to finish them. Making the decision not to spend the next week frantically writing as much as possible on the NaNo draft frees me up to work on all three drafts in tandem (one each night, rotating). I’m always happiest when working on more than one draft at a time, so it’s a good thing.

I’m also giving up on trying to find more time to write and pushing to get more words in. There are other things I need to prioritize right now – things like health and sleep and the extra care my current dogs need. I have a little time each night, and I can reasonably write around 500 words in that time, which is plenty to be able to complete manuscripts and keep publishing here and there. Life has a way of changing things up every now and then, and there will be times when I can write more, which I’ll happily do, but this isn’t one of them, and that’s okay.

Giving up is often a bad thing. But sometimes, it’s exactly the freedom we need to move forward.

This week, it’s back to the normal routines and enjoying the last week of November before I let the “Holiday Season” encroach. Peaceful, contemplative, and for the most part, happy.

Housework, NaNo Update & Other Stuff

*yawn*

It’s Sunday night as I write this, and I am *tired*. I planned to put away Halloween yesterday, and just…didn’t. I mostly sat around and thought about doing stuff, with the exception of going grocery shopping and then out to dinner and a movie with my husband (Thor: Ragnorok – very fun, can’t wait for the next one!).

In any case, that meant today was the day to do “all the things”, including all my housework (which I was already behind on from last weekend) and putting as much Halloween away as I could, given the snow outside. But with the extra hour (I do love fall-back-to-standard-time), I got up earlier and subsequently finished earlier, which is nice because I’ll be able to get to bed on time (which almost never happens on Sunday nights).

Yes, I should have been writing. All weekend. My NaNo word count so far is a measly 1700 words…which is about what I should have for one entire day. But my house was a wreck from all the festivities last week, and there was no way I could focus without doing something about that.

Why is my word count so low, you ask? Well, I got a decent start on Wednesday, but not fast enough. Thursday I thought I was doing well, but I ended up starting my writing session late, and I’m just not willing to give up sleep this time around. So I went to bed. And Friday was a horrible Tuesday-clone all the way around, so I honestly just didn’t feel much like writing. Or anything else, for that matter.

I want to write this story…badly. And when I am working on it, it’s flowing really well – better than any other story I’ve written so far. I think it’s due to the fact that I know so much of the backstory. It really makes everything, including the character motivations, more clear in my head. I think this coming week the word count will go better, or I hope it will, anyways.

But this time, I’m not willing to give up sleep, or health, or my normal priorities just to make a specific daily/monthly word count happen. I’ve done it before, and while I could do that again, it’s just not worth it to me. I do have this coming Friday off work though (in observance of Veteran’s Day), which means I’ll be able to work on the story on and off all day (bliss!). And since I got most of the Halloween stuff put away today, I should be able to grab a few longer writing sessions next Saturday and Sunday as well.

So, way too early to give up on NaNo. Plenty of time and opportunities to raise the word count without compromising my health-related priorites.

Of course, there are some other things I’d like to do this month, like cleaning up that old sewing machine and getting it running, and starting some knit and crocheted Christmas gifts. Maybe this week will be the week I get my schedule together and figure out how to work on those at the same time I’m working on the NaNo novel. Wouldn’t that be cool?!

I live in hope.

Now, since I have everything all wrapped up early for once, and I have an hour until bedtime…maybe I can make that word count a little more respectable before I sleep. To everyone else out there “writing the good write”…many words to you!