Boys Back To School - Me Back to Procrastinationville

The boys are back to school today.  I'm trying to get my head back into work, but it simply isn't there!  So far I've employed about every avoidance tactic in my repertoire.  So it's almost time to call it a day, and I haven't touched a thing yet.  Today Procrastination wins.   I've had several email form the boss man.  Things that I should be on top of, but really I am so irritated with it I don't even want to go there.  I need a new job. Either starting out on my own or beefing up my writing career.  But here enters procrastination again.  To save the day?  Well to do something anyway.  Anything but what I should be doing.

So far today I've accomplished the following:

1. Read through work email and got irritated 
2. Daydreamed about what the perfect job would entail (this took up maybe an hour and 1/2)
3. Hit up the job boards looking for a new job
4. Light house keeping
5. Meeting at the school
6. Ran errands in town
7. Made lunch (chicken fajitas yummm) 
8. Signed up for 2 different health program on the net and set up account info including weight and food logs
9. Planned an exercise program 
10. Took measurements, neck, chest, abs, butt , thigh, calf and arms for net programs
11. Blogged
12. Hit up Facebook
13. Read unusual news stories 

That's about it.  Full day of procrastination and nothing accomplished that would actually earn money.  

Reading Fiend

Lately I've had my head buried in a nook book.  Escape to a fictional universe.  It is wonderful.  I've had some great plot lines filter in and out.  I need to keep the notebook handy so I can jot some of these great ideas down.  Invariably my productive daydreaming escapes me when it is time to sit down and work on my own stories.  Maybe a hand held recorder would help just to keep ideas in line.  Or a writing class???   Being a writer is a LOT harder than I thought.  How silly of me to think I could just sit down and write a book.  I've scrapped so many story lines and gone in so many different directions.  Maybe outlining will be the next phase.

Lately science fiction has tickled my fancy.  Particularly YA.  Just read the Hunger Games.  Wanted to get that in before it comes out on DVD.  Then one called Across the Universe, which is another YA trilogy.

The last two books I have read BOTH involved books that come to life.  Didn't look for it, but both of them just drew me to them.  snort, hummm... no pun intended.  One was a YA book.  Loved the illustrations.  Throughout the book it had silhouettes of the prince climbing around the book and trying to get out.  Then colored illustrations that were by someone who is a very skilled artist.  Looks like may be colored pencil?  I don't know, I'm not an artist.  I think I'll read it to the boys.  There is a young prince I think they will like.  Portia may even sit still long enough for me to read her a bit of it.

 The last one I read is a little to risque for the kiddos.  Where do people come up with this stuff?  "Throbbing member"?  Ah common.  Really?!?!?!  To each her own.  I think I've decided that when I write I'm going to write a book that I want to read.  Something that is fun to create.  The dream of becoming a published author is thrilling, but right now it looks like a dream is all it will ever be.

Florida Vacation

Finally back home after a two week vacation.  It is sooo  nice to be back home again.  Vacations are supposed to be relaxing, so why do they end up being so exhausting?  Maybe I'm just doing it wrong.  We went and stayed with Mark's family in Florida.  That definitely could have added to the fatigue!  I don't know why we keep going over there.  Is it duty?  It seems like the kids should know their grandparents, but really I don't know if I am helping or hindering.  I guess I just wish that they could have a set of story book grandparents to love them.  Mom would have been a first rate grandma, and it's times like this when I miss her the most.  When I see the gap that is in my life and that of my kids.  How I wish she would have lived long enough to see hem now!  

Anyway, I guess the visit with Sarah and Gideon was good enough.  We went to Disney World.  The kids LOVED it!  I don't think Portia will remember much of it, but we took a gazillion pictures.  I'll be busy scrap booking for a while!   The boys of course had a fabulous time.  There is something about watching the joy that your kids get out of an amusement park.  It is such a long day and the kids wind up cranky, exhausted and a sticky mess by the end.  But they have a ball, so it is totally worth it.    We also hit Epcot Center while we were in FL. Mark had the most fun there.  The technology was interesting, but I enjoyed lunch the best.  We ate at this really cute little french diner.  The food was great.  I tried out some of my High School French with the waiter, who by the way was gorgeous!  A little flirtation with a tall muscular Brad Pitt doppelganger.  Yummy. 

Portia is up from her nap.  I hear "Ma-maa, ma ma?."  I love to listen the her chatter when she wakes up.  So adorable.  Well as long as she doesn't ratchet it up into grumpy.  The baby babble when they are on the cusp of speaking.  It is hard to explain.  It's like it triggers a little bit of euphoria for me.  I love that sound. 

Nope cute is gone.  Condor screech back.  I've left her alone too long. Time to go!

The Scare

Well yesterday was a mixed day.  We had a cook out at the house with all of the fixings.  Yummy!  Then we went to the lake.  "Our Spot" is a little hole that is pretty secluded.  It's not one of the main stretches of the beach and there usually aren't many people if any there.  Even yesterday with everyone off for the 4th, there wasn't another sole out at our spot.  We took the kids and splashed in the water for an hour or so.

Then Mark decided he wanted to swim out a ways and swim back.  This is the first time we've been swimming this year.  He had a hard time making it back to shore.  It was a truly awful experience.  I barely doggy paddle.  I had the three kids close to the beach splashing around.  I took a look out and Mark is bobbing in the water.  I thought I heard him call and I froze.  It was probably one of the worst experiences I've ever been through.  I can swim enough to splash around, but how am I supposed to save a six foot two man from drowning in deep water when I can't really swim?  And if I went out after him would the kids follow and try to save us?  We could all end up drowning. There wasn't any one on the beach.  No one to call to for help.  Just us in the water.    I waited in the shallow water, praying that he would make it back to shore.  Holding my breath every time he bobbed down the breathing a little when he popped up a few feet closer.

It seemed to take forever, but he finally made it back to shallower water where he could stand up.  I grabbed a hold of him and asked if he was OK.  He didn't really talk, just nodded.  He was breathing hard and still making his way up to the beach.  I gathered the kids and we all headed to the truck.

Then I got pissed.  I wanted to cry and yell.  I almost watched my husband drown, I'm sure he felt miserable,  maybe embarrassed, he looked exhausted. And I found myself angry.  At HIM.  It felt irrational, but I couldn't stop being so incredibly angry.   Like he put me through a horrible ordeal to prove how macho he was by swimming way out further than he could handle.  I felt small and helpless.  And so incredibly selfish.  It made me question if I loved him enough to risk my own life to save his. What would I have done if we were there by ourselves, and I wasn't held back by the kids?  And then I was mad at him again that I had to choose between making sure our kids were safe and trying to save him.  If he couldn't have made it back, we would have all sat there in the water and watched him drown.   How could I have ever lived with myself if that had happened? What would that have done to the kids?  When you are in love aren't you supposed to put the other person's well being before your own?  And I didn't go after him.  I stayed in the shallow end, holding on to my kids.  It was horrible.  I never want to go through that again.  Right now I'm just stewing and trying to figure out how to come to grips with these feelings.  How I should feel about it.  What I should have done differently.

fail :(

Well this morning was a bit of a failure.  Writer's block.  I haven't gotten anywhere.  Maybe I'll just scrap this story and move on to the next.  I keep on having these songs playing in my head.  I know they would make great stories.  Pshh, a lot of songs are short stories set to music, but I keep flushing them out in my head, adding scenarios.  It is itching to get down on paper, but I don't know where to begin.

Independence Day!

Happy 4th of July!  I'm enjoying an unusually quiet morning.  The boys are sleeping in.  Can you believe it, still sleeping at this time of the morning??? Portia is getting into everything, but in a rare and relatively calm mood this morning.  She keeps on trying to grab the keyboard as I write.  She just wants to type like mommy, but stories with the occasional xociu4566 in them just don't work for me!  I think I'm trying to get the setting and back story down.  One of these days I'll have it in me to actually finish a story that I start.  All of these daydreams and alternate realities will make their way to paper with a beginning, middle and end, not just blurbs here and there.

I've determined that I'll set aside 2 hours this morning to write and then the rest of the day is dedicated to Mark and the kids.  Too bad it's too hot for fireworks.  Maybe we'll go swimming :)

In The Beginning...

Dear Diary, how trite is that? From about the age of 13 I've kept a diary or a journal.  My dad bought me my first one. Believe it or not HE kept a journal.  How often do you hear of a grown man doing that?  He was an avid reader and liked to write his thoughts down.  I LOVED having my own journal. He promised that no one would be allowed to read it. I have no idea if any of my siblings or my parents read it, but I always felt secure that it was secret.  It was mine alone, to share my secrets. You know, stupid boy crushes, highs and lows.  Grumblings about parents, family or friends.  It is a great sense of freedom to let it all hang out.  Write your deepest thoughts down on paper.  Work out your problems and make sense of your thoughts.  Just the act of forming looping letters is soothing in some way, even when rambling about nothing in particular.

So here I am now at the ripe old age of 30 still keeping a journal. I don't usually make a concerted effort to hide it from my husband or kids. I supposed since my journals have always been private property it's never occurred to me that they would read it. Although kids being kids, and curious by nature I should probably stop leaving them out in the open. There are things that I write that I would never want them to read about.  Isn't it human nature for you to want your kids to think you are better than you really are? That you aren't wrapped up in pettiness and vindictiveness sometimes?


The baby is down for the night.  No more screaming.  I don't know what the deal is with Portia lately but condor screeching all day long can drive a woman batty!  It's almost time for the boys to go to bed.  Nick and Adrian are outside playing. They should be worn out and ready for bed shortly.  Shower time, story time, bed time. I think Mark will be playing Call of Duty tonight, so then it'll be quiet time for mama.  How I look forward to the quiet time!