Writing and not writing

I signed up for Nanowrimo. What a wonderful chance to write my little stories. I started off well, getting @ 5000 words the first two days. Then of course, life interfered.

My daughter Shea fell at the local convience store and hurt her back. It took both Chanz and I to get her out of her chair at work and into the car. Then we both again had to get her into the Chiropactors office so he could do his thing to help straighten her out. Because she couldn't move I decided it would be best if I took Chaiz home with me. Three year old Chaiz, who thinks Grammy was put on this earth to play with him "Alright." Okay, that is Chaiz's word, which he uses to get your affirmative answer while he is planning what we will be doing.

The child is pretty smart and keeps me moving and trying to stay one step ahead of him. It is a lot of fun to play with him, because he is so smart. He was playing quietly with his cars so I decided to open up my little notebook and start typing. Immediately he hears the clicking of keys and decides it is time to "play a game on the com-pooter, alright, Grammy, alright." the word alright has an bit of an upward lilt at the end. Well, I can hand write my notes and let him play on the computer. I opened up the Library website Kids Zone and let him color the little monsters they have on their page. I showed him how to click on the colors and then click on the paint brush and how big to make the paint and he was off. I forgot to write my ideas down for my story. It was so much more fun to watch him paint on the computer. Soon he wanted to play another game. and we tried the word search game. I, of course, had to help him since he doesn't read. Or does he? The words shown there were Thanksgiving words, pumpkin, Pilgrim,
squash, Squanto, pie, turkey. I would glance at the square with the letters and find a word. I would point to the word, he would take the arrow up to the letter I was pointing at, I would click then he would move the cursor, while Grammy spells out the word, when his cursor got to the word I would unclick and the letters would be highlighted with a color and the word in the list highlighted in the same color. We would then move on to the next word, repeating the process. After we finished the page and highlighted all the words he would say "Let's do it again Grammy, alright?" The same words were displayed in the next game, just in different places. Again I would find a word, point out a letter and say "Let's spell "pumpkin" P-U-M-P-K-I-N. Good job Chaiz."

Only now, before I found a word on the board he pointed out a word on the list and said, "Okay, Grammy, let's find "pie" and he would point to the word pie on the list. I started to search the word search page for the word pie. Before I found the word, Chaiz pointed to the three 'P's together, "Look Grammy, those letters are all alike, they are 'P's. P, P, P. there is Pie, Grammy." and he pointed to the word 'pie'! I was speechless, or at least shocked. "Good job Chaiz, that is pie, and we highlighted it. Four different words he found just like that. I am constantly amazed at how smart this cute and articulate this boy is.

Well, you can see why the whole time I had him I didn't get any writing done. However, Shea was feeling much better on Saturday so I thought that I would beable to get some writing done then. Life happened again. My son-in-law was in the hospital and going to have some surgery done. Ray and I went over to stay with Sophie, Isasis and Maleah while their Mom was with their Dad at the hospital and waiting for him to get out of surgery. We had a great time, playing Sponge Bob Monopoly, walking to the park and exploring empty houses at Daybreak. They have a lot of fun playgrounds at Daybreak with a wonderful assortment of very unique playground equipment. But just a hint. There is one toy over there that is like a bent pole coming out of the ground, with a red disk on the pole. The idea is to have a child sit on the read disk and the adult or another child turns the bent pole and it spins around. This is great for a child, but sixty year old woman. Not so much. After Sophie twirled me around about a dozen times she stopped and I put my foot down and I physically stopped, but my eyes continued to rotate around my head. I know this because the houses across the street I was looking out also continued to twirl around my head. That was a very fun ride, I would have liked it a lot more, I think, when I was five.

Writing Realities

My friend, Connie, is a writer and a reader. She is always finding new books to read and blog about on her blog site, so when Connie says check out this website, I listen. I enjoyed reading Melissa Cunningham's blog Writing Realities, http://www.melissajcunningham.blogspot.com.
Melissa is also a writer and having a contest to try and get her name out in front of the public in a unique way. She is having a contest. Check out her blog spot and sign up for her contest, who knows, you may be the next winner.

My excuses

My friend, Connie, mentioned to me while waiting for choir practice to start the other day that I hadn’t written in my blog since December.

“I know,” she said, “because I check.”

It reminded me of a conversation I had recently with my nephew, who writes an amazing blog, letting you be a part of his life by sharing his thoughts, his loves; his wife and daughter, and his travels. He hadn’t blogged for some time and both his mother and I got after him for slacking up. That is what these blogs are for isn’t it? Keeping in touch, with our friends, our family, ourselves, our thoughts & feelings.

My daughter, Shea, gave Ray and I a used laptop for Christmas this year. We had been thinking for quite sometime about getting a laptop, but haven’t made the plunge. I thought that after I got that laptop I would be able to write anywhere. It wasn't something we needed right away, after all we have a perfectly good computer sitting in my office. Please read the term ‘office’ loosely. The room is 9 by 10 equipped with a desk on one side of the room, which holds the hard drive, monitor and printer. It has a shelf above it that holds, my rubber stamps for scrap booking, discs for what ever programs I have and photo discs. To the left is a book case full of books, on scrap booking, notebooks of crocheting, scrap booking, genealogy, family history stuff I copied off the family website, card, paper, more scrap booking paraphernalia. To the right is a small desk that came with the other desk that holds shelves of paper, plastic drawers of pens, more paper, stickers, more notebooks of ….I don’t know what it has been so long since I looked at them. Oh yes, under the desk I have plastic storage containers of pictures and more scrap booking paper. On the other side of the room are some white kitchen cabinets I had in our other house in the laundry room for folding laundry on. I thought it would be the right size for my “Office” for scrap booking. I have some drawers to the left that have ribbons, tape, pens, embossing stuff, more paper and more stuff. Behind the counter top I have a peg board that holds my scissors with the fancy cutting blade. The cabinet below holds my yarn collection and UFO’s, Un Finished Objects, the drawer, my paper cutters. The smaller cabinet is home to embroidery hoops, threads and other UFO’s of the embroidery type. Yes, I have been saving some of those to finish for 30 some odd years. The space between these two cabinets has more plastic drawers with more pictures and other things I will eventually scrap book, I think.

I purchased a bar stool so I could be comfortable when I scrap book, but I have two problems with that. Number One: the bar stool and the office chair do no share the room nicely; there is just not enough room to put both of them in the office at the same time. The bar stool waits patiently in the hall for its call to duty, which doesn’t come very often because the counter top is full, of more junk.

I am a great one for piling. I collect stuff at work and put it in my car, from my car it goes onto the kitchen table or counter from there Ray, while cleaning has no idea where to put it so it goes to my counter top in my “Office”. That explains why I don’t get much scrap booking done. I have tried to explain to Ray that we need a bigger house so I can have a bigger office and scrapbook room. He patiently hears me out then, tells me that wouldn’t change a thing since I would only have more surfaces collect more junk on. His solution is to bring the biggest trash barrel he can find, sets it at the end of the counter suggesting it should all be directed into that container. That action generally brings a withering look from the collector of the hoard. All of this should explain why I am loath to go into my computer room; guilt, because I haven’t done my scrap booking. Since Shea gave us that laptop, I can now peacefully sit in the living room check out my e-mails, family website and Facebook no guilt attached. At least until Ray, interrupting my game of Bricks Breaking, tells me that he doesn’t know for sure that Shea did me any favors giving me that laptop. Oh well, at least I’ve quit playing Farmville and Farm Town on Facebook, that was really a time waster. I spent all last summer watering my virtual garden and forgot about my actual garden, not to mention that I panicked while I was on vacation worrying about whether anyone was watering my gardens at Farmville and Farm Town to really enjoy my vacation. Passing by one day while I was playing Farmville in my “Office” Ray wondered aloud if there was a “Clean-up Your Room” game where there was virtual junk that magically appeared on the floor of a virtual house that someone could actually virtually have to pick up. If they ever need an office for a model for that game, I think I can help them with that.

Anyway, Connie, does that answer your question as to why I haven’t written on my blog since December? It really made me think about what other things I could be doing instead of playing games on the computer and feeling guilty about my scrapbook junk collection which is just blocking my way to the things I really would rather be doing. I need to just decide what is in my way and get rid of it, put those pictures in a book and be done with it and stop feeling guilty about not doing my scrap booking and hiding from my computer / junk room with the games on the laptop. Hey, I might even have some fresh vegetable from my garden this year instead of those virtual ones I had last year.