Writing – Page 22 – Lisa Holcomb

My Crazy Week

So out of the last six days, I had kids (one, two, one) home three days, I worked two days, I had events going on five nights and parents in town the last one, it was the first anniversary of a friends murder, AND I started Nanowrimo. So you’ll forgive me for not following up on the Biscuit vs. Scone bake-off. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. Nothing’s happening tomorrow, right? (Don’t tell me. I like being blissfully unaware today.)

Kids are well now, they’ve all had haircuts, they’ve had a sleepover (either at church or at Nana & Pa’s), and they’ve already eaten most of their Halloween candy.

I’m something like 5600 words into my latest novel for Nanowrimo. It’s going pretty well. This year I have Beta Readers, too, which is different and fun. I’m awaiting feedback. I think it’ll be nifty having a braintrust behind my novel. I’ve got an artist, a photographer, and a librarian reading my stuff. WHEE!

My husband is being sweet about all this. He said “You choose what you do with your free time. I watch football and drink beer. You spend time with crazy people inside your own head.” It’s all good. I still think mine’s better. 🙂

Writing

Life After Blog

When I shut down my blog several months ago, it was because I just didn’t want to write any more. I felt guilty when I didn’t blog enough, I felt bad when I didn’t have anything interesting to say and I blogged about daily life anyway, and most days writing just seemed too hard.

I went several months without blogging. Life was good again. I didn’t feel the need to document every movement I and my family made. We just LIVED. I stopped taking as many pictures and lived through moments instead of seeming them through a tiny lens. It was wondrous.

It was also very, very weird. I’ve been blogging since before there was blogging. I’ve had a diary, journal, notebook, scrap of paper or something in my hands since I was a little girl. I noticed an uptick in Facebook and twitter posts. Then I started writing longer notes in my head that I never posted because they were too long for Facebook. I started writing in a paper journal again, only to realize that my hands are no longer up to that task. So I started searching for an app for journalling on my computer, but that wasn’t enough. I wanted input on my writing.

Which lead me back to blogging. So welcome back to the new Life According to Lisa. 🙂

What I Love, Writing

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” –Maya Angelou

Around the House, Music, My Own Personal Weirdness, Writing

Little rituals

On mornings where I don’t have a substituting job or volunteer work to go do, I come back home and turn on the Soundscapes channel on Music Choice, make a pot of hot water, and start making tea.

I have a little teapot that I make chai tea in, filling it half full of hothot water with honey and half with milk and then the loose chai I got in Gatlinburg last year. While that’s steeping, I use the bottom half of the pot (which is a giant cup) to make quicker-steeping tea. Then on colder days I go sit in my corner chair with the owl-pillow-of-love and stare out at the trees and birds. This time of year there are tons of black birds and robins out in the yard fighting for worms. I love hearing them fly off in an enormous whoosh when something scares them.

On warmer days I take my tea outside onto the back patio and sit on my rocker-bench and feel the breeze in my hair. I think about things I’d like to do in my yard later in the year when the kids are home for the summer and better ways to store all our outdoor stuff (I’d love it if my brain would turn off organizing things during my restful times, but it never does.).

Inevitably the phone rings and it’s back to regular life, but during these quiet moments all is right with the world and everything seems hopeful and lovely.

Listening to: “And I’ll Fly Away” by Anne Trenning

My Own Personal Weirdness, Writing

Back to school? Or not…

It’s not just Pin-Free February, it’s also my month to test out nearly full time work and see if I can really do it before making a big decision. I’m thinking about going back to school and getting my master’s degree in library science. I have a totally busy month planned out, filled with lots of days subbing up at the elementary school, lots of full days of volunteering (field trips! teacher appreciation!), lots of full days just trying to get caught up on laundry & cleaning, and then a few days I’ve scheduled as full writing days because that’s not getting done right now what with everything else going on. We will see if I can do all that and survive the month. Who knows?

health, Writing

A less dramatical cross-post

“My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.”

.Anais Nin

Sorry for all the cross-posting lately if you are someone reading all the blogs, but this is the way things are right now.

Last week I hosted a girls game night with my little group of friends. We never did actually get to the games, but we had a good time eating snacks, drinking wine, and catching up on things. 🙂 It’s a nice group of gals, most of us are some kind of writer or artist. 🙂 We’ll try an actual Gaming game night another time (soon, I hope).

The next night we had a Robert Burns Night with my parents where we read the poetry of Robert Burns (well, Nick did, but that’s because he had the best Scottish accent) and had some traditional Scottish foods (but not haggis).

Saturday I got the bad news about my friend and had a complete meltdown and stayed at home and cried and drank wine and watched movies all day. So cathartic.

Sunday the kids practiced basketball while I fixed up my desk area where the by-hand writing goes on.

It is tidier and makes the writing go better since I’m not scrambling for pens or notebooks. I’ve tidied up my computer so I know where the files I’m currently using are and I’ve set up a profile for everyone else so I can have mine be whatever I want and don’t have to worry about boy eyes on my things and them getting confused by the voice control setup that I’ve been using.

I have been writing this week. Lots of writing and writing related stuff going on. Working on two novels and a few sad poems. I’m enjoying flipping through old notebooks and files of writing from a couple years ago to see what I would’ve written had I not fallen off the writing track. It’s fun putting stories together again and for that I am very very happy with the universe.

Monday I got a call to work, but had stuff to do at home that desperately needed doing, so I said no and got all my stuff done. Tuesday I also got a call, but had to say no because I was taking David to Dallas to have his X-rays done again and to see if he needed another shoe lift or what. He doesn’t need a new shoe lift, he needs surgery. Oh yay. Probably next summer, but we’ll do another set of scans between now and then because it’s more data for the computer to look at and more data means more accuracy and more accuracy means a better outlook and that could mean putting the surgery off another year and another year could mean a stabilizing of the irregular growth, which could lead to no surgery. So we’re waiting.

Wednesday I was all ready for the call to work. I got up, made myself lunch, dressed in subbing clothes….and no call. Of course. So I did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and let myself have 2 hours of lovely writing time. It was glorious.

Yesterday was my friends funeral. It was a good one, I think. I sat with my friend Dana. They had to add extra chairs on the sides to accomodate all the people. The first person who spoke was a bit conflicted, but Shannon’s sister and dad and regular pastor got up and said some wonderful, understanding things about the nature of depression and the challenges of living with this disease. It was all very heartening and uplifting. I couldn’t stay to go to the graveside service, as I had a PTA meeting. The meeting was very short, which was unusual for us this year. I spent the next couple hours doing work for the next months worth of activities and went to get the kids.

We’re trying out Choremonster.com for our chore rewards website right now. It looked fun and came highly recommended and the kids are excited about it, but I’m finding it very trying. I had to set up each kid separately with separate logins and separate jobs and separate rewards and I have to log back in every single time they finish something to approve it and it is constantly sending me emails telling me to “Hurry quickly!” like I don’t have anything better to do than use this clunky interface to approve each child’s chore. AIE. Plus there’s no calendar to look at or afix things to. You have to just know when things are going to fall on (plus there’s only a few options for days and I need a “every third day” option since I have three people).

Today is finally a regular day. Kids to school, library volunteering, lunch with Nick, an afternoon of chores and errands. *sigh* But I have two kids asleep on the couch and one asleep in my bed. So where am I typing from? Ben’s bed. It’s comfy. I have a dolphin pillow and my old comforter from college and extra blankies, too. Mmm. I might fall asleep here. 🙂

A less dramatical cross-post

Around the House, Books, Music, My Own Personal Weirdness, Organizing, Writing

More organizing

I promised more organizing for the next day’s post and many days have gone by and I can’t remember any more what I organized, so I’m looking through my pictures to help me remember:

See, now my three-tiered shelf can be for pretties again! (Temporary display for now; first things my hands came to)

010 — This is our new art storage cart. I like that it has many drawers, so pens in one, markers, crayons, pencils, etc… I also like that it’s on wheels so it can live there in peace during regular life, or move to the kids room when Greg is on an art spree, or move into my room when we have guests over for dinner. 🙂

009 — This doesn’t look as tidy as I’d like, but for a $3 over-the-door tie-and-belt rack, it does the job. No more lost belts & ties! Woo hoo!

008 — Shoes are always going missing in this house, but NO MORE. Bottom two rows are Greg’s, next two are Ben’s, and next two are next-size-up for each of them (for those days when Daddy is impatient).

Honestly, I’ve gotten nothing else done since then, except a tiny bit in my makeup & hair boxes. Steph and I did a writer’s retreat this weekend, which I posted about here(from a writing standpoint) and here (from an RA standpoint). Since I’m still working on last month’s holidays, I brought her her family’s gifts, and she sent some home with me for the boys as well.

There were cards & gifts from another friend in there as well. :) — There were cards & gifts from another friend in there as well. 🙂

The kids were out of school on Monday, so we had a quiet, fun day:

Greg pulled out his science kit and we spent quite a while trying out all its tricks.

I remember playing on this with them when they were all babies!

This sign on the door of the bathroom at the park cracked me up!

and worked in the garden. Ben had scouts in the evening. I don’t know that we should call it that anymore, as he’s the only one that ever shows up any more. *sigh*

Yesterday I didn’t have to work, but I did have a bunch of errands to run: a Goodwill drop-off where I spoke to a man named Ram about how God changed his life, a grocery store run to buy lunch makings since the kids had eaten them all up over the weekend, and then my book study on Raising Resilient Kids over at the PDC. After school Ben had dance, so Greg and I hit the dollar store so he could use some of his Christmas money. Then off to piano lessons, where we got a lesson on what goes on inside the piano and how all the pedals work. It was awesome!

Our teacher is super interesting! :) We love her! — Our teacher is super interesting! 🙂 We love her!

Today I was hoping to sub, but haven’t gotten a call, so I’m going to go off and work on some stuff in my bedroom, which has all the boxes of “doesn’t live here” from David’s room cleaning last week. It’s pretty scary and I’m tired of looking at them! Once I get done with that, it’s time for fun stuff: writing! 🙂

Computers and Internet, My Own Personal Weirdness, Organizing, Writing

Greetings world!

I’m working on the blog over the next day or so. I got some really icky comments from some really icky seeming people this week and I’m rethinking the blog format and how to keep my little family safe and secure while still sharing with y’all some of the fun and crafty and book reading that goes on here. So for now, my posts are mostly private. Come on back in a week or so and I’ll have a big unveiling. 🙂

-L

Around the House, health, My Own Personal Weirdness, Parenting, Writing

Another day in vacation

We decided yesterday that it was going to be our play-in-pajamas-stay-indoors kind of day because we needed one and hadn’t really had a chance to have a day alone, so we spent the morning inside doing practically nothing productive (like watching movies and playing video games and reading magazines), but halfway through that we got a text from a friend begging us to meet her and her kids at the playground, as they’d been sick all break and could use a day outside in the fresh air (what’s that?). So we spent the afternoon at the school playground, playing football and soccer and keep-away and climbing things. It was great fun! 🙂

Then that night I got to go out with several of my favorite “local” people. I put that in quotes because one lives a few blocks from me and another a few miles, and then one lives 20 miles outside of town and the last one 45 miles away. I think it’s funny that they all are “local” even in our small town. We last got together on my birthday last year, what with one thing and another. It was a weird meeting even then. I thought I was mixing up my friend groups and that only a couple people knew each other (there were 6 of us then), but everyone turned out to know everyone else and it was fabulous. So one of the gals mentioned meeting up again and we made it happen and it was, indeed fabulous again! 🙂 We’re already planning another night out together. 🙂 I’m very pleased because these are some of my oldest friends in town. 🙂 Others have requested an “in” with the group…we shall see, we shall see. 🙂 I think our real common core is our ability to laugh at ourselves. 🙂

Today we got up, late, as is the course of things this week. Today it caused a bit of panic. I needed to have gotten up early to tidy for the babysitter, who was coming in unreasonably early to watch the boys while I got my RA infusion. I went out to pick up donuts while 2/3rds of the kids were asleep, but I couldn’t find my debit card once I got there, so I came home empty handed and dreading identity theft and called around to make sure that wasn’t the case and made a quick casserole, which no one really ate. Had my infusion, which was awkward due to several issues, and came home and “rested” which means got-crawled-on-by-boys-while-playing-on-facebook-and-reading-to-boys-and-feeding-them-occasionally. Whee!

Nick eventually came home and we got things ready for church tomorrow and ate dinner. Now everyone is asleep except for me and Greg. He says he’s having nightmares. Ha. He hasn’t slept a full night in his own bed (it’s like musical beds around here) since Halloween, not that I blame him. I haven’t slept or had a crying-free day since his friend’s mom (my friend Jelena) was murdered and her brother kidnapped either. We should probably seek therapy or something. I just keep telling myself that it could be worse and that really I should get over it. It’s not that easy, though. I’ve been writing sad poetry again. That seems to help. I guess 6-year-olds don’t really do sad poetry. They sleep with their mamas. Ah well.

I’ve run out of things to say today. Good night, people!

Exercise, health, Music, My Own Personal Weirdness, Writing

Happy New Year!

I was thinking the other day about resolutions and what mine should be this year. I think mine from last year are still on the fridge, actually, but rather than look at the past, let’s look to the future, shall we?

This year I plan on losing 50 pounds. Yes, fifty. 2011 was the year that I gained 25 pounds and I started out the year needing to have lost at least 25. So that puts me at 50 pounds this year to lose. My plans include a) having acquired a bunch of lovely to look at, but not in my size-range-yet clothes to spur me on, b) having rejoined Sparkpeople.com to chart my diet and exercise, c) having enlisted my husband into the process to help me keep on task and d) having filled up my netflix DVD queue with exercise titles solicited from friends that exercise-but-aren’t-exercise-fiends.

This year I also plan on returning to daily journaling. I haven’t kept up on daily writing in a few years, so I thought that rather than make a word goal or a page goal, I’d make just writing a goal. I’m going easy on my self this year and including any words I write go towards that, be they in a paper journal, here, on my RA blog, in poetry form, or fiction. Just getting back in the writing habit.

I’m continuing on with my piano lessons this year, but that isn’t really a goal, is it? So here’s a little goal: I plan on playing something for church every third month this year. How’s that?

Last but not least, my husband and I have gotten ourselves a daily devotional to work on through the year. This one is a Bible-in-a-year Couples devotional. We’ve never tried doing something like this (reading a book let alone a devotional) together before, so that should be interesting.

There you have it: my plans for the year in a nutshell. Hope y’all are having a great new year!

Someday I’ll be back again with tales of our last week of Winter Break.

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