walk the pig

I had an extremely vivid dream the other night. Its meaning was brilliant and genius and completely enlightening when first my eyes opened. And then I rolled over and it sort of dimmed and made somewhat less sense. And yet, something about it has stuck with me for the last few days. There was a subway station—I think maybe Kenmore Square—and a pig on a leash. And me feeling on the threshold of something big—an important step. It was something about which I was hesitant, but knew inherently I shouldn’t be. There was a spirit guide—a disembodied voice—demanding I walk the pig. I was anxious at first, filled with hesitation, but then I simply moved forward. I walked through the turn-style of the underground T stop holding a thick twine leash tethered to a corpulent, pink pig.

Walk the pig.

The voice was insistent. Adamant.

And as I felt more confident, the twine leash dissolved and we walked right through the turn-style without need of a token. I was afraid the pig would run away, but it didn’t—it stayed right with me. All my fears and reservations dissolved as well.

Walk the pig.

I have been thinking a lot about what walk the pig means. When that phrase emerged from my good old subconscious, my dream self perceived it as tremendously profound—a mantra of sorts. My awakened self was left a bit less impressed. Or perhaps simply muddled. But I think maybe my dream self was onto something. I think walking the pig might be doing the thing that scares you. And everyone knows you should definitely do the thing that scares you. I remember the guide, which I recognized as some part of myself, relaying the wisdom that walking a pig was indeed unconventional, but that fact should not stop me from doing it. Should not make me fear it.

You ever wake at 2am, lying prone with the darkness pressing down on you? Ever notice how everything feels its worst and most terrifying at 2am? The most fearsome things blown up too enormous to manage? The fearsome thing that is so unique that the lack of a roadmap holds you back?

I think that might be the pig.

I am actively defining my pig right now—thinking a lot about that fat, pink, curly-tailed girl. And then, whether I am afraid or not (I will be), I’m gonna walk that pig.

What’s your pig?

please assure me that i am not the only one who sets potholders on fire

I am not referring to a singular occasion wherein one might have done this. I mean regularly. I mean every pot holder that makes its way into the house.

You do this, too, right?

The smell of a burning potholder is quite familiar to me. I was recently on the phone with a friend and cooking pasta at the same time. (I am really good at multitasking.) I smelled something distinctly not food-ish and knew it immediately as the scent of burning polyester. I calmly removed the flaming potholder from the top of the saucepan where it drooped into the gas flame of my stovetop, ran tap water over the small blaze and never missed a beat of the conversation. Boo-yah! I can burn stuff and do other stuff simultaneously.

So, I have a confession—for the first time in 4 years of participating, I quit NaNoWriMo before I hit 50,000 words.

31,159.

That is the amount of words I managed to write between November 1 and November 22. Yes, I did some writing on Thanksgiving, before the big dinner, in between cooking it and eating it. Then afterwards, as I sat by the fire pit in my parents’ backyard, drinking a nice glass of wine and chatting with my Dad, I looked up at the clear, cold, starry sky and said, “I am quitting NaNo this year. And I am totally okay with it.”

(The little loops, too. No part is safe.)

Usually, I push and push and push. And when I am exhausted and spent and seemingly at my limit, I push further. (Then I am usually somewhat difficult to be around. Just ask Steve. He is nice and might lie and disagree. But trust me on this one.) So rather than go down this old road, I decided instead to try to recapture the joy.

Nothing (aside from the gracefully shared, unbridled happiness of my children) gives me more joy than writing. And the joy was gone. I was pushing through it. And this is a novel I have nurtured for a long, long time. A story I really love. And the joy was gone. Replaced by a drive towards a self-imposed deadline.

NaNo is nothing like setting potholders on fire. More like putting the fire out? No, not like that, either, exactly. Actually, maybe it is like setting potholders on fire—frenzied writing for 30 days. I guess I smelled the familiar odor of burning polyester and threw that fire in the sink. That’s okay. There is always next year. And more potholders, too.

stuff i am grateful for (and stuff i am not)

(Warning: total fluff post. I am way too busy wrapping up NaNo, cooking Thanksgiving dinner and going Christmas shopping to write something legitimate. And, let’s be honest, you’re too full of turkey to read something legitimate. This probably works out better than I originally thought...)

compost crock

I love my compost crock. Before I got this, I used an old stainless steel mixing bowl. This is much prettier. I scored it at our neighborhood yard sale back in September. At the end of the whole shebang, I walked over to say hello to one of my neighbors and there it was, unclaimed on her yard sale table, next to some VHS movies and creepy knick-knacks. I said, “Oh, I want that! It would be perfect for my counter compost collecting!” (Or something like that.) She said, “Take it.” (Exactly that.) And it had a $3 sticker on it, down from $5, so I really made out. I took that $3 I saved and got 3/4 of a mocha at Starbucks. (How else does one afford Starbucks?) (As I rethink this, I should have taken the $5 I saved and bought an entire mocha. Oh, well—hindsight is 20/20.)

ceramic colander

I just bought this recently at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. It goes very nicely with the compost crock (which is really an old soup tureen). I like to drop off things I don’t want anymore at the Salvation Army Thrift Store Donation Center and then go buy things other people didn’t want anymore in the Salvation Army Thrift Store. They are conveniently adjacent to one another. I’m not sure how the math works here, but I’m pretty sure I came out on top. Either way, this colander is just cool. And at a mean $2.99, how does one pass it up, I ask you? I’m not that strong.

Both together. Nice, huh—what did I tell ya?

breezeway storage unit

Scored this from another neighbor—one neighbor’s crap is another’s breezeway storage unit! Yes, it’s not entirely sound, but it’s not as though we have toddlers (anymore—they survived it, don’t worry). It holds all the stuff that makes sense to belong in a breezeway as well as the stuff that I have no idea how to categorize and therefore store with any sense of logic elsewhere.

my husband’s bureau

I do not like this. My husband—let’s call him “Steve”—neither cleans nor organizes his bureau. Ever. The bureau surface holds many assorted items and a shitload of dust. (He often leaves one of the drawers open, too. What is up with that?) One might infer from the expansive collection of deodorants here that he has an odor problem. However, I have been in close proximity to him since 1998 and I don’t think he smells bad. Maybe I’m just used to him. I don’t know. No one has mentioned a bad smell. I, like you, wondered about the collection.

“‘Steve’, why do you have so many deodorants?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Didn’t you buy them?”

“Yeah.”

“So?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have an answer.”

I am not making this up.

Found here: several boxes of matches, basket full of random crap including giant headphones, a roll of black electrical tape, the combination smoke and carbon monoxide detector—safety first, after all. (Don’t be concerned: it is functional, it simply inexplicably resides on his bureau rather in the ceiling of the hallway.) And a lone drum stick. Many of these things would seem to have nothing to do with bedroom-ish activities or needs. Or perhaps I’m just not as creative as he would have hoped when he married me.

(How many of you want to bet “Steve” will not allow me to write about him on this blog anymore? Don’t worry—I’ll ignore him when he tells me not to.)

blue bathroom tile

Does this require explanation? If it does, look at this. It will solidify your understanding.

I don’t know what it is, either.

Thanksgiving banner

I stitched this several years ago when we moved into our house and I was hosting our first Thanksgiving dinner for family. My son was about 4 months old. And all hilarity aside, I am thankful for many, many things outside of my compost crock, cool colander and rickety shelf.

I am grateful that I have something creative that I love to do and have always had the support and encouragement of my husband, parents, sister and good friends to keep doing it.

I am grateful that we are healthy and happy and that our problems are small.

I am most grateful for my buddy, Steve, and our kids, and this life we are living and figuring out together.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

our homeschool life—which pretty much just looks like life OR observations from a hannaford supermarket shopper: “it’s the middle of a tuesday—why aren’t those annoying kids in school?”

I’ve had my first blog post topic request! And as I think I have about 7 readers, I thought I’d better honor the request lest my readership be reduced to 6. SARAH commented: Since you seem to have time on your hands, can I making a blogging request? I would love to hear more about your 3 month plan with the kids and unschooling. I find it super interesting but also kind of foreign to me. Also, please clean that dried crud off the stove and change your panties. This isn’t a college frat house.

Per her request, I cleaned the stove and am now writing the blog post. (The panties bit I could not accommodate. Sorry, Sarah.)

So, to explain, unschooling is a way of educating that encourages and champions child-led, natural, interest-driven learning. We don't utilize a fixed curriculum. We think of living and learning as the same thing, doing so together and pursuing interests as they arise. When you think about it, the way all of us learned before we went to school was organic. Learning to walk or talk—those things are encouraged but not directed by a curriculum of any kind. They are modeled and encouraged, yes, but allowed to unfold naturally. That is the basis of the concept behind unschooling.

In allowing interests to direct learning, those organic interests lead to reading texts and doing projects and, later, taking courses. But the important factor is that the energy and activity around an interest is chosen by the kid, rather than chosen and dictated via an all-encompassing curriculum, meant for all kids, when we know that kids and the ways in which they learn best are all different. Since unschooled kids are not on the usual time-table, you might find some that read when they’re 4 and others when they’re 10, for example.

When we started to think about this, I wondered how the kids could be different and think differently about the world and their place in it if the learning environment were less dictated by adults and more fine-tuned to their own interests and views. The hard part—coming from my school-learning perspective which spanned 20 years—is allowing my kids the freedom to learn from/in the world without worrying that they are learning the "right stuff" at a pre-determined pace. I have to “de-school” my own brain all the time, which is really challenging. Also difficult is being certain that I am doing “enough” and doing it “right.” There is no guide to follow and that’s hard for me. Which might speak to the influence of school in my life...

When I talk about my 3-month plan, I simply refer to my loose schedule of craft projects (for the girls, the boy HATES crafts for the most part), science experiments, cooking together and outings. I find cool stuff to do (tons of stuff online and in some of the books I have and check out of the library) and make sure I have the supplies on hand. Outings are very simple: from trips to the playground with other homeschoolers to activities at the library to nature walks to programs at Audubon sites, etc. I basically sign up for every email and Facebook update from sites and groups in my area. Then we do the stuff if we want to, or don’t. Or sometimes it gets replaced by an activity that comes up. Sometimes they simply want to play all day.

I like to make sure several things happen every day: reading aloud together, time outdoors and learning games (cards, board games, etc.). These are the anchors. At the beginning of each month, I check out a crapload of books from the library. Books that focus around their interests, the current season, stories that are simply fun and some surprises thrown in to potentially pique new interests. They are given a lot of time for free play, which I really believe is highly underrated for learning and development.

And let me just admit how often we don’t do the activities I plan, which totally freaks me out. But life gets in the way and their own ideas take over or people get sick and fight left and right, etc. It doesn’t take much to throw it off. And I am learning to be okay with that. I think of the 3-month plan as more of a guideline and an insurance policy that I have activities at the ready.

One of the best perks about unschooling is how it affects life: it becomes an entire lifestyle view. And we can do what we want when we want and that includes staying in bed until 8:30 every morning cuddling.

I have plenty of days when I want to run screaming and fantasize regularly about all the time I would have for writing and getting homemaking done and showering if they were at school all day. I also second-guess myself all the time—ALL THE TIME—about how we’re doing. But I wouldn’t change it. I know this is not for everyone and I have utmost respect for all the ways by which other parents choose to educate their kids. And I only hope for the same in return.

This is very much a simplified overview, but I think it might give you a sense of it. Following, please enjoy pictures of what the play and create area typically looks like. Enjoy!

don’t fret—there is enough room in the world for more novels

I totally DO NOT have enough time to write a blog post today, and logic would recommend that writing a quickie blog post would neither be wise nor professional. But I refuse to allow that stop me! So, I have seen a number of NaNo naysayers on Facebook and the webs. They say such things as there is already too much crap out there and maybe not just anyone should be writing novels. They use words like drivel and garbage and junk. And phrases like junky, crappy manuscripts flood agents.

But NaNo changes lives and creative processes. This is my new reality since my NaNo adventures began in 2009: write like mad all month, then Thanksgiving arrives for which I cook for, like, 20 people, then after Thanksgiving NaNo ends, then Christmas is on the way. Then I do all the planning, shopping, hiding, wrapping, Christmas festivity figuring outing (so the kids have a nice holiday season which ensures they will end up with good childhood memories blah blah blah), travel arranging, packing, staying up late to put it all under the treeing. Sometimes in December I sleep. For about 3 minutes. (I absolutely LOVE those 3 minutes.) In spite of all of that, I write 50,000 words every November, then more in December to wrap up my project.

So here follows my take on National Novel Writing Month. Let’s get real, there is already a crapload of crap out there. What’s a little more crap gonna hurt? Is there room for more war? No. More starving children? No. More glaciers melting? No more room. Bottom line: people creating is never a bad thing. NEVER. Even if they create junky, crappy drivel with which they flood agents.

People, PLEASE DON’T BE GRINCHY AND SCROOGEY ABOUT NANOWRIMO. And there is my Christmas reference to bring this thing full circle.

Peace out.

Joy to the World. (See how I did that? I’m awesome.)

(I am also 3,596 words behind. Crap... Gotta go.)

(Did any of this make sense? Don’t tell me... I don’t want to know.)

why are multi-vitamins so enormous?

Seriously. They can put a monkey in space but they can’t manufacture a multi-vitamin that is smaller than an infant’s fist? (I know they put that monkey in space a really long time ago, but I’m not as updated on scientific breakthroughs as I probably should be, even though my husband has a subscription to Wired.)

She’s five. But do you see what I’m talking about?

I can’t swallow pills.

Not entirely accurate—I can swallow them eventually. Here’s how I do it: Put pill in mouth. Take sip of water. Decide it is too much water. Spit some into sink. Decide it’s not enough water—take a micro-sip. Breathe as I try to psyche myself up to swallow pill. Cringe as it begins to dissolve in my mouth. Try like hell to swallow it, repeatedly holding up index finger—just hold on—at anyone who attempts to speak to me. (Quite often the phone rings right about now.) Finally manage to swallow the chalky, bitter, vitamin-y sludge. Swig down giant gulp of water. Breathe heavily as though I’ve just run a 5k. I do all this in the kitchen. (I’m never kidding when I talk about all the time I spend in here.)

This is more than you wanted to know about me, yes?

I’m getting to a point—I mean it.

So, I have been back-sliding lately. I do really well for short periods of time keeping everything in perspective, but then I always seem to slide back into worrying about all of it. All of the stuff I am trying to keep going. (Please assure me that I’m not alone in this.) I need to write more. I need to get that freelance career really rolling rather than limping along. I need to figure out once-a-month cooking. I need to read all those parenting books. I need to make sure I am doing enough with the kids. We are “unschoolers” which means we homeschool without a curriculum. The concept being that the kids are allowed the freedom to pursue their interests and play and create as much as they want, having faith that they are learning. The end result is days that are filled with activity that does not necessarily look anything like “learning.” And as the parent, I’m supposed to be totally cool with that, because I have faith that kids learn on their own time-table and this will all be for their benefit in the end. I don’t know how many of you can relate to this precisely, but I think you can probably find something comparable.

But life has a tenacious way of interjecting itself into my plans. (I’ll bet you can say the same...) I generally plan activities for the kids 3 months at a time (this is the print-out I use): projects and science experiments, cooking together, outings. Because even though we don’t use a curriculum, I want to provide an enriched environment conducive to learning. But it seems like half the time my stinkin’ plans fall apart. The house needs to be cleaned or someone gets sick or unexpected stuff comes up or breakfast and getting dressed seem to take all morning or they just aren’t all that interested in what I am attempting to do. And then—only to make life that much more interesting—the pot boils over on the just-cleaned stovetop. Right? It’s challenging to meet the deadlines and keep up on reading the books that will make it all easier, make it all make sense, make it all work once and for all.

That’s just about the exact moment I feel like I am failing. Again.

But in spite of it all, things are getting accomplished. Why do I always focus on what’s not getting done?

I have this vision of the perfect life I could be leading wherein all elements are just so—if I could only plan and execute it. But the truth is that even if my life had only one aspect—instead of many—I guarantee that one thing would not be perfect.

So I ask: are the kids happy? Are they laughing (a lot)? Are they well-fed? Is the house basically sanitized? Do we have peace? Am I slowly but surely moving my career forward? Do I have clean underwear most days?

YES!

It’s like swallowing that enormous pill. It might take a few false starts and a lot of effort, but in the end it will always get (imperfectly) done. And on the good days, I know that this is enough.

lasagna is too math-y

Making lasagna is hard. Or it might be that I am too dumb to make lasagna. Every time—every time—I boil the wrong amount of noodles. In this instance, I am not exaggerating at all. EVERY SINGLE TIME. 8x8, 9x13—doesn’t matter. I will not do it right.

See what goes on? Odd noodle cutting and arranging.

Then the layering part always messes with my head. This, this, this, repeat. I always—always—screw it up. Maybe it’s the “repeat” directive. Why can’t they just write it all out again? We live in the digital age—how much effort would it take to copy and paste? It’s not as though some poor monk in a hair-shirt has to write it out longhand with quill and ink by candlelight. The problem with lasagna is that it steers a little too closely to mathishness. And I do not do math—proud hater since 3rd grade.

I can’t even write out a lasagna recipe for someone. I make a few really good lasagnas (such as roasted butternut squash lasagna) and when people request the recipe, I sort of gloss over the how many noodles to boil part and the how the hell you layer it part. I just leave it up to them, as if to indicate even a monkey could figure out those parts—I won’t bore you with the details. But truthfully, I’m simply incapable of figuring it out to tell them.

I had a really good idea about lasagna recently—I call it the “whatever’s beginning to rot in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator lasagna.” Dice up whatever that might be (I happened to have lots of peppers, eggplant and zucchini) and throw in some diced onion, toss it all with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast until tender and browned. Pour in some sauce (homemade or jarred) and use that as the filling with the usual stuff, like ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan. Boil some noodles (you know how many, right?) and layer it all up (or have a monkey do it). If you have a ton of this veggie filling after you roast it all up, dump half into a zippy bag and freeze. Then some night when you totally don’t feel like cooking, you have the fixin’s for whatever’s beginning to rot in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator lasagna! Brilliant!

Is that not the most unappealing food photo you’ve ever seen?
Even with the bag folded over ever-so-jauntily.

But enough about math and monkeys and disgusting looking baggies of food.

How is NaNoWriMo going? Very well, thanks for asking! I am right on target. This is my 4th year and I am almost never ahead with my word count. I am the sort of person who possesses the best intentions in terms of getting ahead of the game and then consistently working right up against deadlines and only to the extent that I must. So, I write almost exactly 1,667 words every NaNo day. What is the novel about, you ask? A large cast of women characters—archetypes of sorts—who experience the gamut of female experience. It’s sort of a group interrelated short stories, but I think it will be more complex than that in the end. Intrigued? (You know you are!)

Well, you’ll have to sit tight on this one. First drafts are almost always some degree of crap or another. But I think I am getting better at novel-writing and this one won’t require 43 years of editing. At any rate, it’s easier than lasagna. Which is really hard.

indie pubbed book review—Multiple Exposure by Shana Thornton

I am excited to present my first installment in an ongoing series of independently published literary novel reviews! Enjoy!

Multiple Exposure (Thorncraft Publishing, 2012)—Shana Thornton’s debut novel—is the deeply nuanced story and timely examination of the ways in which we process and integrate violence and its ensuing fear in our contemporary culture.

Ellen Masters’ past is overlaid with her present. Her consciousness confounded further by images of the indigenous tribes who once populated the Southern town of her childhood. Hers is a rich past—a Century Farm family of plum brandy distillers, a childhood marked by loss and abandonment, a personal history steeped in the woods near her home, the parallels to her own life she draws with those of the tribes—and what unfolds is an exploration of family history which sustains, defines and roots us. Ellen is a University professor and her husband, David, enlisted in the Army, is deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. His frequent deployments prove to make connection between he and Ellen difficult, and Ellen spirals through fear and paranoia in their separation. Ellen hikes and runs the lengths of her extensive property and the land which contains Cumberland Cave, an ancient piece of stone near the property Ellen inherited from her grandmother—her constant running and hiking a seeking of answers of the self and the world that contains her. When three University students are murdered at the Cave, Ellen is certain that she is somehow connected, her fears blossoming to greater and greater proportions. She delves deeply into her past and her own mind as well as the ideas of violence, all the while attempting to connect with David via email, sketchy cell phone calls and interactions on Skype.

Ellen’s story culminates in a poignant ending, rife with beauty and metaphor.

In a singularly distinctive voice, Thornton raises questions that carry weight, all the while immersing the reader in lush language, emotion and visceral imagery. Through the intertwined narratives—Ellen's past and family, her marriage, murder and war—Multiple Exposure at its center examines violence. It is an exploration of war—our implication, our connection, our responsibility, the voyeurism provided by media and the consequential numbness of our culture to brutality and exploitation—and our response to it, the murders at home juxtaposed highlighting the reach and scope and seeming impossibility of escaping from violence.

Thornton expresses challenging points of view and gives shape to difficult images—that which we imagine in order to survive, as our worst fears take shape, and the ways by which we survive and heal.

A clip of Shana Thorton reading from Multiple Exposure. Beautiful prose!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAWzx1AyeaY

full-body YES!

I wasn’t going to do NaNoWriMo this year. I’ve have repeated this avowal all year long because I knew I wanted to be working on this blog and freelance projects and editing already-written novels and my other commitments. And showering. That being said, I just signed up again. Like, moments ago. (I figure I’ll cut back on showering. And definitely shaving. I mean, what are pants for anyhow? Right? Right? Are you with me?)

So, I’m gonna do it for the 4th year in a row. Why? I am nuts.

Speaking of which, it’s Halloween this week and we have watched It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown about 47 times in the last few weeks. I adore Peanuts holiday shows. Probably too much. (And yet in my heart I know there is no too much when it comes to Peanuts holiday shows.)

(Our jack-o-lantern and his yucky black moldy stuff.)

Happy Halloween! Now back to the topic.

What is the topic? Finding life balance. And I am about to tell you exactly what that is: a big freakin’ joke. I’m just kidding.

(No, I’m not.)

I threw an enormous fit recently. Luckily the kids were at my parents’ house and not present to hear the litany of swears and witness the throwing of objects. Here’s what happened: the thingy on the toilet that makes water not spray all over the bathroom blew and the toilet began spraying water all over the bathroom. (It was clean water, so there’s that for a small blessings and all that crap...) To me it was more than water spraying all over the bathroom—it was another mess to clean up, another thing to fix, another thing keeping me from writing.

(This freakin’ thing. Please disregard the ugly ‘80s tile we have yet to sledgehammer.)

I have maintained a mantra over the last couple of years: “I can’t get all this done!”

And alternatively: “There is no way to get all this done.”

With the addendum: “I’m so tired.”

Well, recently I realized something: I can’t get all this done. There is no way to get all this done. Also, I’m so tired. It occurred to me that if there is no way to get all this done and that very fact has been amply confirmed, why do I keep trying? The very problem is in the statement itself.

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” Albert Eistein

My sister has a friend who recently experienced the death of a close friend. And it made her reconsider her priorities. She said to my sister, “Unless it’s a full-body yes, then it’s a no.” Now that is a mantra by which to live.

I have applied some of that sentiment to my life in trying to approach balance. As it appears “there is no way to get all this done,” and there is nothing I can or am willing to cut entirely, the logical thing to do was identify and pare back each component and do some realistic goal setting. Err on the side of small, well-spaced objectives and if more gets accomplished, call it gravy. (Warning: this rarely happens.)

And I gave a lot of thought to media, which spins completely out-of-control really quickly. The inbox to my Gmail account was one of the things that felt unmanageable to me. And if that’s not a luxury problem, I don’t know what is. But first-world guilt aside, I did rein it in and I will share my tactics with you. I think it’s important to seriously regulate your information upload. Don’t subscribe to every blog (but do subscribe to this one), RSS feed, Facebook page—don’t live in fear of missing something “crucial.” Seek info when you need it. It’s called the Google. Use it. I went all brutal on my blog subscriptions and unsubscribed like crazy, using the full-body yes method. Where I could, I switched to Facebook or Twitter feeds. I am not a fan of RSS, but if you happen to be, that’s another way to go. With the info coming via these streams, you can so much more easily pick and choose. Now my email inbox is pretty much exclusively business. I l also try to designate a finite amount of time each day to view my media streams. The bottom line: if it doesn’t add value to my life, I cut it.

I try to apply this full-body yes sentiment to the little and the big things in life. It’s a no-fail in-your-bones kind of thing. It’s an approach toward balance.

So maybe I am nuts to do NaNo, but when I questioned it, it was a full-body yes. I’m gonna trust it.

the mosquito hours and a personal misfortune

Want to know about the novel I’m working on?

(You do.)

Before I tell you, though, I must share with you my small tragedy: this very afternoon, my beloved Starbucks reusable cold cup fell to the tile floor and cracked in half. The special bubble top is intact, so huzzah! for tiny blessings. The cup is still usable... sort of. I said lots of bad words so it was a good thing the kids were watching TV and are 100% incapable of tearing their attention away from Wubzy or the Kratts or whomever to hear things like their mother saying lots of bad words because she broke her beloved Starbucks reusable cold cup. Or respond to fire or tornado or nuclear war.

Anyway, my novel...

I actually have 4 novels going. 4. I’m not sure if this is normal or weird. Probably weird. Problem is that I never think anything is done. Or I’m not sure it’s done. All my novels are absolutely brilliant and utterly perfect—until I write them. Then they sort of suck. In my totally unbiased opinion. But 4 novels—well, that would be impressive if I weren't totally unimpressed.

Why don’t I just publish something, you wonder? There’s really no non-crazy answer.

Anyway, the novel about which I wanted to tell you... I mean, about which you demanded me to tell you. In 2009, I began The Mosquito Hours for NaNoWriMo. All I had when I started was a title and I have no idea how or when I came up with it. It refers to the time of day when mosquitoes are most active. And I thought it would be a good time to throw a family women of different generations together in an small screen house and see what they had to say to each other. There is house foreclosure, a practicing Wiccan, numerous sets of twins (fraternal and identical—not the same thing in the least), a character called Pickle, Medieval role-playing, secret diaries, a character called Guinevere, an RV from the ‘70s, a coronation, a stone house that survived a hurricane. Among other things. Intrigued?

(You are.)

Now the current draft rests in the capable hands of several beta readers, and I eagerly await their feedback. Why am I telling you all this? Sometimes the best way to get a thing done is to tell everyone and if nothing else can quell your fears and actually get it done and out there, then the pure horror of the shame of inaction might.

(Thank you.)

from my kitchen counter

Today I am cooking for my Memèré, who is 88 years old. 2012 has been a rather rough year for her and she can’t cook for herself anymore. For a while, she hadn’t been eating well, but the appetite has returned to my tiny little grandmother (4’10”, about 100lbs), whose ability to knock back a plate of food has always amused me. My Mom cooks for her now, but I know it’s a lot to manage. I live about an hour and a half from Memèré, so quick-dropping off a plate of food is not possible. I am instead cooking and freezing portions in little containers for her. Right now, American Chop Suey, which I really hate, but she loves. I’ve already got butternut soup, creamy chicken and vegetables, sweet corn risotto and good old chicken soup bundled up for her.

I know I’m tethered to this kitchen, but I rather like it in here. I create, I nurture. I sew curtains out of pretty tea towels. I watch the sun set and the moon rise out of the big window over the sink. I do projects with my kids and wash dishes emptied of food I’ve fed them.

According to Salary.com, a stay-at-home mom would earn $112,962 annually based on an average of the salaries of the typical work she does everyday. $112,962—of course, that is if she were paid. She also works an average of about 95 hours a week. After sleeping, what remains is about 17 free hours a week.

17, people.

No wonder early Feminists initiated the drive to get the hell out of the kitchen. As most of us battle-worn victims of the Mommy Wars can attest, I think the ghost of the oppressive kitchen still haunts. As a stay-at-home mom, I sometimes feel misunderstood—probably as much as the moms who choose to work feel misunderstood sometimes.

Women have made strides with validation in the workforce, but I’m not sure the same legitimatization has been extended to women who work in the home. I am hoping someday for a more inclusive definition of “Feminist,” because I am one.

“Changing the status of mothers, by gaining real recognition for their work, is the great unfinished business of the women’s movement.” Ann Crittendon The Price of Motherhood: Why The Most Important Job In The World Is The Least Valued

I spend 85% of my time in the kitchen. My sister, Rebecca, came up with the idea for the name of this blog. She, too, is a stay-at-home mom—entrenched in the business of butt-wiping, snack dispensing and laundry—with a simultaneous vocation outside the realm of hearth and home. In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf said in order to write, a woman needs a room of her own. I don’t have a room in the sense Woolf intended, but I do have my kitchen. And I would like to reclaim the kitchen as a feminist stronghold. No longer shall the kitchen remain the metaphor of the downtrodden and subjugated woman—as a symbol diametrically opposed to liberation. (Woolf also said a woman needs money—but one thing at a time. I got the room at least.)

This is what I have to offer from my kitchen counter—the simple but important and heavily nuanced work of life. And the passion of creation. Cooking up some love for my Memèré. Mindfully setting the rhythm of our home and daily life for my family.

how to eat an elephant

“When will life get easy?”

One of my friends recently emailed me this inquiry. What she meant was less busy. And the answer to her question is never. NEVER. Coincidentally the same week, my sister sent me a card with a well-coifed, apron-festooned mother on the front. She holds a neatly-folded stack of towels. She calls to her children:

KIDS... I HAVE FRESH TOWELS FOR YOU TO LEAVE ROTTING ON THE FLOOR... come and get ‘em!

Inside it says:

Don’t you just love that 12 seconds when all the laundry is done?

Seriously, I don’t think it’s even 12 seconds. But I’m not here to complain about the laundry—it is my personal reminder of the impermanence in life. You do the laundry, you cook, you take care of everyone, you do the dishes, you try like crazy to get some writing done, and then when you’re all done, you do the laundry. See? The laundry will never be done.

I am a novelist. Well, when I finish a novel I suppose I will be a novelist. (I’m gonna say I’m a novelist.) I am a novelist. I also do some freelance technical writing and blogging. I am a Senior Editor for Her Circle Ezine. I do lots of laundry.

I am interrupted 8,000,000 times a day, and while I am, admittedly, prone to exaggeration, I am certain that this is a fairly accurate number. Interruptions such as the request, “Mama, get my water!” when the demanding child is sitting on the couch and simply doesn’t want to lean forward to grasp the water bottle that sits on the tray on the ottoman right in front of her. (I did not make that up. It literally just happened.) The fights, the wounds, the butts to wipe. Then the planned activities—the books to read, the Lego to build, the craft projects to do, the nature walks, the trips to the playground.

This is my inaugural post and I am not using it to complain about my life—rather to sketch it out a little and articulate all the reasons why I don’t have time to blog or get my novel(s) done. Or shower. Why all this is so hard. Why I am so freakin’ tired. Why it has taken me so long to really get my writing life going.

And why I am not going to let any of that stop me anymore.

Because the real truth, which has nothing to do with all these excuses—which are totally not excuses—is that I am simply, completely afraid.

I have been trying to figure out the very most-perfect focus to have here, the very most-perfect things about which to write and achieve it all with the most-perfect timing to ensure literary success. And if all that didn’t happen, if I didn’t figure all that out exactly most-perfectly, I would TOTALLY SCREW EVERYTHING UP and become an UTTER FAILURE. Because, you see, there is one perfect, entirely elusive, precisely right way to do this.

(No, there’s not.)

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.” Mary Anne Radmacher

So, I’m just gonna do it. Here it is.

I will write about my family, being a mom, my work, cooking, trying to juggle everything, writing, matcha green tea lattés. I am just gonna take a breath and then that proverbial leap.

Because there is no perfect time—there is now.

There will never be enough time to get it all done. Life will never get easy.

So, where do you start? You just start anywhere. One bite at a time.

This is my leap.

(I really hope I’m not totally screwing this up.)