Day 58: Souvenirs

Write about a souvenir you have bought or received.

Where do I start?  I have souvenirs all over my house.  I keep trying to think of my favorite.  How do I choose? I do love walking from room to room with all the souvenirs to bring back the beautiful memories.  But, I guess the best answer I can think of is the pictures that I take.  I love the pictures of my travel companions and the fun things I find on my adventures.

Here are a few of my souvenirs.

From left to right, these souvenirs come from a trip down to Yellowstone, Thompson Falls, and Spokane (I went to the traveling Broadway play, Little House on the Prairie.)

The bottom photo came from Bath, England.  I have a thing for masks.  In the top phote, The top mask is from Mexico and the bottom is from Hawaii, as is the photo of the pineapple.

My first time in Georgia, Jerry asked from me to bring home a Southern Bell.  This started a small collection from Georgia; New Orleans; York, England; Frankfurt, Germany; and Glastonbury, England.

Day 57: Failure and Success is Irrelevent

What do you love doing so much that the words failure and success essentially become irrelevant?  Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic, pg. 259, Kindle version.

 I have to say, this writing gig is a love/hate relationship.  This morning I read the above question and thought well, duh. Writing is my life.  I live and breath to create words on paper to paint pictures and tell stories. Failure and success matter not.

Fast forward to two hours later, I have been struggling to try to make an image on my computer of a falcon with a transparent background in GIMP.  Epic failure!!! I want the image for part of my branding of my writing business.  My motto is take flight with a falcon flying through the air.  Ya, I can’t get the software to work for me.  Image, me thinking I can go into a program I have never used to create a “masterpiece.”  Nope. It isn’t going to happen.  Granted, an image for a brand isn't writing.  However, a brand will help me sale my novels which will make me a success.  If I don't have the brand, I may continue to not sale books which is a failure.

Now, hours later after a ton of other obligations, I haven’t been at my computer.  I haven’t written my blog or my morning pages, let alone worked on any fiction words.  Uff da!!!  So, is failure and success irrelevant after a very unsuccessful day?  Of course! I have been running all over and missing playing with the words.  Now I sit at my computer.  I have about no real time because I have company coming over and I want a little of the house cleaned. But where am I? In the computer room hoping to play with words, even if only for a minutes.

So, I am going to steal a few more minutes so I can write in my journal.  The words have to come.  They help my soul fly.  Oh, so here is my brand, though it doesn't look professional yet.

Day 56: The Rhythm of Life

The Rhythm of Life

Between reflecting and reading, I believe I have found the problem to my current life attitude.  I have not been taking care of myself. This fall, my rhythm of life changed when it came to my teenager.  We went from her going virtually nowhere day after day, to her going to school for three hours every day. At the same time, like every year prior, I expected to ramp up my writing.  With my health acting precarious, it was only a matter of time that something in my life explode. In this case, I became angry because everything was out of control.

First and foremost, I need to be resting more.  I hate resting. My mind rarely turns off in the afternoon for me to take a nap.  I also detest sitting around when I have a million things I want to accomplish. The last couple of days, I have worked at sitting in the living room to either read or watch television.  I am making progress.

Artist dates help to revamp me.  I have been struggling to get them into my schedule.  I really have no excuse besides being busy with running around for Madelle and taking two classes.  Now with the Christmas season, I am busy getting presents, baking, and decorating. I may not get to my artist dates until the 27th, but I will work at making it a priority once Christmas is over.  My first project I believe will be painting my butterfly house. I will be posting pictures in the coming year. Thinking about it, I might work on a puzzle before then.

Friends are another essential aspect of the rhythm of my life.  This fall my friend’s husband took a turn for the worst and passed away.  Her and I weren’t getting out for our daily walks and talks. My Bible study group and I were super busy and didn’t meet for about a month and a half.  My amazing neighbor and I lost track of our time. We hadn’t been on a girl’s outing since like June. These four ladies are such a blessing. I missed them.  I am so thankful that our lives are getting back to normal. This last week I have been able to hang out with all of them and life feels so much better.

The end result is that I have to back off in my writing.  I have to rest more. I can’t let so much time elapse between artist dates.  And finally, I need to keep my schedule open for friends. With all of this, hopefully, my rhythm of life will get back to a healthy song.

Day 55: Inspiration

What was the last thing you read, heard, or saw that inspired you?

Last Sunday, I attended the annual Advent by Candlelight Tea at my parish.  The social center glimmered brightly from the Christmas lights.  Tables displayed beautiful decorations and China.  Desserts, lovingly made by the hostesses, were served by lovely ladies.  A guest speaker talked about faith.  This year, the speaker inspired me to remember that God has a plan.

The last two months I have felt like life has made a detour that I don’t particularly like.  With Terri’s talk, I am inspired to readjust my plans for the reality of where God has put me this winter.  I need to remember my health isn’t conducive to the plan I made when coming back from my business writing workshop.  I need to remember my daughter still needs much of my attention.  These are the things in my world that I need to remember are God’s plan.  They are my cross.  I am inspired to hold my cross with pride and loving acceptance and a servant’s heart.

Day 54: The Blink of an Eye

Write about a time everything changed in the blink of an eye.

At first glance, I came up with quite a list: my health, Jacque’s (my sister-in-law) death, my Dad’s death, Jerry going to Iraq, and mental illness.  Why is it that the first thing that come to mind are bad things?  I should include good things: marriage, birth of my children, graduating from college, joining the military, and meeting certain people.  After 50 years of living, how do I pick just one?  I also started complicating the idea with the thought that some of these experiences we prepared for so the change isn’t really all that quick.  I need to not think so much.

For me, the most profound experience was the death of my dad.  He went into the hospital just before Father’s Day in 2016.  I had no doubts the doctors would get him up and running again.  We had more camping, visiting, and fishing to do.  More long conversations about gardening, life, books, and football.

As the summer progressed, he didn’t get better.  In July and August, he went from bad to worse.  I made two emergency trips home.  The last trip was to say good-bye.  And just like that, my world changed, in the blink of an eye. 

With two years behind me since this life altering experience, that time has grown fuzzy.  I feel like it has been forever since I have seen him.  However, I feel his presence every day.  I miss him every day.  I will never be the same person.  My dad is gone.  How could I be the same person?

Someday, hopefully in the very far future, I will be with him again, in the blink of an eye.

Day 53: Feeling Instead of Thinking

The comment I heard on Wednesday night stayed with me.  Thoughts about kids these days feel, they don’t think in the classroom intrigues me.  My first thought is the old gentleman spouting this is spot on. I think it isn’t just kids not thinking, I believe adults have lost their thinking as well. 

However, at some point in the last couple days, I realized that many times my thoughts get in the way.  I am constantly thinking about the interactions I have throughout the day. I think to to death, to the point of feeling like I have been wronged or I have wronged someone.  I believe I think too much.

I am going to use my sister as an example.  She called me to talk about a situation at work.  She was all riled up. I listened. I understood.  Then like I think most older sisters do, I tried to come back with some words of wisdom.  I thought I heard a little irritation in her voice. After the conversation, I thought about it.  And I thought about it some more. I was doing a lot of thinking. I didn’t hear from her for about three or four days which isn’t typical.  We talk at least every other day. Now, with all the thinking, my emotional state was becoming a little overactive. I could have become way to emotional and acted upon that emotion.

Instead of thinking, because I believe we think all the time, I believe the term should be reasoning or logical reasoning.  Through all the thoughts I was having about the conversation, I reminded myself that my sister is an extremely busy woman. She works fulltime with three kids.  I remember those days. I reasoned in her hectic life, she didn’t realize how much time had passed. As suspected, when I called her later, she had just been thinking it had been awhile since we talked.

Now, instead of silly girl stuff, I will use the example of the Southern border issues the United States has been dealing with in the last years.  We all need to do some logical reasoning. I have listened to pros and cons on both sides. Part of my heart goes out to families who want to make a better future for their children.  Geez, not so long ago, my Norwegian ancestors did just hat by coming to the United States not to mention my Colonial ancestors. I believe in immigration.

With that said, bad people are trying to come into our country under the false pretences of immigration.  They want to bring drugs into our country. They want to bring destruction to our country. We need to logically reason whether the individual immigrant is here for the right reasons.  Not all immigrants are good people. Also, we have to think of the logical issues of financing these people. And a ton of other things to consider when taking people into our country.

Frankly, I have no answers.  I am torn on the issue. I am trying to logically reason what the answers might be to the debates.  And at the end of the day, I believe we need to come together, pushing the emotions aside. We need to logically reason and have a respectful dialog on how to progress.  Unfortunately, people are letting their emotions run wild and instead of being respectful they are yelling. They are doing all they can to make the other side look like morons or monsters.  We need to stop letting our emotions runaway with themselves and take away our ability to reason.

Day 52: Rudeness

A bright cozy fire displayed itself in the gas fireplace.  In the corner, a simple Christmas tree stood vigil.  At the various tables, groups of people sat chatting quietly with one another.  At the large group table that sits eight or more, a young lady worked on her laptop.  Soft music played in the background.  The atmosphere promoted a sense of peace.

I sat at a table for four working on my novel.  My friends planned to join me later.  I like to go early to work on my writing.  In my ears, buds softly projected my latest love on Spotify, a gaming and movie list of compositions.  The volume drowned out any potential snippets of conversation pulling me from my work.  The words struggled to get onto the page at the beginning.  After a time, they began to flow from my fingertips.

Booming through my trance, an old gentleman stood by a table with two women, who had been moments earlier having a nice quiet conversation, talking at the top of his voice about young people only feel, they don't think in the classrooms of today.  I thought the idea pertinent and a potential topic for my blog.  I tapped onto my blog file and jotted a couple of notes.  My novel beckoned me back to continue my play. 

The voice banged on.  I tried to block his words from my thoughts.  Instead, the thoughts went negative.  "Oh, my word, this guy needs to shut up, so I can concentrate on my work.  I hear him over my music that is feeding straight into my ears.  Enough already!!!"

I switched to a louder song and pushed my ear buds further into my ear.  Very uncomfortable.  His voice became a muffled roar.  I dove back into my fiction.  I also sighed with relief when about five minutes later he returned to the other side of the wall to his seat, leaving us all in peace.  Happily, I wrote 1,340 words before my Bible study began.