Don't Forget NaNoWriMo--or Find Your Goal

Although I'm going through a BUNCH of unplanned stuff this year, I am also planning on participating in National Novel Writing Month (November 1-30)! And you should too!

Even if you don't write novels, sign up for it. It's FREE, and you can use the e-mails and inspirational articles from the Office of Letters and Light to use for any of your efforts--from painting to music to drawing to reading to weight loss to pretty much any goal for anything you have in mind. Just sign up, and everything comes to your e-mail… and it's more helpful than you might realize.

I have found it hard to keep going without goals, without a plan for the day, for the week, for the month, for the year. Without goals, I am unsure what to do next. With goals, I have specific tasks automatically ahead for me.

Remember, too, that we are 2 1/2 months away from the new year. Why wait until January 1 to set a goal? Why not begin that resolution soon?

My resolutions (BEFORE January 1):

1. Finish my mermaid novel.
2. Lose the weight I've needed to lose for more than a year.
3. Find a happy place with Richard's cancer treatments.
4. Sew several costumes (three planned so far--Elsa from Frozen, Queen Elizabeth I, Antebellum dress)

Not a lot, but one of these would probably keep me busy. What are YOUR resolutions before January 1?

Fighting On

I'm here! It's been nearly a full year since I've posted on this page--and I'm sure all sorts of friend bloggers have assumed I've given it up for good--but I'm here.

I posted on my Not Writing Anything Anymore blog a few weeks ago, resolving to make blogging on both blogs a priority. But then life threw in the biggest of big wrenches, and I had no choice but to switch to what is more important: my husband's welfare.

My husband, on his way to run an Olympic length triathlon in Arkansas, ended up in an emergency room in Alabama with acute pancreatitis. Three weeks later, after a CT scan, tons of blood tests, and two ultrasounds, doctors concluded its cause was a 3 cm cancer tumor in the pancreas. Filled with anxiety (for the prognosis for pancreatic cancer sufferers is extremely bad), we went to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL, where they determined his cancer was operable (thank God!), and where, a little over a week ago, he underwent the Whipple procedure. (It's a BIG surgery--look it up online, and you'll see how serious it is). Through his fight, he's adopted the mantra of his favorite college football team: Fight On! I've even ordered shirts and hats with the saying on them, for him, his friends, and our relatives to wear.

A week later, we were heading home from Jacksonville when the doctors called, and the news is now much more positive. The cancer was caught far earlier than it usually is, and after six months of chemotherapy, Richard will most likely live a long life without pancreatic cancer ever returning. Yay!

Our lives have been turned upside-down, though, and I found that even reading was impossible while I watched over him in the hospital. It was only when tests of the tumor were complete and we were given the great news that I could even concentrate on reading a book again. Now it's time to put my focus back on writing.

Richard was told by a friend who had beaten ovarian cancer that he had to concentrate on more than the cancer, and she told me the same--I had to have more to do than support him and rehash the cancer stories over and over. So that is what I am doing. I'm getting back to my mermaid novel, back to painting (I have accumulated several castles I want to paint), and back to playing piano. All three will soothe my soul through this, making it easier for me to soothe Richard's.

If you've read through this whole thing, thanks for visiting! Hopefully I'll have worthwhile stuff to share with you in the future!

Wanting More?

I can't say whether it's just in the U.S., but it seems like people are compelled to buy more and more stuff in the relentless pursuit of happiness.

Shoppers are rushing back to the stores even as I write--returning gifts they don't want, then spending a ton more on gifts they DO want--as if the stuff will finally satisfy the hole they find in the pit of their stomach.

I don't believe that really works.

The hubby waxed philosophical about this yesterday, shaking his head and saying, "You know, I think I'm happy now. There's nothing out there that I don't have that would really make my life better. I'm content with everything just as it is."

He looked at me for that spousal agreement sort of thing. You know, the oh-honey-I-think-the-same-thing-in-exactly-the-same-way comment. But I realized that I wasn't content with everything just as it is.

Not because I wanted more stuff. Oh, no. I don't like stuff in general, and I'd be more content with less stuff. I'm not content, not because I want more stuff, but because I want to DO more. Looking back over my year, I wish I'd written more, painted more, sung more, played piano more, tried out more new recipes, exercised more, sewn more. And the list goes on.

It probably doesn't make any sense. I just feel driven to do all I possibly can with the life I have. I don't want to waste time on crap. I want to create something real.

So, that's my goal for today--and for every day: Make something.

I plan to sew today--do some mending, but also sew my daughter a bathrobe and my son a toy bin. They'll probably drag on through tomorrow at least, but then I'll have made something. It's a beautiful feeling, too, making something. Better than having stuff. Far better than buying stuff. Creating something may, perhaps, give me the best feeling in the world. It's worth all the work, all the time, all the effort.

Enough blogging. I'm off to MAKE.

Thankful Things

I'm totally stealing this from another blogger (with a link to her site below), but it's such a great idea I had no choice but to steal. I've honestly never done this before, and I can't think why. Thanksgiving Day has never been about the food, at least for me (I like the term "turkey day" about as much as others like "xmas" being used for "Christmas"). Football also isn't a draw, as you probably know. But thankfulness, well, that's a big deal to me.

So here it is, my GRATITUDES, my top ten list of things I'm thankful for:

1. Other bloggers--like Sia McKye--think of fantastic blog topics so that I don't have to. And my wonderful fellow bloggers also encourage me, offer me fantastic advice, and show me that I'm not alone in the world.
2. My online and face-to-face community sees the world in new ways and helps me broaden my mind. They remind me what's important and also remind me when stuff is coming up locally (Thank you, Facebook people!)
3. My kids are both helpful, emotionally stable, caring people. They try new things and still take my advice, and though I know it's because they are not yet teenagers, I'm grateful they want my input and encouragement, even if it's just for now.
4. My sister and I are still friends, despite all the stuff we've both been through. Lots of stuff, pretty much all family-related. Yet she's never given up on me, never taken sides against me, never done anything but thing I'm great (and the feeling is mutual!).
5. I still have hope, despite taking off my rose-colored glasses more than twenty years ago. I don't pretend that evil isn't there, but I believe one voice can help, and I am strong enough to speak truth.

Isn't he cute? Here's the turkey
we won't be eating this year!
(Photo credit: NWTF)

6. I have yet to really feel any signs that I'm getting old. No creaking when I get up, no back pain. I'm more fit now than I was when I was half my age. I still have all my faculties, too--okay, so my memory is going, but that's been happening since I was twelve.
7. The hubby and I still care deeply about each other--after all these years, we are still best friends. He neatened the house last night and made dinner. Said it was because he knew I'd be cooking today, and he wanted me to rest the day before. He also said all he wanted for dessert on Thanksgiving was cookies--bless that man!
8. I don't have to cook a turkey. Hurray for being vegetarian! I get to start cooking around 11:30, and we'll be eating our tasty meal by 2!
9. I have time to do the things I love: paint, sing, sew, write, play piano. And though I still don't have enough time, I am not so overloaded with stuff that I don't have a chance to spend time playing.
10. Christmas is just around the corner, and since we don't do much for gifts at our house, I don't have to shop on Black Friday. In fact, I don't even have to enter a store at all. I can get what I need online.

There it is. I have a ton more to be thankful for--a TON--but today these are the gratitudes uppermost in my mind.

What are your gratitudes?

Have a fantastic Thanksgiving Day, people. And hugs to everyone!

Whisperings

My play is calling to me.

Well, its characters are, and that means I need to devote the afternoon to writing (once my classes are over and I've eaten a little lunch). You see, my characters had been talking and interacting all night while I slept, and they gave me a rather interesting dream.

I dreamed last night that I was with a film star... though now the identity of the star escapes me. It's not the first time I've dreamed of film stars. I always pick the weird ones, too, the ones I'm not at all attracted to, like Rutger Hauer, Bobcat Goldthwait, etc. I once dreamed Desi Arnaz had asked my mom to marry me, and she was trying to urge me into it, even though he was really, really old (he died less than a week after I'd had the dream).

Anyway, I had separated from my husband and hadn't seen my two kids, and this star was trying to woo me into becoming his significant other, furnishing his fabulous apartment with stuff he thought I'd want, etc. I was holding back, cautious, wanting to visit my kids and husband, but when I went to our house (a brownstone in Chicago, a place and kind of house I would never live in, mind you), I discovered that my husband had left for Europe (probably in anger that I'd left) and the kids were living with my mother-in-law.

The frightening part of this is that everything was unemotional, as if I was afraid to feel anything about my husband, or this actor guy, or my own kids. I was numb, rather like the female character of my play is feeling. I kept wondering, while dreaming, what was going to happen to wake me up, and I realized that the only thing which could break me out of the misty funk I was in was my husband--his physical presence, his touch, a word of caring or recognition.

I woke up, and suddenly I knew what to do with my characters. They fell into place beautifully, and I knew that my main character had to know, in some real, certain way, that her husband wouldn't abandon her, that he'd be glued to her no matter how broken she was. Only then could she heal. If she thought he could get up and leave, she'd leave him first, just so that she wasn't the one left behind. And he needed the same assurance, that she wouldn't leave him like she'd left her own father, left so many other boyfriends before she'd met him, left so many jobs, left places and friends, anything that wore on her too much. His greatest fear was that she would take off, and he'd never see her again.

Heavy stuff for a morning, I know, but I appreciate my characters working through this for me, so that I could have the answers when I woke.

Now if I could just figure out who that film star was.

Wielding Power

It never fails to amaze me when a bit of a glitch in my most significant relationship reduces me to a quivering bowl of depressed jelly.

I apologize for the depressed poem of yesterday. I still am a bit sniffly, but my honey has done me worlds of good, just by listening, just by talking, just by turning off the Olympics for a night and paying me attention. Mostly, he's reminded me that my feelings are valid, that my opinion is mine, and deserves my attention.

I'm mostly back to my cheery self, ready to take on the world, but the incident, however brief, has made me wonder...

I was once told a quote similar to "Name whose opinion matters most to you, for you are his slave." It's cropped up several times in my life since I first heard it, and it's always disturbed me, for I realize that I am slave to several.

And, here again, I face my list of Top Ten List of People Who Have Some Hold Over Me:

(sorry, I rewrote it several times, but I couldn't seem to make it less wordy)

10. My students (yes, I actually care what they think... whether they are learning, etc. I care less, though, if they don't come to class, neglect their work, or blame me when a crappy paper gets a deservedly crappy grade.)

9. My sister (she's [slightly] older and knows more, even though we are night/day different)

8. Colleagues (unless they are insane or don't know how to teach)

7. My kids (low on the list b/c they are too young to know what's good for them)

6. My blog buddies (I'd be more afraid, but they are all too nice)

5. My brother-in-law (b/c he's brilliant, and also a writer)

4. My friends (especially the parents, since I don't know what I'm doing)

3. My mother-in-law (b/c she's smart and I adore her)

2. My husband (best friend, compassionate, amazing, intelligent...blah, blah, blah, ad nauseum)

and the number one person?

1. Me.

Yes, other people matter to me. Yes, I want to impress others, to win them over, to get them to like me. But no one is more important than I am. I hold more power over my own happiness than anyone else. I fall out of balance when I forget that.

So, who's on your list? Anybody ready to share?

Miracles

I mentioned last month that my husband and I had been dating for twenty years... and it was 20 years ago that a quite miraculous thing happened. You'll understand when you hear the whole story.

Twenty years ago, Richard and I had been dating for right around three weeks. I was just about to play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and he was doing tech, which meant he was the person pulling me up in the balloon at the end of the play.

But that wasn't the miraculous part.

We were planning to exchange presents at a Valentine's Day party, and a day prior I still didn't have anything to give him. I'd thought about chocolates, about all the typical crap, but nothing felt right.

Finally, late into the night, I wrote him a poem. It was a pretty cheesy sonnet, and I won't make your eyes bleed by posting it here. But if I'd really read it then, I would never have given it to him. Three weeks in, I had written him a poem pretty much asking him to spend the rest of his life with me.

A scary thing to send a barely boyfriend who was still 18.

I wrote it in calligraphy on parchment, then rolled it up with a red ribbon, not telling my parents what I'd done so they could talk me out of it. I saved the poem in my coat, and then, when we were together, I handed it to him.

He opened it and read it while I waited, not breathing.

I know what he should have done. He should have shown me his deer-in-the-headlights look, folded it up, gulped, and said we needed to talk (or something like that).

But here's where the miracle happened.

He didn't run. He didn't get scared. His eyes got pretty glossy, though, and he didn't speak right away, but rolled up the parchment carefully and tucked it into his coat pocket. Then we reached the party, and not even five minutes later, he was showing the poem to everybody, bragging on me, telling everybody what a lucky guy he was. I saw several other guys get the deer-in-the-headlights look, but that didn't seem to phase him at all.

Not even three days later, I noticed the poem, carefully framed and glassed, in his dorm room right next to his bed. And it's still there today, on our nightstand, right next to where he sleeps.

The poem was prophetic on my part, but the grace with which he accepted his destiny--accepted me--will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Today, I am grateful for miracles.

20 Years

No, I'm not projecting any time travel stuff. Honestly, I'm so caught up in now I can't possibly speculate on what the world will be like in 20 years.

But today, January 26, is still a big day. It's my husband's and my 20th Dating Anniversary.

Yes, we still celebrate it. It's the reason we went to Cape Flattery a little over a week ago. It's the reason we get gooey-eyed every January. Heck, it might be the reason we're still together after all this time. And, looking back, I'm pretty amazed. After twenty years:

1. We don't hate each other (marriage ain't much fun if that's happening).

2. We still like sitting next to each other, holding hands, etc. (Don't worry, I won't do the TMI thing.)

3. We still have plenty to talk about.

4. We still don't annoy each other much. Actually, we may very well annoy each other less than we used to. (I could make a short list, of annoyances, but then, so could he. None of them usually is enough even for a spat.)

5. We still like going places with each other better than with anyone else.

and, most importantly,

6. I still can't imagine putting up with anybody else instead.

So, there it is. Has it been exciting? Not enough to make a movie about. Has it been fun? Yup. Would I have picked differently? I am SOOO glad I didn't, and I think he'd say the same. We get along like best friends, we tell each other the truth (even when we don't want to), and we share a vision, a purpose, and a great deal of respect. And we know each other almost as well as we know ourselves.

What more could I ask for?

Speaking Klingon

I've discussed this before, my insatiable desire to speak with a British accent. Where does it come from? Too many sources to name, but I'll give it a try:

1.  My love for Shakespeare, begun just before ninth grade, when I attended the Utah Shakespeare Festival. 

2.  My love for Harry Potter novels and movies (can't wait for July 15!).

3.  My wish that I'd been born in England.

4. My love of British literature in general, including such authors as Jane Austen, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, etc.

5. My belief that the accent sounds infinitely more refined and polite than the standard American accent (only the deep southern accent, to me, gives it any competition). I have a similar reaction to people who speak with a Spanish, Italian, or Russian accent. 

So I slip into the accent several times a day--with my kids, with the church choir, etc. I have even considered interviewing for work with a British accent, and maintaining it 24/7 (at my husband's encouragement). 

Only now the roof has fallen in on all of this. Richard's mother came for a visit this weekend, and she told me plainly (more than likely parroting what her other children said last time I visited Shelton) that speaking the way I do is "creepy." I told her it wasn't (and it ISN'T!!!), and she insisted it was weird, like "speaking Klingon." Not only that, but my husband--the one who had once encouraged me to interview using a British accent--admitted, in front of her, that he found my accent "annoying"--after I had just written a blog praising the dork! My MIL insisted that it was creepy because I'm "not British."

Needless to say, I got pissed. I told my husband--in front of his mother, no less--that he was not only wrong, but he was wrong to have brought it up this way, after telling me otherwise. I went upstairs as I burst out crying, and I didn't stop until my husband came up to apologize (and I still cried for a while after that). 

It wasn't the disloyalty, though, that hurt. I was devastated by the whole thing because I truly am an Anglophile. I love all things British, and to be told that something I found so much joy out of was "creepy" was devastating, somewhat like wearing an outfit I love more than any other, only for someone well-meaning to tell me it made my butt look huge.

On the other hand, I think both my husband and his mother are wrong. "Speaking Klingon" is equivalent in one way, for it's an affected way of speaking, and a few Trekkies probably get some joy out of expressing themselves in that way, even though it isn't their usual way of speaking. Honestly, I don't think there is anything wrong with that (people should do what makes them happy), but my habits are only somewhat equivalent, and here's why:

Difference #1:

*  No one is raised speaking Klingon as a first language.

*  Millions of people speak with a British accent, and have for centuries.

Difference #2:

*  Klingon was a fictional language from the start, with varied words that must be subtitled to be understood by the English speaking populace.

*  British English is merely a dialect of English, and is understood rather easily, especially by those who have heard it before. The fact that Richard and his mother do not understand it as well means they have simply not experienced it enough. Subtitles are NOT needed--if anything, British English is easier for me to understand than many American dialects.

More than anything else, it's a matter of being non-judgmental. I don't tell Richard that his football watching is "stupid." It makes him happy, even if it bores the crap out of me, and therefore I want him to watch (so that he's happy). His happiness outweighs my own personal opinion. In the same way, all of my relatives and friends have little quirks like this, yet I don't mind them, for those quirks and habits make them happy... and it's not my job to tell them what I think they should do with their lives. 

Yet much of my family (well, Richard's family) believes it's perfectly fine to tell each other where they are going wrong in their lives. One person is told he eats too much, another that she is too angry all the time, etc. The problem isn't my accent. It's that my husband and MIL think they have a right to correct me for it, to judge me for it. I don't think they have that right at all. It's my accent, and therefore it's my business. They should leave me alone.

What do all of you think? If you're afraid to tell me the truth, feel free to write in as "anonymous." I'd love to have another perspective... though I doubt you'll change my mind (you can try, though).