A day off, just what I needed

When I am at work and it is warm and sunny outside I wish I could be at home in my yard. On cold days I wish I could be at home in a sweater with a cup of tea in my hands. Today I have one of my wishes. It is the first cold day we have had this fall and I have a day  off. My list of things to get done today keeps growing, but first I am enjoying a warm cup of chai tea and browsing a few places online.
November is coming fast and until this morning I wasn't sure if I was going to try Nano again this year. My life has been busier than usual this year and I wasn't sure if I wanted to try and fail. This morning a zombie story I have been lugging around in my head for three years came to the forefront and asked to be wrote. Well, I never have been good at saying no, so here we go.
Today though is a costume making day. One Red Heart Queen coming up.

More rambling

Well I have been keeping up on my daily word count, so I am still just the same 1300 words behind. So far I am loving my story, that is the biggest trick to finishing by 11/30, loving what you are working on. I spend my days at work trying to schedule my after work chores so that I will have at least two hours to write in the evening. Today I just remembered that I have The Reader checked out from the library. It is due tomorrow. I am trying to fit watching it in to the schedule, but I am not sure if it will fit.

Nanowrimo is here!

I started my Nano novel yesterday. I am already around 1300 words behind. This is typically my month for whining about Nano. December is the month I recover from Nano. Every other month I eagerly anticipate November. This may be the definitive sign of my craziness.

If you haven't ever tried a nano novel check out nanowrimo.org then you can be crazy too.

Where have I been?

This is more difficult than I imagined it would be. I have been sitting here reading over my blog for the last ten minutes trying to work up the nerve to click the new post button. I feel like I have just ran into an ex-lover who I have not seen in years. How do you start getting to know each other again?
I'll start with what happened to me. November was a month in which so much happened that blogging just kept getting pushed back. Fria Chica did end up moving back home;just not with a definite break like I expected. The boyfriend is still a part of her life and therefore a peripheral in mine. He is a nice guy, he just needs to work through his issues. He came up for Christmas and we had a really great time. He was coming up for Halloween, but got stopped halfway here and spent the weekend in jail. Having Fria Chica back is great, I just spend most of my precious free time with her and Pookie instead of updating this thing. In November I was also temporarily transferred back to the local office. They are going to eventually hire a permanent replacement for my last boss, I hope it is me, until then I am running the office. Then at the end of November, just as I was finishing my Nanowrimo novel, my computer crashed. Luckily it had made an odd sound a couple of days before its unfortunate demise so I quickly backed up what I had so far. I walked to DH's office the last two nights and finished up the novel there. That is right, I finished this year and am extremely proud of myself.
Then December hit. With the new job,Christmas,school board (extra meetings because of a teacher who overstepped his bounds with a student or five,depending on how many of the rumors are true),and school fundraisers, I did not even get around to buying a new computer until January.

Now here is January. The kids are back in school. I have not yet taken down my tree. That is going straight on my to do list. I took today off of work so that I could have a day at home all alone. It is great. Earlier I watched About a Boy. I had forgotten how funny that movie is. While I was watching it Lee came home from school on his lunch break to add more hairspray to the sculpture that is his hair. We had fixed it that morning and it was starting to fall. He is not truly dressed up unless his hair is reaching the same heights as Russel Brand's. Lane sat on my bed and watched us while making jokes about how many heroin filled balloons Lee had about his person.
Jason has been sick for the last few days so he spends every morning trying to decide if he can make it through school. Honestly if it were just school he would stay home, but it is homecoming tonight and he does not want to miss his game or the dance.
This morning Lane took off a pair of jeans because they have a rip in the knee. The worn spot they already had when I bought them, at the start of the school year, has finally gave way. I offered to patch them and he declined my offer. I threatened to quit buying jeans that are already halfway ruined if he was not going to try and make them last. He insisted he will still wear them with black leggings underneath. The thing is I just bought Jason a pair for Christmas that have patches that look like he sewed them on himself. So I made it clear I would do a crappy job and make sure they looked just like Jason's new pair. How illogical are we, as consumers, when we will wear worn and patched jeans, but only if we spent a lot of money on them. We've gone mad.

Not much to say

Well I did not reach the goal of 50,000 words. I came close with 48,000 words, about 40,000 of them I am happy with. Not bad, at first I was mad at myself for failing, but I wrote more than I would have if I would never have tried.

Pookie is in the hospital so I stopped in after work and watched him while Fria Chica had a shower. He is so stinkin' adorable. He is a chubby ball of sunshine. He has had bronchitis and wasn't getting enough oxygen so he has to sleep in a tent. He sounds a lot better today.

Not a lot to say really. I'm not even angry about anything! I am tired though, so I am off to bake a cake for the cake raffle, then to bed.

It is late, and I am rambling

I am wasting time instead of writing. My brain needs to recharge before I move on. Somebody please go in and make me another cup of tea.
We went to Jason's fall sports banquet earlier this evening. I am sure there are more boring places to be, but I really can't think of any right now. For the last five years I have had a child playing sports both in the Fall and the Spring, the two times of year they have these things. That means I really should have attended ten of them. So far this is my second.
Lee hates them as much as I do, so he never went to his own banquets, and I sure wasn't going to go if he wasn't. Jason doesn't like them either, so I thought I was going to get out of it again tonight. Dh loves these things, that surely has to be a sign that something is odd, so this year we went to please him. I am glad we don't have to do that again for a few months.
Some days I hate to walk into the school because I know someone will corner me and say 'your on the school board' and then they will go on to complain about something. It isn't that I don't care about the school, or want to hear their opinions, I do. It is just that some days I want to just be a mom, and forget I'm a school board member.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Fria Chica and I found a solution to one of the world's problems on our long drive home the other night. I'm sure it only makes sense late at night, in the state we were in when we thought of in. Here it is: There should be one rule every government in the world has to follow. All religion is personal and can not be encouraged by any government. Churches should be local and not national entities. The U.N. should give up all of its other duties and have an army to enforce this rule. Not peace keeping troops, an army. Before you dissect this, I know it is too vague, and that it gives the U.N. to much power, but in my late night version of the world it would work.

I can't quit crying

I am dangerously far behind on my nano novel. Last night I stayed up late and wrote five thousand words. So if this post seems extra wordy I apologize. Once you get used to making every sentence as long as possible it is hard to stop.
When I did go to bed I couldn't sleep. Not many nights in my adult life have been spent staying up and worrying. I am a champion sleeper. All of the nights that have been have spent awake have been attributed to Drama Queen. Last night was no exception.
For over a week the plan has been for me to drive to Wichita Monday night and bring the girls home Tuesday. They were going to spend Thanksgiving with us and then I would take them home on Saturday. I didn't realize the depth of my missing those girls until the day kept getting closer to seeing them again. I was like a school child in May. I couldn't sit still and smiled at the thought of seeing them again. Some days I could feel their arms around my neck.
More than one person had asked if they were out of school on Tuesday, or if they were just skipping it. As far as I knew they were just skipping it. Looking at our schedules Drama Queen and I had picked out a day that I didn't work and that coincided with her work schedule so she wouldn't have to pay a babysitter this week. She is having babysitter trouble again, and they are always hard to find on holidays. Since she didn't raise any objections to the missed school day I didn't bring it up. The benefits outweighed the missed day as far as I was concerned, and it was the only day I could make the drive.
I had to work Monday. After work I drove quickly to the school to catch the last half of Lee's scholar's bowl meet. When it was over I ran home make a pot of tea and eat a quick waffle for supper. The waffles were left over from Sunday's breakfast. I covered it with strawberry syrup, whipped cream, and mixed berries. You can never go wrong with a Belgian waffle. While I was eating I called Fria Chica to see if she was still going with me. She was. I called Drama Queen to tell her what time I was leaving, and that I would be arriving around midnight.
She seemed surprised. Somehow she had completely forgot our last conversation and thought I was coming Tuesday. I told her there was no way I was going to drive four hours Tuesday morning, then turn around and drive home the same day. Especially with Fria Chica and the baby. Fria Chica had said she wanted to go because Drama Queen has never got to see the baby, but that she didn't want to keep him in a car seat for eight hours in one day. She was only going if we spent the night.
I have made the trip by myself many times. I kind of enjoy the time to think, so if Fria Chica decided not to go it wasn't a big deal to me, but she really wanted to go. Tuesday is my only day off this week, except for Thanksgiving day, so I told Drama Queen it had to be Monday night like we decided. She called me selfish and rude. Whenever I tried to talk she just yelled more insults over my voice. When I did get a chance to talk I probably said the wrong things. Anyway the whole mess ended with her hanging up on me and sending me hateful text messages. I think she likes conversations like that better, because she likes them to be one sided.
Right now the phone is ringing and I am ignoring it. My mother is calling again. She can't stand going to work when there might be some drama going on, so she is at home trying to meddle. She wants to see the girls, but only if I drive up and get them. She mentioned several times last night that she would go today, except she has to work. I have already talked to her this morning, once was enough. She made sure to point out that she wanted to see them at Christmastime, and that Drama Queen said I could come up and get them the day after Christmas. It was really a one sided conversation, because I have nothing more to say on the matter. Last night she wanted to trash Drama Queen and call her a drunk. Today she has talked to D.Q. and wants to discuss the whole situation with me, explain D.Q.'s side of it to me. I've heard, I've read it, I'm done with it. I just don't have the energy. Last night I was upset, but I didn't want to sit around and trash D.Q. It wouldn't make me feel better. Today I just don't have the energy to do anything more than cry and sleep. I am forcing myself to get a few things done, but it is very hard.
Depression is a family trait, but I have been afflicted very little in comparison with most of siblings. My depression is usually started by an event like this. Once I get down it is so hard to get back up again, but I usually bounce back in a few days.
I say usually, because once it did take me six months to pull out of the funk. I slept ten hours a night and took at least one nap during the day. When I fell asleep while stretched out on the floor, reading a book to Lane, I told myself this is enough. It still took me several months to get back to normal, but I did get back. I credit reading to pulling me out.
It was a point when my children were still young, but I had a bit more free time. If you are not careful at this point you will assess your life, and you may find a lack. I did, but I couldn't quite figure out what was missing. I wanted to run away from home. There was a need to be myself. My brother gave me a gift. It was Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes.
After Lee was born my life became about him. Then Jason came, two years later Lane was born. Until that year, when Lane was four, my life was full of them. I'm not complaining I loved it. Then suddenly there was a little space and I couldn't remember how to fill myself up. It had been too long since I had done it. I didn't even know who I was. The lost feeling overwhelmed me.
As I read first this book, and then more books, I started to remember who I was. I also began to grow again as a person. My children are still the most important aspect of my life, but they are who they are, and I am myself.
Right now I am a woman who misses her nieces so much. I am a woman who is wondering if she is doing the right think by not jumping in her car and driving to get them right now. All morning I have questioned my resolve to not be bullied. It has taken me many years to learn not give in to pressure when I know I am right, but part of me wants to chuck all of that and call, apologize, and drive to get them. Even if I have to give up things important to me, and go to work tomorrow with no sleep.

I am still in shock over what has happened to my novel today. I was way behind this morning when I started. After writing 3,000 words today I was still behind but a lot closer to being caught up. Somehow today, and I'm still not sure how, I deleted the whole thing. I can't find it anywhere.
My sister Fria Chica was here when it happened. She was actually the one on the computer when it happened. I sent her over to read what I had wrote. She tried to open it but a warning came up saying it was already open. Since I had just closed it right before she arrived I rashly told her to click yes and open it anyway. Now it is gone. I actually felt tears coming to my eyes, but I banished them out of fear of making her feel guilty. It wasn't her fault at all, but I was afraid if acted too concerned it would make her feel bad. I forced the whole thing out of my head. We went for a five mile walk. Pooky, her baby was bundled and slept the whole way in his stroller. The wind was cold and Fria Chica lost her breath. Neither of us had thought to bring an inhaler. I was pretty worried about her; She was having trouble taking any deep breaths. My asthma hasn't been giving me problems for the last few years. Listening to her I could remember how tiring it was to fight for every breath. How hopeless it felt to be away from home and have to keep walking, every thought focused on getting to an inhaler. It made my problem seem very small. When we got back here I dusted off my inhaler for her to use. Then I rushed to my computer to search for the missing file. It is gone. Now that she has went home to rest and I know I have to start over I feel like giving up.

The Worst Hard Time

1,667 words a day will be a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Not a good novel, by any stretch of the imagination, but a novel. Last year I didn't succeed. There were two reasons, one, the one I openly blame it on, is that Drama Queen ran in to a bit of trouble last November and I spent too much time on the road trying to help her out so I didn't have time to finish. The other is that I tried writing a story that was just too much for my small amount of skill. The year before I finished a few days early and had a story I really liked. This year I am going with a nice simple story and have full expectations of finishing. I have wrote 1,982 words so far. I may try to find a way to keep a word count on this blog.

I finished reading The Worst Hard Time yesterday. Every few minutes my mind strays back to the book. I may need to read it again or something else on the same subject. It is a non-fiction account of the dust bowl days; something I should know more about. Most of the books I read take place far away from here. When I picked up this book it didn't occur to me I would be reading about my own area, I just liked the cover and title. At first while I read I romanticized the setting of the story and found myself walking outside to really notice and enjoy the wide open space we have here.
As a child I romanticized the plains when I read Little House On The Prairie. I romanticized the locations of almost every book I read, I still do. Whenever I read a book I wanted to go there. I want to walk around and feel the air, smell the smells, experience the hard times as well as feel the sun shine on my face. This was how it was when I read Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, Jacob Have I Loved, and really any book.

As the book progressed and the depression worsened I grew amazingly scared. I heard it said once that if it went long enough without raining it could happen again and on some distant level I believed that. I also knew on that same distant level that we had caused the dust to fly. Reading about it in such detail I realized that our greed and lack of foresight was the main cause, not ignorance. There were voices of warning before and during the great plow-up. People chasing money never listen to words of caution. It is very scary.

Another thing that I didn't realize is that the grasslands are still in the rebuilding stage, and that it could take hundreds more years to for them to completely heal. I am simple in some ways. I thought we had just ran in planted some grass and trees and problem solved. Beyond that I never gave it much thought. Which is sad since I have been caught out driving in dust storms. Once, years ago, I was driving on the highway north of town when suddenly all I could see was dust and the occasional piece of corn stalk that scraped my window as it flew by. We don't really have shoulders on much of the roads out here so I was afraid to pull over. I was afraid to slow down too much for fear of being hit from behind. I couldn't drive very fast though because I could only barely make out the white line for a few feet in front of me. My kids were sleeping in the back seat and this was about the most tense half hour in my life. You would have to magnify this experience by 100 to get anything near what the people endured here during the thirties, but it does show that our dirt does still blow some days.

The scariest part is that we are now using our water supply just as flagrantly as they used the soil back then. There are voices of warning and we give lip service to water conservation, but nothing is really being done. Without our ground water we would be back at the mercy of the sky for our water and we have seen how fickle the sky can be.

Read this book it is informative, entertaining, and a word of caution to us all.