Saturday, November 26, 2005

Thanksgiving feast

Thanksgiving was filled with good food and family. Talena made a wonderful dinner, the grandbabies were delicious as well. Spent most of the afternoon and evening with them, then went over to friends afterwards. Even spent some time with Jerry's sisters earlier in the day. Even the weather was good. So yes our day was filled with good food, friends and family. Hope everyone's day was just as good.

Live fully.....

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Time is an illusion

I have come to realize that time is illusory, it's never what you think it is. Just when you think that you will have enough of it, all of a sudden it's gone.

Kyle has signed up for the Navy, I knew that the likely hood of him going into the military was quite high. He is in ROTC, and he has always been fascinated with planes. He will be inducted into the Navy in July a few days after his birthday. I am very proud of him, and his decision to go into the Navy.

Just this past Monday Gregory set up an appointment to talk to the Marine Corps recruiter, and on Wednesday he decided that he wanted to join. He starts all the paperwork on Friday. Next week we will know what his choice of career will be, and when he will be going off to boot camp. And, yes, I am very proud of him, and his decision to join the Marines.

Now this is where time became the illusion. With Kyle going into the Navy after his birthday, there is a small part of the summer where he is still at home, not very long but some. With Greg already being 18 he may very well have to leave within days of his graduating. It's almost Christmas, which means the school ear is almost half way through. Now, while I was waiting for the day when both boys would be graduating and heading off to college, I always thought that it would be much later, it isn't. They are growing up and becoming young men. I find it scary that they will be off in the world without me. In some ways I have been anticipating the day that they would grow up and leave, now though it is much to soon for my liking.

All I can do now is hope and pray that they will be ok, and that they will live their lives to the fullest.

Live fully....

Monday, November 21, 2005

Quiet Week

It has been a rather quiet week. The boys are doing good in school, Maggie is working hard. She was promoted a few weeks ago to second in charge of the cashiers, now by mid December she s going to be promoted to head cashier of the store she is at. she is doing really good, and we are very proud of her.

I have managed to get quite a bit written this week. I don't know if I will actually meet the word count for this years challange, but I do like the story, so I will finish this one even if it is after the end of the month. And yes I will finish last years' story as well, that one though is getting more and more involved (complicated) as it goes along. I like it though, it's just going to take longer to finish.

That's all for now, like I said a rather quiet week.

Live fully....

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Procrastination Reigns!

In this last week I have discovered just how skillful I am at procrastination. Let me explain further, again more procrastination, I'm so good at it.

I started writing, then noticed after a couple of days that writing with the TV on was slowing down the process. At that point I decide to listen to CD's, I have a CD player on my alarm clock. I start my search for the right music to write to by looking through the stack of CD's on Jerry's desk. Didn't find anything there that struck my fancy, so went to look through the stacks on his computer table and dresser. Didn't find anything there that struck a chord with me either, both desks are in the bedroom, now I had to go to the front room to look through the stand that hold CD's. Found Enya, The chieftains, those would work for now. Decided I needed to find a specific one by The New World Renaissance Band, couldn't find it. Looked through the stack on Jerry's desk at least four times, found CD cleaning disk, looked through the stacks on his computer table and dresser, still did not find it. Looked through the CD stand at least twice more, well not all the way through because I didn't think it would be that far down. Looked to see if Greg or Kyle had it their room, they didn't. Finally looked all the way through the CD stand, there it was on the very bottom, imagine that. Had the CD's that I wanted to listen to, and the means to clean the CD player on my clock.

Now that I have everything, I really should clean the CD player as it hasn't been done in who knows how long. Put cleaning CD in player, push start, it tries to go and then stops. Great, the CD player doesn't work. There is a boombox, the CD player in it doesn't work either. Hold on a second, I have a laptop, it has a CD/DVD player in it, duh. Put in an Enya CD, get the little box that asks what do you want to do. In the list is itunes, I have itunes on my laptop. I didn't know I had itunes, thought all I had was the Windows Media player. Now I'm sure you know where this is leading. Started playing the CD, started playing with the program. Found I could import the music from the CD into itunes, then realized that I could identify the album and the artist. Thought, shouldn't I be able to input the names of the songs? It can be done, but not after you've imported the music. Spent the next couple of hours inputting the CD information. Found that itunes has an equalizer, had to play with that. Discovered that I could make a playlist, had to do that. Noticed that the list can be set to shuffle the order and made to play continuously, oh joy, now I can listen to the same forty-six songs without getting bored with them. Now that I had the music I wanted to listen to on my computer, I was able to write without distraction.

Or so I thought, anyway I check my email, and blogs. I have been chosen to become a Virgin Mobile Insider, this is my cell phone company. If I complete tasks I can earn points, I can then turn these points in for prizes, airtime, and other stuff. One of the tasks was to open a Myspace account and add Virgin Mobile to my friends list, which I did. I will add the link to the sidebar here. In starting a new account I had to spend some time in learning how it works. More time procrastinating.

These were the big things, there are always the daily things that can get in the way of writing. Making sure kids are up for school even though they are big enough to get up on their own. TV shows that have to be watched, only a couple of those thankfully. Just love watching Starting Over, this is a reality show that actually helps women better themselves. Taking Maggie to work, she has been promoted to second cashier and will become head cashier by December 14th, with the appropriate pay raises. Picking Maggie up from work. Jerry getting ready for work, he is my biggest distraction. The boys coming home after school, and their friends coming over, have to make sure that they are behaving themselves. Then there are the shows on Monday and Tuesday evenings that I have to watch.

After checking email, there is the blog for NaNowriMo that has to be checked, the blogs of family and friends, the Virgin Mobile website, the Myspace webpage, and of course this blog. All of these things make me a great procrastinator! I know that I have the choice of whether these things should distract me or not, and sometimes I do let them. To bad writing in this blog doesn't count towards my word count on my novel.

Dad, if you want I will email you the new novel. I would like your input on it.
Ash, please send me the link to your blog, I won't put on here if you don't want me to.

Thank you to all who read this, and are wishing me luck in this years novel writing. I am going to finish last years attempt as well.

Live fully....

Monday, November 07, 2005

Novel Writing

The first of the month started the novel writing. Hopefully I will get to 50,000 words that I am supposed to have by the end of the month. It's only day six and I'm already behind the minimum word count that I set for myself. Found that it is easier to write when listening to music, took time to import some CD's to the i-tunes that I have on my laptop. That was worth a good three hours to set up. Then again I have always been good at procrastination. The story this year is a mystery, so far without anyone dying. Lots of strange things and people involved. A large family, an ancient castle, and old artifacts, and a made up myth. Maybe death and destruction at some point.

Kyle seems to like the internet school, he has at least been doing his work. It will be interesting to see how well he really does. Greg is doing good in his classes. They both could be doing a lot better though. Even though they both have goals, they sometimes do things that keep them from reaching those goals. I will keep after them to do the work that is needed to reach those goals. The joys of motherhood.

Hope everyone has a purpose filled week.

Live fully...