So I was walking across the main road that’s on my paper route when I passed over this for the first time:
There I was, standing in the middle of the road, wondering why they would print the word “Danger” on a manhole cover. It’s in the middle of the road! Cars drive over it all the time! So I took this picture.
Luckily, I got out of the way before a car came.
Blog post of December 2nd, in honour of Every Damn Day December. Check it out! It’s not too late to join in!
I find myself saying ‘If I could only just…’ a lot.
If I could only just find more time to write…
If I could only just have more money…
If I could only just find true love…
It goes on, ad infinitum. But all these things denote that I’m not content, when for the most part, I am. I have my children here with me, we have a roof over our heads, the air inside is warmer than outside, and there is food in the fridge. And I’m keeping up with my writing quite well, although sometimes it’s a struggle to do anything else.
So what is it which makes me wish for more? Is it simply the human condition to keep striving? It’s hard, for me at least, to keep my mind from going, from wandering, and from wondering what it would be like if I had just a little more.
Now if only I could consume nothing but coffee and chocolate and wine and cheese …. then I’d be happy.
What would make you happy?
I wrote a 2,100 word short story and a blog post today. Can I count that on NaNo? Coz I didn’t get a word written today otherwise. 😛
Look at the picture!
*runs away*
Good Saturday morning! I hope everyone is having a nice weekend, particularly those who don’t have to work. If you have a regular 9-5, you shouldn’t be working today, right? Then again…
I was reading the paper (it’s become a habit now, since I did my challenge) and was struck by an article in the entertainment section about Jared Leto and his loss of 30+ pounds for the sake of his role in the upcoming movie, “Dallas Buyers Club.” You can see his picture here. It’s really quite shocking.
Reading this lead me to think about what we do for our jobs. Sure there are some of us who flatly refuse to wander outside our job description, but at some point I think we’ve all been in a position where we’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty for what we do for a living. Some of us do it all the time.
My own job, as a stay-at-home mom is 24/7. You might say being on call all the time IS part of my job description, and it is. But at the same time, I didn’t go into it with the expectation that I was going to be in it alone.
His Majesty, for whom I slave night and day
And speaking of my ex, over the last ten years he has been working at a few different retail chains as manager. Budgets in these places always seem to be a concern, according to him, and he is constantly having to work overtime so as not to tax the budget by having to pay employees – he is on salary.
I’d be interested to hear what you do that is ‘above and beyond.’ Come on, toot your own horn. After all, it’s rare that we get any appreciation from all we do, isn’t it?
It’s my last day to report on what inspired me from the previous day’s newspaper, and I must say, it has been a challenge. I may start again after NaNoWriMo is finished – then again I may take a break. I’d rather not try to make plans that far in advance.
On my final day here then, I’d like to talk about the orange box. Being that it’s Hallowe’en, you might assume that it’s related in some way to the holiday, but it isn’t.
The orange box is being introduced in my city to go alongside the blue box, for recycling paper, plastic and tin, and the green bin for compost. What is the orange box for, you ask? (Or maybe you don’t ask and I’m the only one just finding out about it…) It’s for electronic recycling.
How, you may ask, (and this time you really may be asking) has recycling inspired me to write a blog post? I got to thinking about what we consume. Throwing away something electronic was something we used to do maybe every five years, if not ten. Years ago, things lasted longer not only because they were built better, but because they didn’t go out of style as fast. In my house right now, however, I have five old-style computer monitors, four computers – the oldest has a 5 1/4″ floppy drive – one ancient laptop, and one old tv set, not to mention numerous broken cellphones, VCR’s and DVD players. All of the monitors still work, but what else am I to do with them but throw them away?
Having written all that down (and I’m shocked), I realize that the time has come when we need such a thing as an orange box. Still, it makes you think, doesn’t it? All this junk we’re getting rid of into landfills and that which goes up in smoke to pollute our air – where are we going to live when it all takes over?
Here’s to the original, organic orange box. May one light up your Hallowe’en!
Have you ever noticed that sometimes the horoscope in the paper is spot-on and sometimes it misses the mark by a mile? Well mine has me worried.
For about a week now, astrologer Eugenia Last has been telling me, and all other Aquarians, to watch our backs. The messages say we shouldn’t let ourselves be talked into anything we don’t want, to not allow anyone to manipulate us, and yesterday, not to trust anyone with our secrets.
A day of being told someone is out to get me is bad enough, but after my Incredible Adventure on my Paper Route the last week, and the comments that I just may be on my own version of the Truman Show, I’m starting to get a little paranoid.
Here’s a random picture, to throw off whoever’s out to get me
Do you ever get weirded out by your horoscope?
I can’t believe I’ve been this wordy in the space of nine months. 🙂
So to celebrate my 200th blog post, I’m going to do a few random things.
First, a pretty picture. I took this about five years ago, in Gatineau, Quebec:
Second, I’m going to ask anyone who is participating in Nanowrimo this year to join me as my writing buddy. I’ve never had one in the ten years I’ve been doing Nano and I already have three this year. It seems a good idea to have as many as I can – I’ll need all the encouragement I can get with all I have going on. If you’d like to join me, look me up. My user name at Nano is “schvell”.
Third, I need some advice. I’m thinking about changing my theme, but I was wondering – does it throw you off when someone’s site looks drastically different all of a sudden? Will you still visit if you don’t recognize the decor?
That’s all I can think of at the moment. So, dear friends, and readers I haven’t met yet, enjoy the rest of your Sunday, and thanks for visiting!
The article in yesterday’s newspaper that caught my eye was about a community group which takes disabled adults (over age 16) on outings. The sentence in the article that sparked my interest in particular said, “Without our programs, some of these individuals would be staying at home so it helps reduce the risk of isolation for the parents and caregivers as well as the participants.” That got me thinking.
The first thing that comes to my mind when someone mentions ‘caregiver’s isolation’ is simply the fact that when they’re stuck at home caring for someone who is disabled, they just don’t go out. But it goes so far beyond that.
As a parent of disabled children I find it hard to have discussions with parents of “normal” children, because we have so little in common. Even people who aren’t parents of kids the same age as mine (for instance, if they’re grown up and moved out) have a hard time relating to me. Whether they assume because my kids aren’t like theirs, they can’t possibly have any of the same tendencies, or whether they’re afraid of being told that their problems can’t possibly be as bad as mine, I”m not sure. Maybe it’s both. Therefore, I try not to talk about myself much. When they are kind enough to ask me about myself, no matter how nonchalant I am about the way I live, telling anyone about my kids is a slow death towards being a conversation stopper. Occasionally they’ll mention a niece, or a neighbour who has a similar circumstance, or they’ll ask me questions about the health of my children, but when I’ve said all there is to say, if I don’t quickly find something other than the weather to talk about, (and it’s always up to me to find something, because no one knows quite where to go after being told about my kids) then it’s game over. In fact, come to think of it, it shuts people up about as fast as telling a stranger I’m writing a novel. Think about that for a while.
Having said all that, I’ve been invited out tonight with my next door neighbour and six of her closest friends for dinner, none of whom I have met before. As long as I can keep the conversation away from my kids, I should be fine. But of course someone is bound to ask me what I do for a living…
My point is, the isolation parents and caregivers of the disabled experience isn’t necessarily as clear-cut as it sounds. So next time you come across a single, stay-at-home mom of disabled children, or a novelist for that matter, don’t be afraid to look beyond what’s apparent.
I had a hard time coming up with anything inspirational in yesterday’s paper, until I decided to put my dubious organizational skills to use. A headline which reads, “Have you planned for illness?”, mashed together in my little brain with a picture I took the other day, gave me the following idea:
What do you do when part of a tree collides with your house?
Are you a natural born handyman/handywoman?
…handyspider?
Owning a home is great, but the number of things that can go wrong is spectacular. If you’re like me (single and totally inept when it comes to anything more complicated than taking out the garbage) then you have to pay someone to fix anything that goes wrong. And when the boiler starts to leak all over your basement floor? (Hint: the water is supposed to stay inside the system.) You spend the next six years paying for a new one, like I am.
Easy to squash or not, there’s something to be said for being a squatter, like my little eight-legged architect/do-it-yourselfer.
I’m inspired – not by the article on the front page of the paper yesterday, but by its headline: Focus on those who inspire.
I can’t count how many times in the last month I’ve been asked the question, “What inspires you?” This question was my first assignment in my short story course and it continues to come up. Like here: on Opinionated Man’s blog just today.
My answer is ‘everything.’ All people, all things. There is nothing that can’t inspire me if I am in an imaginative mindset. And that leads me to a question for anyone willing to put forth an answer. If you consider the fact that you potentially inspire someone, does it make you want to be on your best behaviour?
Personally, I don’t think it should. After all, if everyone was always nice, pretty, clean, healthy and polite, we wouldn’t have antagonists. If our homes were always neat and tidy, would we be able to come up with a trash heap for a setting? If we all believed in the same things, would we be able to imagine strife?
Conflict is what a good story is made of. We NEED people to be at their worst once in a while. Misery, while not something most of us strive for, is necessary for the well being of the written word, as is sickness and death. Beauty is nothing without ugliness. Yin cannot exist without Yang and vise versa.
Think about it. What interests you? Conflict. Happiness that has overcome defeat. The struggle…
I can be inspired by a rock if it’s in the way, or if someone trips over it, because it’s all about the human interaction for me. It’s even better if, whoever trips over it swears like a sailor. Yes, I can be inspired by a scenery. But without life, it’s only a scenery.
What inspires you? Or, better yet, WHO inspires you?
In other news, the tree formerly known as Nosehair is sporting a fancy new orange eyebrow
lindaghill.com 
