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*
Tag Archives: writing
Above and beyond
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?
And so the true paranoia sets in
I had no idea that it was a ‘thing,’ but apparently, with senile dementia comes paranoia. As my mother ages I’m thinking more and more that I need to research the stages, before she goes through them.
Last night she told be that she had been talking to her sister, six years her senior, on the phone and that her sister is losing her mind. My mother loves to complain about anything, but when it comes to her siblings, nothing has ever been more delightful to her than being superior to them. Being an only child I can only assume that this is a result of early childhood bullying, or simply being told what to do, since my mother is the youngest of five.
Anyway, she was gleefully informing me about how her sister had related the same thing story times in the space of five minutes, and then the subject of my mother’s apartment came up. To backtrack a bit, before my mom moved to town, I lived in her apartment since I hadn’t found a place of my own. Her apartment came available on the market, so I bought it. Then when her old house sold, she bought my house and I moved out of her apartment the day she moved in. Confused yet? Just keep going.
She forgets that she came to visit me when I lived in her apartment. She swears up and down that she never saw the place before the day she moved in. When I tried to remind her last night, she not only denied it, she told me that I was the one who was losing my mind, not her – she’s obviously worried about it even if she won’t admit it.
What really got under my skin, and is worrying me, is that she accused me of saying she saw her apartment before she moved in just to make her think she is going crazy – like I’m doing it maliciously.
I’m getting close to the point where I’m going to have to move her into a place where she can have assisted living. Not a nursing home, necessarily, but a retirement home at least. She wants to move in with me, but I just can’t handle it. My children have to come first, as well as my own health. She is just too much work.
I’m just afraid if I wait too much longer, she’ll think I hate her. This paranoia thing is really scary.
16/16 – Yesterday’s News – The Orange Box
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!
15/16 – Yesterday’s News – Horoscopes
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?
13/16 – Yesterday’s News – Lou Reed et al
freedigitalphotos.net by xedos4
For most of us it begins with eye-bulging denial. “No way!” we exclaim, or “You’re kidding!” Then comes the numbness of confusion. “But how can s/he be dead? I grew up with her/him!” If we were a true fan, the tears might sting our eyes as they well up. And slowly, sometimes over the space of minutes, sometimes years, we accept it. That star we never really knew, we’ll never ever know, has passed outside the reaches of Earthly pursuits, and into the realm of legend.
We listen to their songs again, or watch their movies; gaze at their art or read their words, and we wish beyond all reason that it wasn’t so.
Lou Reed, and all of those who have gone before you, may you rest in peace.
My 200th Post! (and I need some advice)
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!
11/16 – Yesterday’s News – Shopping
It’s happening everywhere – the big box stores move in and Main Street shuts down. Woe to the little guy; the family who spent generations building up a business watches helplessly as it falls flat in the face of Wal-Mart. Even Zellers, a staple in the Canadian landscape of department stores, where things could be had for relative cheap has, quite literally died as a result of being a target – the stores that didn’t close up became Targets.
While we, as the consumer, are reminded that these ‘little guys’ are struggling, it’s difficult to resist the lure of the mall, or the big bright flyers of the giants. Christmas, the season that should be a boon when it comes to surviving the costs of running a shop, is no longer a source of greater income. After all, if we have the choice between walking around an enclosed space to find everything we need, rather than wading through slush and braving the cold to go from store to specialty store, the solution is rather a no-brainer, especially if we have kids in tow who would prefer to go to Toys ‘r’ Us.
In yesterday’s newspaper, there was an article about how my city is encouraging retailers to open up shop in the over-abundant real estate that sits vacant along our main drag. In the interest of keeping the 99% of us from going under, this may be only a small thing to consider… or is it?
I think more needs to be done about keeping the ‘little guy’ in business all over North America. Is your city doing anything? Are you? I’d be interested to hear.
9/16 – Yesterday’s News – Property Damage
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.
Adventures on my Paper Route – This is Incredible
Okay. I’m going to describe what happened to me today as best I can. I drew a diagram to help out.
So yesterday – I have to start there – I was on my paper route, waiting for cars to pass so I could cross the street. (That’s me, the stick figure. In real life I wear clothes when I deliver the paper.) To my right (near the red box) the mailman, who I rarely see, was waiting as well, to go back to his van (the poorly drawn grey thing with yellow windows and black wheels.) He waved and I waved back. So I got across and came down the adjacent street and met one of my customers who was getting into his (orange) car. We spoke for a moment – weather’s getting colder, that sort of thing. Before I could cross the street again, I had to wait for the blue pickup truck to pull into the driveway (as shown. Yes, that is supposed to be a pickup truck. I never claimed to be an artist.) I then proceeded on my merry way.
Here’s where it gets freaky.
Today, I’m standing in the exact same place, waiting to cross the street when the mailman pulls up and gets out of his van. I wave, he waves back. We sign (he’s Deaf) about the coincidence of having met in the same place two days in a row. That was weird, I think to myself. So I go down the next street and there’s my customer is getting out of his car. We exchange pleasantries – it’s even colder today than yesterday, etc. etc. I cross the street and guess who is backing out of his driveway… the guy in the blue pickup. I go along my merry way, thinking, what the hell?
What is it, opposite day today? I’m sorta glad I didn’t win the lottery yesterday…
lindaghill.com 
