With a Year's Worth of Stuff Bottled Up Inside My Head

So it is just over a year since I have attempted to blog here. Just over a year since I have given myself the power and freedom to just dump whatever it is, inside my head, out on the page. I thought I would blog about writing here, or about unschooling my three children here... and perhaps I have, occasionally, with various degrees of success. I have never had much success in dividing my life into spheres. The writing me, the mom me, the farmers market manager me, the me that is attempting to help publish books for others... it's all just me, really.

I am who I am.

And I've long stopped apologizing for my varied interests and focuses. You hear that, ME? I'm not going to say I am sorry any more. It's not a lack of focus, an inability to commit, or a fear of failure (or success!) I love writing. I wouldn't give up the last 19 years of holding motherhood as my primary "job" for anything. I absolutely love the way that my work as farmers market manager has given me roots in this community and has helped me to feel more at home. I get a kick out of formatting books for publication (and I'm pretty darned good at it). I'm not a half-bad editor either... except for my own work. (I suck at editing my own work.)

I am a creative being, who adores the orderly nature and power of a spreadsheet.

Is that weird? Well so be it. That's who I am.

This evening, I went to a reading of Notable Kansas Authors at the William Allen White Library on ESU's campus. Notable Authors include my good friend, Cheryl Unruh, and my friend and co-author (Green Bike), Kevin Rabas. I almost didn't go, because I've been in a stay-at-home frame of mind, of late, but I talked myself into going at the last minute because I have never been let down by the experience of listening to story tellers. Notable authors also include the prolific, Max McCoy and Jim Hoy, both of whom I have very much enjoyed listening to in the past.

Sure enough, The event was barely getting started as my mind started collecting ideas and inspirations. Why am I not writing? I asked (inside my head). Okay, I mean, I am writing (novel-in-progress, 3rd draft) but why am I not writing this... and this... and this... and this?

Oh, if only there were more hours in the day.

I've got enough projects to keep me busy through the sundown of my life.

There's plenty to share... inside my head, there's no need to hide it.

If I know it makes my heart smile, I shall say YES!

Inspirations and Potential: Or Maybe I Should Call This Linky Love

I'd half had thoughts today about writing up some silly entry for April Fool's Day. Nothing was coming to me, however, just the idea that it might be fun to do. Instead, I ended up having a rather productive day that included scheduling next week's posts for my new Kansas Food Stories blog and wrapping up the farmers market newsletter for April. I also took a walk downtown and back again. The weather is unbelievably gorgeous right now. We received a second bonus CSA delivery yesterday and I find myself wondering if we are going to get punished down the road for the lack of a real winter and the bounty of an early spring.

For now, however, it's the end of the first day of April and I am full of inspiration and positive thoughts. The world is bursting with potential.

• Today is the opening day for the Kansas Authors Club Annual Literary Contest.  
• If you are really into contests, it is also the opening day for the Whispering Prairie Press contest, which is featured on their new and pretty website.
• Saw this quote on Cheryl's Facebook page today and I liked it so much I wanted to copy it to keep for myself. "I believe that we are here for each other, not against each other. Everything comes from an understanding that you are a gift in my life - whoever you are, whatever our differences." ~John Denver. The world doesn't always feel like this right now, but if we all just made up our minds that this is the way it is, couldn't we change that pretty quickly?
• Saw my Dad this weekend and it was a lovely, long and relaxed visit. 
• Sent my baby girl (sweet 16) west with my Dad. I will miss her this week, but I am also excited about all the fun she will have and the people she will see.
• Went to the library today and brought home a stack of books about the way the mind works. I love stacks of books. I love that the library can provide me with stacks of just about any topic that intrigues me for the moment.
• My lawn is full of yellow dandelions and purple somethings. I know they are all weeds, but the lawn sure does look happy when it is so colorful.
• I have been keeping up with my photo albums month by month this year. I still need to fill in some gaps from 2009 and 2011 when I got so behind, but I am keeping up with the days once again and for March had several pages of photos to add. I think I had stopped taking photos because I felt so bad about not keeping up with the albums. Now that I am on the ball again, my shutter finger seems to be working again.

Photos to share:

My Dad and the 16th Birthday Girl

The aftermath of a package of gifts from my fantabulous sister, also known as Aunt Diane.

Silly Song that Hits My Groove Button

Though I occasionally go sans music, my teeny MP3 player which plays many records' worth of songs (what amazing technology, no?) is my saving grace on the track at the gym. I can circle round and round without dwelling on the fact that I'm actually going nowhere.

Occasionally a song comes up on my playlist that causes me to hit the repeat button over and over again. I probably should not admit that I am a 41-year-old woman who is enamored by an old Jonas Brothers song, but here it is anyway.

I took a ship to the year 3000. This song had gone multi-platinum. Everybody bought our 7th album. It had outsold Kelly Clarkson.

Call me silly and sentimental, but the first time I heard these lyrics (several years ago) I actually got goosebumps. Do you remember believing in yourself, in what you were doing so whole-heartedly that you could think such positive thoughts about the far distant future?

Silly, silly, but tonight I ended up putting my MP3 player on repeat and listened round and round with a big smile on my face. It lifts me up and makes me happy.

Google is Topeka!

I am rather fond of Topeka, and here it is in bright colored letters on my homepage this morning.

Topeka/Google

Entertainment for Today

I find it rather fascinating how you can come across this stuff, thinking you've found something new, and then see that it's been on YouTube since 2007. Anyway, it made me laugh out loud, so I decided to share.

The Five Minute University: an almost 4 minute clip.

 

Friday Fill-In

1. No, we will NOT simply do as everyone else does just because everyone else does it.
2. Many of my family's activities (well beyond eating) involve gathering at the old kitchen table.
3. I watched the steam rising from the hot cup of coffee (or tea) and thought: that might be too hot to drink.
4. So it's cliche, but I know everything is going to be okay.
5. I'll take time and conversation over stuff and gifts any day of the week.
6. When television/computers become the center of your world and you spend more time prioritizing them than the people in your life, it's time to make a change, at least from my point of view.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to a few hours on my own while the rest of the family goes to visit the grandparents, tomorrow my plans include filling the remaining cracks in the drywall of our project room and Sunday, I want to keep a blank slate!

The American Character

Emporia is on Tom Brokaw's American Character. The focus is a bit sad, the last paper being printed on-site, but it's a nice piece.

A Celebrity Mom I Can Relate To

I always did like Blossom. Homebirth. Homeschooling. Attachment parenting. And I love the fact that she looks like a real woman who has recently had a baby!

Friday Fill-In

1. Tortillas and just about anything you can spread on top make a quick and easy dinner.

2. Dear Husband: Stories, by Joyce Carol Oates is the book I'm reading right now.

3. July brings back memories of birthday celebrations... Mom, my brother Mike, Grandma Skaggs, cousin Carla, my niece Ashley, b-i-l Charles and my dear hubby... all born in July.

4. From my earliest days, my skill for procrastination was obvious.

5. They say if you tell your dreams, people will worry about your state of mental health.

6. It almost never hurts to take a little time to think it over, whatever it may be.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to the kids having a shorter list of piddly to-dos for the coming 4-H fair, tomorrow my plans include a family get-together with friends and Sunday, I want to see where the day takes me!

How a Kid Gets a New Sweater

You remember my favorite new sweater? The one that smells like sheep when it gets wet?

Well I've been quite pleased with the fact that I don't actually have to hand wash it. If I toss it in the wash with cold water on gentle cycle, it does just fine.

That is, until someone throws it in the dryer.

Little boy has become quite enthusiastic about taking on laundry duty of late. He loads; he unloads. It's awesome. As far as I'm concerned, there can never be too much enthusiasm for laundry in a home.

Unfortunately, it wasn't until I was searching for socks this morning that I remembered I had washed my sweater.

And little boy had dried it.

Now I have a beautiful felted sweater that fits Middle Munchkin (age 10).

It's okay -- she needed something warm to wear around the house on these spring days. The zipper's a little big (darn zippers don't shrink), but it's a nice warm sweater and I shall just have to collect extra hugs and snuggles when she's wearing it.

Weekend: (without pictures) because I'm too lazy... or maybe just don't want to show you my 2 gray hairs

Spent the weekend with some good friends. On Saturday, four of us went to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and had a terrific time. The kids had the option of going, but they all opted out. The middle kids don't get nearly enough time playing and hanging out together and the older kids wanted to hit a movie. So it was just four of us -- adults -- at the museum... and it felt like college again. We wandered through the exhibits laughing and commenting, being inspired and uninspired... until we were tired and hungry. So we headed out to a trendy little cafe on the plaza. We topped off the day with a stroll through a couple of ridiculously overpriced furniture stores. I initially thought the experience was going to be too much for me (people, smells, and that sense of disappointment I sometimes get in humanity when I see the extraordinary amounts of money people are willing to spend on frivolous things), but I took a few yoga breaths and pulled myself together and ended up having a really good time.

Yes!

Me + Store Browsing = A Good Time (I guess it was the company)

Woke up the next morning to find two solid silver hairs sprouting from my left temple. Ack! Maybe just a little too much culture for the day? Feeling those college oats drained me?

I didn't even pull them out (though it worked the last time I found a gray hair... contrary to myth, two did not grow in its place).

Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween!

Eat.

Drink.

And be scary.

Celebrating...

5:37 am - Determined that I can avoid learning today if I stick to topics for my morning's work that I already know everything about.

5:45 am - Forgot. Learned something about banking fees in the UK.

6:03 am - Forgot. Learned something about the Consumer Credit Protection Act.

6:04 am - Decided I needed to postpone my celebrating until afternoon since a) there's truly not enough information already stored up in my head to write all these articles, and b) I'm on a deadline.

9:37 am - Took a break to remind the kids (who were just getting up) that today was Learn Nothing Day and that they should certainly take advantage of this opportunity to... learn nothing.

They looked at me like I was a total moron.

10:41 am- Took a break from working to find a brownie. Caught Munchkin #1 online. She assured me she was learning nothing... important anyway.

11:02 am - Needed another brownie (just a small piece). Caught Munchkins #2 & 3 playing 5 state rummy, but they assured me they were making a point to learn nothing about states. Nothing at all.

1:27 pm - Took a break. Caught Munchkin #3 explaining to Munchkin #2 how ancient Egyptians used water wedges to break marble. I raised my eyebrows and told him it looked like he might be trying to sabotage his sister's celebration of the day. With a sad shake of his head, he declared, "I hate this day!"

2:53 pm - Received 10 minute lecture from Munchkin #2 on the futility of a day designated for learning nothing.

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On a separate note, I picked up the camera today to document some of our "not learning" and was informed my memory card was full. That's right. 759 images on my card. How on earth that happened, I can't guess. I am uploading them right now, but may wait until tomorrow to look at them so as not to learn what my kids have been doing to fill my camera so full! ***

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I hope to provide more complete and thoughtful commentary on learning nothing later today. There's lots of stuff percolating inside my head.

... Just so you can't say you haven't been warned.

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***addendum: I couldn't wait. It wasn't the kids that filled my camera. It was me! All me!

Book Meme

Got a tag from Todd at Quirky Outtakes. Thanks, Todd. I needed a reason to play this weekend (been a long one, worked right through).

Here’s the idea:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

Note that I'm not at my desk, but the desk the whole family shares. Page 123 of the nearest book is a picture, so this actually comes from page 124.

As the name of the god signifies all, Pan came to be considered a symbol of the universe and personification of Nature; and later still to be regarded as a representation of all the gods and of heathenism itself.

Sylvanus and Faunas were Latin divinities whose characteristics are so nearly the same as those of Pan that we may safely consider them as the same personage under different names.

The wood nymphs, Pan's partners in the dance, were but one class of nymphs.

Bullfinch's Mythology: The Illustrated Age of Fable

It was that, or the phone book.

Now for my tags: Magoo, Marshall, Lory, Justine and anybody else who feels like playing.

I woke up this morning

with sunshine on my mind. It was so clear... so warm in my mind... that I was shocked - SHOCKED - to see snow falling a few hours later when I finally looked out the window.

Twas another cold, cold day.

Gray skies.... nothing by gray skies...

But at least inside my head, things aren't entirely dreary.

Happy I-Heart-You Day

My most recent Dove chocolate wrapper (I've had a few today) says....

Laugh until your heart overflows.

Another one said,

Listen with your heart.

See... a little wisdom with your chocolate. Can't go wrong there!

Friday's Feast

Appetizer
What was the last game you purchased?
I can't tell you until after the holidays... someone might be reading this who doesn't need to know. The last board game I purchased was the Pirates of the Caribbean Monolopy game. It was overpriced, but our ancient Monopoly game bit the dust sometime in the late 1990s. I thought it my duty to make sure the kids knew something about the game. We've played a few times, but I'm not sure it stuck. It's not one they clamor to play or anything.

Soup
Name something in which you don’t believe.

I don't believe our differences should make us incapable of being friends and learning from one another.

Salad
If you could choose a celebrity to be your boss, who would you pick?

Geez... I suppose if I had to have a boss, I'd just pick one who was good eye candy... and capable of intelligent conversation. Johnny Depp? Brenden Fraisier?

Oh wait... I know who would be fun to work for. Ellen Degeneres. Thinking about her show, that might be a really fun job, as well.

Main Course
What was a lesson you had to learn the hard way?

Blood is not always thicker than water.

Dessert
Describe your idea of the perfect relaxation room.

Lots of plants (that somebody else keeps alive)... big open space for yoga or other exercise... comfy chairs... good lighting (lots of natural light -- big windows and/or skylights that can be opened when the weather is nice)... running water in the form of a little stream or a decorative fountain... and the room itself is round.

Feel free to partake.

Waaaa -- I don't have time to blog

Working in the mornings and hanging out with my kids in the afternoons... the "plan" is to come back and blog in the evening before bed. But last night my head was on the pillow by 8:30 and anything I had to say I figured would best be left until my head was fresh and clear.

Life is good, but I sure could use an extra couple of hours of awake time each day.

I'll leave you with this Friday's Feast for now.


Appetizer
What is your favorite carnival/amusement park ride?

Tough one. Probably something mild like a carosel or little train ride. I was introduced to amusement parks at a late age (early 20s) and, while I did get a thrill out of a roller coaster ride or two, these days I think I would worry too much about how it was going to affect my back or give me various other aches and pains.

So, how old does that make me sound?

Soup
How do you react in uncomfortable social situations?

Depends on if I foresee the discomfort coming ahead of time or not. When I'm surprised by it, I generally duck my head and turn the other way. If I have time to prepare myself, I tend to follow some sort of pre-rehearsed (in my head at least) reaction. There's nothing worse than walking away from a situation wishing you had spoke up or behaved differently.

Salad
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you enjoy discussing deep, philosophical topics?

10 -- but I won't have these types of discussions with just anyone. I can't stand talking with people who think they are discussing ideas and philosophies, but really just end up arguing emotionally for some personal cause. Discussion involves input and output. I hate when people get emotional and start to make these kinds of discussions personal, and worse yet when they turn around and claim they were only talking about ideas and philosophies. There is a difference between saying what you think about a subject and turning what you think about a subject into an attack. I appreciate conversations with people who can tell the difference.

So I guess I like discussion, but not so much debate. But I love listening to intelligent people who can debate with passion and never let it turn personal.

Main Course
Did you get a flu shot this year? If not, do you plan to?

Absolutely not. Will not. Shall not. Ever.

Dessert
Approximately how many hours per week do you spend watching television?

Right now, I probably spend 3 hours per week where I actually sit down and focus 80% or more of my attention to television. I might hit the 4-8 hour range if you include times when I listen to the television while doing other stuff on the computer or watch movies or shows while I multitask to keep myself awake.

One & Some Thankful Thoughts

For most of today, I've had just one kid. The other two are off visiting the grandparents. I like having the opportunity to spend one-on-one time with each of my kids. It really changes the pace of a day. Time seems to move a little slower. Each conversation is a bit more of a luxury. Fewer distractions, interuptions... fewer voices in the mix, I guess.

Munchkin #2 and I ran far too many errands today, met a friend for lunch, did some Christmas shopping (hit three stores! a record for me in one afternoon) and picked up a pile of books at the library. We've pretty much both spent the rest of the afternoon reading. There was quite a chill in the air today. A few snow pellets now and again. It was a good day for curling up with a good book.

Our last project before bed.

Thanks for hot cocoa
Having a home that keeps the cold out
Adventures and fun
Naisey, Nancy, and our cat, Sooterkin
Kitchens and cooking yummy stuff
Stories that take our minds to new places
Giving and getting backrubs
Ice and snow (now that we have our winter clothes out!)
Vivid memories of good times
Imaginations
Nighttime stars to wish on
Games played with the whole family

I Talk to the Squirrels

This morning my kids caught me talking to the squirrels in the attic.

Yeah, that's what they thought too.

My son kind of moseyed in, looking my way with caution. Finally he asked, "Mom? Who are you talking to?"

And I said, "The squirrels, of course. Don't you hear them?"

Then we all stood and listened. The squirrels were silent. I'm sure they were listening, too.

"They've been making noise up there all morning," I explained. "Really!" I

My son nodded in agreement, the way you would agree with a crazy man on the street corner that the sky was falling. Middle kiddo smiled at me, sympathy in her eyes.

I don't know what they were muttering between them as they left the room, but as soon as they were out of hearing range, the squirrels started scampering again.