You Did What??

I'm lazy.  Way down deep at my core, I'm lazy.  And I don't like hard work. 

I know that hard work pays off and gets me to where I want to be.  I know that.  But it doesn't make it any easier to get started or to follow all the way through to the end. 

Sometimes to deal with this, I set myself up with deadlines that aren't very convenient or likable.

That's where I'm at right now.

I'm in a class and have been now for far too long.  (see the lazy confession above) I have an assignment that I've been putting off for far too long.  I've used and had some great excuses for why I can't do what I have to do, but in truth, it's just excuses.

So now, I'm in it.  I knew that the end of August would be a restless time around our house.  Chicklet moved off to college--proud of you girlfriend.  The kids are in their end-of-the-summer-vacation-bored-out-of-my-mind-back-to-school-anticipation mode of crazy.  The Mr. is up to his eye balls in meetings, projects, travel and office politics.  Baseball took a short break to let football start.  Next month we'll have both.  Yeah, I know.  Little Mr. T. likes it here, but has some serious I-wanna-be-at-home-with-my-mama transition issues. 

I know what this kind of life stuff can do to me.  Especially when you add in all the getting it all ready for day one of school stuff to it.  So I dead-lined myself to keep out of a funk.

It's working in a way. 

I still don't like the assignment, but I have a dead line.  It's consuming a lot of my time and energy, both the thinking, the writing, the researching and the battles with my computer.  It seems technology is not intuitive to me and just never does what I would expect it to do or want it to do. 

I am mildly surprised to find that the all powerful and all knowing Internet does not make researching easier.  I still own the annoyance that a great idea does not equal an easily written article.  I'm still lazy, even with a dead line looming.

So when does this nasty article have to be in?  Midnight before the first day of school.  Yup.  I did that to myself.  Because nothing says have a great first day of school to the pack of little people like mom stayed up all night to meet her deadline!

A Wicked Prize

A few of you asked about the story and the contest and the prize, so I thought I'd share. A few months back, the Journal Sentinel held a contest. The grand prize was 2 tickets to see Wicked, the musical, when it came to town. They would also give away 8 runner up prizes of Wicked merchandise. The challenge was to write the back story of your favorite classic character, like Humpty Dumpty.



I didn't win the tickets, but I'm still going to see it. Little Mr. and I are going to celebrate his birthday(it was in June). I did win some cool stuff though. My prize was a neat Wicked tote bag, a hat and a couple of tee shirts.



I haven't seen any mention of it in the paper and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't print the runner up stories, but keep your eyes open for the winners story. I can't wait to read it. Until then, you can read mine.



Or not. I'm having technical difficulties. Again. Story of my life. Once I figure out how to move it from one place to another, then you can read it.

Confessing a New Lazy

So yesterday I mentioned that I plotted out a picture book story line on my shower wall using the kids soap crayons, yeah, I know, that in itself is a story, but I also hit a new low in lazy.

The Mr. and I were getting ready for bed and he says to me, you really have to take a photo of the tub. It's just so us.

The bottom of the tub is littered with toys and bottles of kid friendly shampoo and bubble bath. Then there are the toys. Let's just say there is enough room in the bottom of the tub for me to step in when morning comes. And no, I don't move them. And yes, it's a little creepy to shower with action hero's staring at you from the soap dishes.

Then all around the shower wall down by the tub is the alphabet, basic shapes and basic emotion faces, all in soap crayon. Around the middle of the shower wall you will see the remains of some graffiti that The Mr. and I left for each other. Get your mind out of there, it was all nice, good, healthy married family stuff, like I Love You. Next around the very top of the shower walls scribbled in green soap crayon is the scratchings of a story.

Yeah, we're that kind of crazy.

So here's the really lazy part. Instead of walking down stairs to get my camera, I took photos of it with my phone, then emailed them to myself. Because, you know, that whole walk down the stairs to get my camera and then have to down load those photos in the morning, that would have been such work.

But here's the thing. I'll confess even more. I don't know how to get those silly shots out of my email and on to here for you all to get a good look at our crazy.

One of these days I'll get a handle on this whole crazy technology thing, maybe. Or maybe I'll just sit back and reminisce on the good old days when we would record party tapes on cassette from songs playing off the radio.

700 Words Is The Mental Equivilant Of A Sneeze

Sorry it's been quiet over here, but I told you that might happen.

So just what have I been up to since the very busy start to last week?

Homework.

I'm not complaining though, it's a good sort of homework to have. I read books and write.

On Wednesday I started Small Steps by Louis Sachar. On Thursday I finished it. You may know him as the author of Holes. Small Steps is the follow up book. Armpit and X-ray get into a mess and it resolves itself in a way that for me, was satisfying, simply because it didn't end in the known happy ending sort of way. To me, it seemed to resolve in a real life kind of way. A little of this, a little of that, a little bittersweet, nothing too solid. Just like life. Situations have a way of working themselves out, even if you know it's a just for the moment sort of ending and that more life is indeed coming your way.

I have another stack of books sitting here to read. That pulls in a certain amount of my time, between kids and chores and all that other stuff. Again, though, it's very enjoyable.

The next part of my homework is the writing part. This first assignment is already proving to be a challenge for me. Of course, before I began, it seemed pretty straight forward and simple. That is the way of learning though, it seemed easy enough before I began it.

They provided me with a series of pictures. My job was to choose one, somehow use some part or all of that picture to start a story. Then write a short story. Short meaning 500 to 700 words.

You all know, by now, that I am wordy. So this is almost like a punishment for me.

I chose my picture, made about 12 starts that I scrapped and then got rolling on the real story. Great right? Right. My story is about 700 pages, not 700 words. To give you an idea of my challenge, I broke it up and decided to just use a scene from the story as my short story for the assignment. Deadlines loom after all. Well, here's the thing. Even my "edited" version was 2000 words.

That means I've spent the last day or so ignoring the fact that I have to go do some serious chopping to this scene to make it clean and well, short.

In the end, though, even with it being hard and sort of like cutting off your own hair in the mirror, I'm liking it. The scene will be great when it's done, and I'm thrilled to have such a full story idea going, even if it is a million words long.

Let's just wait to see how much I'm still enjoying all these books, deadlines and edits by the end of 2 years. Yeah, this is a 2 year course. I agreed to take the long version. Crazy.

So that's where I've been. It's where I'm going to be. But I'll be here too. Life just gives me way too much to be all that quiet for all that long.