Bumming 07/07/11

I am bummed out today.  My husband got tickets right behind home plate for tonight’s game at the Springfield Cardinals.  I was planning on going but decided that I have way too much homework to do.  I know part of it is because I took several days off to go to the lake.  I still did my blog writing every day, drove to McDonald’s every day to submit it and worked on my I Believe Essay but that was about all the school work that I did.  Now, I am paying for it.  So instead of me going, my husband is taking a friend and his son along with our youngest son.  They will have fun but I will be stuck at home working on this class and my other class.  It’s just a matter of prioritizing and I would rather get an A in my classes than go to a ball game.  I’m sure that there will be a lot more fun things that I will have to miss while I am in school.  This is not the first and certainly won’t be the last.  Hopefully I will get everything done so that I can go to my son’s basketball games this weekend.  I feel guilty if I don’t go to those and I enjoy them more than watching the big boys play anyway.  His ball team will be playing in the Show Me Games the weekend before finals.  I am nervous that I will have too much school work to enjoy myself but I am going regardless.  They will have wifi in the hotel so I will be able to do homework in between games if I have to.  Summertime is such a busy time and I feel like I am just missing so much taking two classes.  Hopefully this will be the last summer that I have to do that.    

It's a Mystery! 07/06/11

There is a mystery at our house.  We have some sort of animal leaving us little “gifts”.  Well, they are not really that little and they aren’t gifts that you would want or where you would want them.  The first time we found one it was on our sidewalk.  It looked like a small cow patty.  It was small in comparison to a real cow patty but still probably five or six inches in diameter.  It was kind of blob like.  We figured it must have been left by a large dog although that isn’t really what it looked like.  A few days later, my husband took the puppy out to potty in the morning and there was another gift on our front porch!  It was very similar to the first one and totally disgusting.  Our sidewalk is concrete and our front porch is too.  Why would an animal be doing this on concrete?  Typically dogs choose grass to defecate on.  Anyway, we were gone for the weekend and happy to come home to nothing unusual.  Last night we were out until about midnight at a couple of late ballgames of my son’s.  When we got home, I took the puppy out to potty and there was another pile on my front porch!  It was a little more solid than before and had some parts that were more shaped like balls.  It was not tubular like a dog and the balls were about two inches in diameter.  I’m not really that familiar with animal scat so I googled it.  It’s not as easy to identify as you might think but my friend swears it’s a bear!  We are going to set up my husband’s game camera tonight so hopefully we can catch the offender in the act.  It may take a while but if we do, I will post the pictures on my blog so you will want to check back.  If anyone has a suggestion as to how to identify the offender or keep it from doing this, please leave me a comment.      

First Drafts 07/05/11

When I read “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott, I was really surprised.  Of course, the title was an attention getter but the surprising part was her saying that nearly all writers have shitty first drafts.  I honestly thought that a lot, if not all, professional writers could just sit down and write something good.   There would be some editing and revising but basically the first draft was good, not shitty.  I know that some writers suffer from writer’s block from time to time but I thought that for the most part, a professional writer could just come up with something to write.  That’s kind of why they are professional writers, because they can come up with something to write easily and because they do good work the first time, not having to rewrite and rewrite.  I don’t know why I thought that but I did.  However, people like me suffer from writer’s block on an ongoing bases and have to rewrite and rewrite everything.  I will even start something, hate it, pitch it, and start a totally different topic.  I guess that is what professionals do too.  Maybe the difference is that I do not enjoy writing and I really don’t like sharing it with the world.  It feels so personal to me and I would really rather no one read what I write.  Having to write and publish my writing on a blog is quite torturous.  I just feel so self-conscious.   The other difference at least with me and this author is that she said her first draft is usually twice as long as it should be.  Mine always seem shorter than needed and I go back and kind of fill in the blanks.   She goes through her first drafts and takes out everything she can.   For me, there is some deleting but mostly adding.  Even though I have a lot of differences, this story made me feel much better about my writing attempts and gave me some much needed confidence.

Lake Days 07/04/11

Yesterday was a wonderful day at the lake.  The thirteen of us camping together consist of friends and family.  I’m not sure what the temperature got up to but it was hot and humid.   We didn’t let the heat bother us though, we just applied more sunscreen.  We pulled the tube behind the boat and almost every took a turn including myself.    Our friends have jet skis so we all took a turn or two on those too.  That was all in between the fishing.  My husband likes to catch catfish on jugs.  I am not sure how many we ended up with over that last couple of days but it was more than enough to feed us all plus my friends parents that came up for the day.  We tried fishing with a rod and reel some too but didn’t have as much luck.  Also, the kids seem to be a little more interesting in playing rather than fishing.  The last time we went out to try fishing, we had to come back in because it started to storm.  We had been looking forward to watching the fireworks shot off over the water but they were rained out.   The lightning and thunder put on quite a show but it wasn’t the same.  We ended up huddled under a canopy trying to avoid the rain and making smores with a little gas grill because it was way too wet for a fire.  It was fun and the kids all enjoyed it.

 I think our camping trips with our kids will be memories for them that will last a life time.  They already have so many great memories from past years.  Just like last year when the storms came in and we didn’t get off the lake in time and had to sit through it.  It poured so hard that we couldn’t even see to drive.  I don’t think I have ever been that wet in my life, not even in the shower!  That was not a great memory at the time but now we can look back on it fondly.  They have other stories about the big fish that got away or the one we caught and a ton of stories about the raccoons getting into our food.  They are smarter than you would think.  Yes, yesterday was a great day at the lake and I look forward to many more years of memories there with my friends and family.

 

Funerals 07/03/11

I really liked the I believe essay “Always Go to the Funeral” by Deirdre Sullivan.  I think the older generation believed this much more than my generation and younger.  I know it seems like my mother goes to every local visitation of everyone she has ever known.  She has to go sign the book.  She doesn’t always go to the funeral but she does go to the visitation or viewing as it is sometimes called.  I liked how the author related going to a funeral to life and doing what you really don’t want to do because it’s the right thing to do.  I do not like going to funerals.  I cannot imagine that anyone does.  It is an obligation and you go because it’s the right thing to do.  There are many things like funerals that I do because it’s the right thing to do but I don’t really want to.  There are a lot of days that I don’t feel like working and I could call in sick or just take the day off but I don’t feel like it’s right to call in unless I am really sick.  I know there are a lot of people that call in if they have the slightest sniffle.  I think it’s a matter of work ethic and I don’t think the younger adults have much work ethic.  Of course, I know several people my age that don’t have much work ethic either so maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with the generation maybe it’s just the times.  Another thing that I really don’t like to do but I do out of obligation is visiting people in the hospital.  I feel horrible for not wanting to go and usually do because it’s the right thing to do.  That has more to do with just making the time to do it than actually disliking it.  I think that is the problem with a lot of people.  Our lives are so busy and our children are so busy, we don’t feel like we have time for things like hospital visits and funerals.  I agree with idea of this essay that it is important to make that time, do what is right and always go to the funeral. 

Credo 07/02/11

I believe in making dreams come true.  The sky is the limit and you can accomplish anything you put your mind to.  I think of the marathon runners that have artificial legs.  No one would have ever believed that they could actually run marathons.  There are also people who have no arms that do everything with their feet and live very full lives and even have and take care of children.  This is amazing to me.  They are faced with such adversity and make dreams come true so why can’t I?  Right now my dream is to become a nurse.  You may think that is a goal, not a dream and maybe they are one and the same in this instance but for me at almost 42 years old it seems like only a dream.  There have been a lot of times over the last 6 months since I have gone back to school that I just didn’t think I could do it.  I have to reassure myself almost daily.  I have not been in college in over fifteen years.  I have a family and have to work full-time.  That’s my adversity and it’s hard.  It’s scary completely changing your life at my age but I am so excited about it and I believe I will make that dream come true.

Possible Credo 07/01/11

I believe people should love more and hate less.  I think the world would be a better place if we all followed this basic principal.  There are certainly people that I don’t like but I try to find the good in people and to love them.  This can be really difficult with some people and sometimes it’s definitely easier to love someone from afar.   I try to have a positive attitude toward life and instill that in my children.  I try to show my children that you shouldn’t be mean and hateful.  I try to show my children to love more and not hate at all.  I am sure there are times that I fail miserably but I try and I think that is the point.   That is not to say that you should just agree with everything and everyone.  You can disagree with people and should stand up for your beliefs but you can do so without hating.  I think this is based on a statement that I have heard at church often.  That is that we should hate the sin, not the sinner.  Also, some people hate groups of people without even knowing them individually.  If you were a racist, you might hate a whole race just because of the color of their skin.  I really believe the world would be a better place if we could all love more and hate less.