What If

I’ve been thinking a lot lately.  That’s the kind of thing that happens while you sit at your desk, knitting until your fingers and wrists go numb, watching millions of images load ever so slowly on your dino-dial-ups for Pintrest.  There’s been topics fluttering in my mind, words to mash out on this blank screen… but knitting doesn’t work well with typing.  You loose your count and your train of thought all at one time.  Trust me.

And it’s hard to work on this, when you need to work on that.  Priorities wrestle with wants.  Needs fling mud at desires.  Options and choices wrestle in the jello pit that once was a functional brain.  Everything fights you, time, budgets, noises, small people wanting things.

It’s like the first time I looked into selling handmade goods on Etsy, they say, “Choose one medium”.  Choose one.  Like that’s possible for me.  I can knit, crochet, draw, paint, sew, quill, carve, stamp, shape… not that I have valuable skills in every form, but choosing one is like asking me if I want to keep my right or my left leg… um, all please?

I want to do it all, because what if I choose the wrong one?  My hobby is hobbies.  But I want one to be mine.  Or at least three.  Maybe four.  My hard limit is at nine, honestly.

And somehow this all links back to writing.  What if.  I mean really, what if?  What if while I’m busy training dogs (or not so busy, thank you economy), and knitting my fingers off to pay the bills, supporting my writer friends, promoting them, blogging about nothing, chasing kids, trying to make a garden/homestead on a rock bed, pretending I know how to sing for the fake band… What if, deep in my computer’s files, laying in wait, is the next big thing.  And in my interview with Ellen (because Oprah erks me to no end) she asks how long it took me to write this book, that instantly sold out, and the movie rights were bought before it was even published… I have to say, twenty years.  And I have to admit that for 19 of those years it was sitting there in my computer’s memory, because I was too friggen scared/hard on myself to even try.  And she’s going to laugh and call me cute, while holding up one of my washcloths and make some cute joke about loving Jesus and drinking beer.

Okay so I doubt that’s how anything would unfold.  But what if?

But where’s the time?  And where the frick, is the confidence?  Because all I know is that them washcloths will not make themselves.  And sitting here, typing about what if’s does not pay the bills.

*pours more coffee*

A Monday Ramble

There’s some very good benefits to giving up on the whole “real writing” deal.

Like stats, I can finally give up on checking the dang stats every time I publish a new post here.  Sure I still look, but it’s easier to shrug them off now.  Also, it’s a tad bit easier to pull something out of nothing for NaBloPoMo, I’ve lost the worry over “What will Blogher want to see?”  and “What will they feature, or better yet Syndicate?”  And there’s the daunting, “Oh my gawd, people will see that post and think I’m crazy for even thinking I could be a writer!”  Lost that one too.

I needed a huge dose of “I don’t care” a very long time ago.  Because I always cared, always, and I cared too much.

Which is a confusing mix of inner voices, because all the time when I was striving for this goal or that, letting my feelings get tied into who did what, and why not me… the whole time I was battling whether or not any of it was even the path for me.  Mental punishment for both trying and for not trying hard enough.

Now I get to sick back and laugh at it all.  And it feels good.  I don’t have to care anymore.  I can just enjoy putting words out into the interwebs… or not.

Granted, quitting something before you even really step out and try it on, probably isn’t the best “Go me” moment.   Because when you get down to it, blogging and writing, are a whole heap of sameness, yet couldn’t be further apart.  There’s such safety hiding behind little blurbs of thoughts, but writing, as in sending your works out to someone specifically, waiting for them, hoping they choose you… yeah.

Maybe one day I won’t be able to hold back those little voices in my head who want to walk down the aisle of a bookstore and see my name sitting on the shelf.  But for now, I’m happy to be free from them.

When Billy Goats Stray into Your Yard

I need to have at hand one of those wise old women who can come up with a crazy theory as to why things happen.

You know the kind who say when your hip hurts on a Tuesday on the fourth week of the month it means it’s time to plant the broccoli?  That kind, I need one.  Maybe she would tell me that when a billy-goat shows up on your lawn on a Monday that maybe you shouldn’t dive into rehabbing your kitchen.  Or that maybe I should look into Goat Milk Recipes…

Or maybe that I shouldn’t joke around about wanting a cow, a horse and a puppy for my birthday… because with my luck I’ll end up with another animal to take care of.  *peeks out window to make sure said billy-goat has not come back*

She’d probably yell at me for being so flip floppy, and not knowing what direction to turn in almost everything I do.  Because being so flip floppy almost always leads to stray billy’s in your yard. 

Perhaps she’d shame me for wasting talents lately, or applaud me on taking a different path.  She might tell me it’s about time I didn’t waste so many moments in front of a tiny screen… or she might scream that I’ve been wasting a precious opportunity…

And then she’d bake me some awful, old world recipe cake, and she’d wrap up a roll of pennies for me, all heads up.  And she’d sing happy birthday to me, in an aged cracky voice, and remind me, that no matter what, I’ll find that right path, despite all odds.

At the end of her song she’d wrap up by yelling at me about how my health will suffer from eating too much cake and remind me to heed the billy goat’s warning…

I need one of them old women.  And I need that stray billy-goat to not come back.

~The End.

(yes that’s all I got)

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

There needs to be a rehab program for those of us who prefer to spin one hundred plates at a time, while piling as much as we can onto them.  Or maybe still, I just need to learn how to more effectively use my time. 

Or, maybe, I just need to learn that everything isn’t always going to blow up in my face.  Therefore my brain won’t need to spin in violent, dramatic replays, when ever something potentially bad is brought up. 

It’s one of those things, there’s been so much, I just think I know better, that I know the outcome, and that I should just go ahead and crumble now, before it happens, so I’m all better by the time it happens.  Sometimes it helps, sometimes I’m right, and sometimes I just waste an entire day grumbling in misery all for nothing.

Over thinking, it’s what us humans do.  We’re at step A, and we’re planning out step R, while forgetting how to get to step B.  We outline the potential losses, grieve long before the loss that may never even come to be, and we miss out on precious seconds of a way too short life.  Just because of those “What if’s”.

And our lungs tighten, our blood pressure soars, and our souls fizzle out.  Because life isn’t supposed to be this way.  It’s supposed to be Martha Stewart, Little House on the Prairie (without all the epic illnesses), Leave it to Beaver, with a twist of I love Lucy and a sprinkle of Dick Van Dyke.  It’s not supposed to be Everybody Loves Raymond without the laugh track. 

Because sometimes life just isn’t funny.  Not even those moments people tell you, “One day you’ll look back at this and laugh.”  Sorry buddy, but that’s not from humor, it’s from my insane finally showing.  Go ahead and call the guys with the giant white jacket, I promise to not fight.

Yet we know the routine; Fall Apart, Get Back Up, Move On.  Lather, Rinse, Repeat.  There’s no getting around it.  There’s no switching the order.  To learn to walk, you have to fall… over and over and over again.  The more you push it, the faster you try to move, the worse the fall.  And if you close your eyes, you’ll run straight into a corner and bust your head open.  Ask my son. 

So it’s a new day, a new week, a new month.  Here’s to letting some plates drop, watching them shatter on the ground, and stomping on them while blasting music until they’re nothing more than a fine dust, and letting the kids draw smiley faced critters in the mess.  Because that’s just the way life is.  ❤

What’s on your spinning plate?

Monday’s Bastard Child, Twice Removed

My inner voice is the bastard child of Monday, twice removed, left under a rock, and adopted by demonic monkeys.  No joke.

She apparently is auditioning for a role in a soap opera, the one that calls for an evil best friend who seems to be on the good girl’s side, but secretly is trying to rip apart her whole entire life.  Hugs hugs, stab stab.  She’s been practicing on me.

I’d repeat what she’s been saying, but I’m pretty sure it’s too vulgar for this site.  Your eyes would probably spontaneously combust and melt into your brain.  And then not only would I have an evil inner voice, but I’d also be left with melted zombie readers, who could probably no longer read… I do not need that kind of stress.

But like the helpless friend on the soap opera, I have to wonder… is she right?  Because she is me, in a sick, twisted way… that big mean voice is coming from me, and I’m never wrong….  But she’s so mean, and I don’t want her to be right, because then I’m wrong, and then what really is right?   (*passes out Tylenol to everybody, refills coffee*)

When you add up all the voices and thoughts and feelings together all you get is an absolute stand still.  I’m hyper active, I hate standing still.  And I bartard my patience for a tank of gas months ago.  And maybe, just maybe the yellow stripes in my wallpaper ARE moving.  (go google the yellow wallpaper, short story) 

And maybe, just maybe them fancy scientists should drop everything and figure out a vaccine for those of us who lack confidence.  Because I’d take two please, and a side of fries, and a chocolate shake, hold the cherry and whip cream.  And put a rush on that order please, because I really don’t know what I’m doing, and it’s really annoying, andddd it’s getting expensive to keep that inner voice drunk and quiet.

Dear Monday, I’ve found your child, please come claim her.  Thanks.

Where’s the Limit?

I’ve been thinking lately, about the millions of things I have going on, and the millions of things I want to do.  Wondering if I honestly know when to stop.  Like yesterday, even though I was going on one whole hour of sleep, when the bebe slept, I KEPT WORKING.  I simply couldn’t fathom wasting the time on sleep, especially since there was no guarantee of actual sleep. 

Do I know when to call it quits?

What are the true signs of something that just meant to be?  Is it when the passion runs out?  The momentum?  Is it when others tell you to stop?  Is it when you hit rock bottom, or just before?  Is there anything that has once harbored energy that should ever be stopped?

We like to talk a lot on the subject of confidence, sharing the hopes, encouraging each other on… all very good things, needed things.  But do we have the guts to tell someone when they should stop?  I’m not talking about how I probably should have taken a nap yesterday, I’m talking about in the world of dreams and hopes.

What is the limit?

What is your limit?

Or can anything that starts with passion ever be squelched?  Can it be true that something that moves you so much, something that inspires you can never be ended, even if you quit on it? 

Do you create your dreams, or do they live in you as a piece of you, something you could never kill off completely?

Can anything ever stop you from reaching your dreams?

I Have a Gripe or Two or Twenty

I can deal with many, many things, but there’s one thing I have never had patience for… lousy and or annoying customer service.  I loathe pushy people, annoying people and people who have no clue on how to do their job.

• If I’m paying you to do a job you best do it perfectly or fix it until the job is perfect.
• Do not follow me around the store, I will throw stale cheetos at your eyeballs.
• Chit chat should be restrained unless I start it or you’ve seen me a hand full of times.  AND do not look at each one of my items I am buying any longer than it takes to find the bar code.
• Stores, make your employees available but realize that when you force them to all ask if I need any help and or how I’m doing, that by the time I make it to the back of the store I have been annoyed at least 30 times and I’m past the point of being kind back and ready to make a scene.
• Shoe stores and like single item companies, remove from your employee’s script “What are you shopping for today?”  Oh I don’t know… shoes!!!  And see the above note.
• Starbucks for gawd sakes make your employees drink decaf after their first cup.  Nothing is more annoying than a hopped up barista before I’m handed my first cup of coffee.  Great, I’m glad you like your product and indulge in it, but if you don’t shud up and hand me my coffee I’m going to go ballistic!

Of course this goes both ways, I have many gripes with customers as well…

• Please, Thank You, You are Welcome… try it out.
• You can wait the two seconds it takes to hand the cashier something.  Do not throw your money and or plastic at them, wait a second.
• Get off the phone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (this doubles for cashiers too)  GET OFF THE DANG PHONE.  (of course I’m only speaking of when you’re waiting for service)
• Be aware and care about the people around you.  You, YES YOU, should still hold doors open and make way for the elderly, pregnant women and people with small infants.  DO IT.
• Try to keep your children in control.  I get it, even angels have bad days, but when that happens apologize or make your minion apologize if they just slammed into my knee cap, bring distractions, or pull them out of the store.  And for gawd’s sake do not leave your kid alone.
• Again, Please, Thank You, You are Welcome, EXCUSE ME. 
• If you feel the need to chat with a total stranger keep it short.  If you want to say hi to my minions, great.  If you want to comment on how cute they are, how sweet, well-behaved or how they look like your little Tommy back home… GREAT.  But I’m shopping with minions that only allow three seconds of standing still, their crying should be a hint… no offense.  Keep it moving, please.

Obviously this list is missing hundreds of common gripes.  What would you add?

An Almost Perfect Day

It’s cold, rainy, windy and plain out gross outside.  A day that would be perfect for sweatpants and slippers, coffee and pizza, writing and moody music.  Instead it’s the school bus and gas station, laundry and cleaning. 

The life of a mom, so close to having those perfect days, yet always so, so far away from them.

And like I said, I have cleaning to do, because I am crazy and I love my son.  Yup it’s his fault.  His fault that I have to prepare for MORE ANIMALS.   Which honestly are only a couple more chicks to add to our four chickens we got last year, and who can say no to a boy who so carefully reads out the flyer to you, with those big brown eyes, and does cartwheels the minute he finds the ad on chicks. 

Because chickens make eggs, and this momma loves animals that pull their weight, or lay their weight, either way, 80 eggs last month from four little hens, I’m not going to complain.

Well I might complain, just a wee bit, because one of them likes to attack me when I’m in the garden trying to till up the rocks I seem to grow.  Apparently she sees invisible worms crawling up my fingers and arms, and I’m sure she’s only trying to save me from these invisible worms that she knows are really vampires in disguise.  And really she should feel lucky that she lays pretty blue/green eggs because I really think she’s crazy and my dogs would sure love some fresh meat I mean my freezer could really use some fresh meat…

Now where was I?

Yes, it’s raining and dark and cold and windy and all in all completely nasty outside.  I’m feeling completely inspired to work on my edits, and completely un-inspired to blog.  And really none of it matter because I have cleaning to do, many much cleaning, and a toddler to chase.

It’s an almost perfect day.

 

~Road Trip~

One of these days, somehow, I will be packing myself in the car, Alone, with just my favorite music and my thoughts.  Just a day or two, maybe three, in my car alone, going somewhere other than here.

No kids, no husband, no dogs, no cats, no goats, no birds, no people, just me and the road.

Just driving to nowhere, with a stop overnight.  Coffee and quiet.  That’s all I would need.  Just once, just short, just to breathe deep.

I don’t want a destination with time eating away at the quiet.  I don’t want lines of people, tickets or layovers.  Just my car that’s been worn just right, suited just for me.

I want horizons and sunsets, time and space.  Fields of corn, forest of cedars, farms filled with cattle and passing cities. 

Not to escape, but just to stop time, just for a little bit, just once.  That’s all I would need.

Getting Back On

Look, I'm in an actual photo! And yes there was a horse at my wedding.

I fell off of a horse once. 

Honestly I actually didn’t “fall”  I think more accurately I was more so flung into the air.  You’d have to ask my friend who had the bright idea of teaching me to ride WITHOUT using the stirrups, I was too busy trying not to die to see what exactly happened. 

And even more honestly it was all the fault of the brilliant wanna-be-cowboy who thought it would be a genius idea to jump onto my horse (a trained western rodeo, used to be a bucking bronco type of horse) from the round-pen fence while we were cantering.

My horse didn’t think any of this was too neat and decided to show US his skills from back in the day.  One tiny buck, two tiny bucks, one real buck which ended with me on the ground seeing tracers of my hand.  (Which is really fun to play with IF people aren’t freaking out around you)

After I was done playing with the tracers and laughing about the small dent in my helmet I rushed over to my horse, and with shaky knees got right back on.

That was easy.

It wasn’t so easy to get back on the horse that chased me down in a field with a whole famous western scene stallion rearing up with the sunset behind him.  Yeah.  His name was Freckles.  He should be glue.

I’ve also stayed FAR away from the horse that tried to kill me with me on her back, while my dog training instructor giggled, “How’d you manage to stay on her?” 

Fear.  Pure fear, that’s how I stayed on, and friggen thighs of steel. 

You fall off you get back on.  The fear may not disappear but you get back on, unless the horse’s name is Lucy or Freckles, then you just stay the hell away, but normally you get back on.

So what do you do when your brain, your conscience, your self-esteem is the big scary horse that threw you into a brick wall?

You brush the horse poop bad thoughts off of you, take a picture of the dent in your helmet laugh off the hurt, tighten the reins and dig your feet securely into the stirrups.  You Get Back On. 

Even if you have to ask for a boost from a friend.

Even if you need a shot of liquid courage first.

Even if it requires an entire bottle of Advil.

Even if you shouldn’t.

You get back on.

And yes I might be repeating a theme from the last post.  Deal with it.  It is THAT important.

I still don’t think or believe that I have the talent for this whole “writing” deal.  I still think my book should have a date with my goat’s stomach, but I’ve never been the type to let anything get the best of me, even if it’s a horse that’s 5 billion times bigger than me or a dog that sent me to the er after he thought my flesh would make a tasty snack. 

How scary could a little book be?  Certainly no scarier than a hoof to the hip, or a 70 pound Belgian Malinois with a grudge. 

Shakey knees, butterfly filled stomach, and a billion pounds of doubt and all, I am getting back on.

What fears are you facing?