Passions

Sometimes it's hard to keep all the balls in the air at the same time.
If I decide to focus on writing, my running slips. If I decide to really train for running, my writing falls off a cliff. I won't even tell you where mothering and teaching fit in.
One of the problems is that I am most productive early in the morning. At 5 or 6 a.m. I am usually either at the computer writing or on the road running. And that is my window of opportunity.
If I write for an hour or two, I'm not likely to then go for a run. I might head out the door, but I don't make it too far.
If I go for a nice run, when I return dripping sweat, I'm more likely to sit on the front porch and read the newspaper than I am to sit at the computer and write.
Many days these past few weeks, my early morning hours have been spent preparing for class or grading papers. I'm teaching four online classes this summer, but once everyone is out of bed, if Mom is home, the expectations are that I'm not really working. I can make lunches and run to Target, and all those other little errands that eat into my day instead of grading and preparing for the classes I do have to go to teach.
Grace and I have also been following an exercise program that takes an hour to an hour and a half everyday with only one day of rest each week. We've finished five weeks of it so far. Grace is not an early riser, although I may roust her out of bed at 8 on mornings when she has to work. So this is another thing that is eating up my time.
There's always the evening, someone might suggest. But they haven't seen me in the evenings. I'm wiped out. Whether I've been teaching, grading papers, running kids to doctors appointments or meeting friends for lunch, come 8 p.m., I'm useless and am lucky to hold a book in front of my face or lift up the remote to change the channel until I lurch to bed at 10.
I guess I'm kind of the opposite of ADD, people who can't pay attention to one thing. Instead, I end up focusing on one passion at a time and the others fall to the wayside.

New Year's Blah, Blah, Blah

I know. I hate New Year's Resolutions too. So I'm not making any -- that I actually think I'll keep.
Cause here's how it will go, I'll make them and break them and then feel guilty. I don't need any more guilt in my life. I know what I need to do. I need to write more and run more and love my family more. Done.
I like the way this old year is ending. I like having extra money in the bank account so I can pay any bills that fly this way. Ka-ching.
I've got some great ideas for my novel, now I just actually need to sit down and write them.
That's why, when I heard boys voices at 5 a.m., I pulled myself out of bed. Yes, I spent an hour happily paying bills online and looking at the blogosphere, but now I'm ready to finish this post and keep working on my novel.
The boy voices make me kind of sad that they decided to end the old year by staying up all night. Six of them, 15 and 16-year-olds in the basement, playing Xbox and watching bad sitcom reruns. The Grape Crush bottle lays empty on the granite countertop. Boy shoes big enough for the cats to ride in bunch together at the top of the basement stairs. One boy is coughing, probably allergic to cats.
I hoped that maybe Spencer, perenially tired from all that growing, had gone to sleep, leaving some of the the younger boys to carouse all night. Then I heard his laugh.
It's good to hear boys laugh too.
They're quiet now at 6:30 a.m., but I'll wake them all by 8:30 as I head out the door to get Tucker to swim team. I'll send them home to sleep away the last day of the old year, then awake in time to celebrate the new.
As for me, I'll spend the morning with my husband, a little post Christmas shopping and returns. We'll have lunch together, maybe fish and chips or Shepherd's Pie at the Irish place in the Brewery District, and come home to watch some football bowl games before he heads off to work.
My friend Sheila is having a party so I plan to go over there with my six-pack of Smirnoff Ice. Oops! Make that a 5-pack since I drank one last night.
Here's a picture of Tupi starting his New Year celebration way too early. Grace wants to have friends over, and, although they're a very tame crowd, I'll probably feel it necessary to come back home and chaperone long before midnight.
This has been a good year. I've worked a lot. I've posted a lot on my blog. I've packed away one novel but have a good start on the next. I've run a lot of miles and shared those miles with friends. I've seen my kids grow and make plans for the future.
2010 is going to be a doozy. I hope I remember to enjoy it.
Happy New Year to everyone and thanks for reading.

NaNoWriMo -- Abort

Anyone who actually reads the columns along the side of my blog may have noticed that this month was National Novel Writing Month and that I attempted to join in. Somehow, I stalled on Nov. 8 at 6,548 words. Well, I know how and it has to do with teaching and grading and parenting.
If I was trying to write 50,000 words in a month then I made a dismal attempt and failed miserably. However, since my novel is already in progress, I added those six thousand words to my work in progress and I'm at 38,000. In addition, think I really know where my book is going now. So maybe I'll look at it as adding 6,548 more words to my novel rather than a failure.
Next quarter I'm teaching even more hours, so what I absolutely need to do is get prepared for the winter break and plan to write like crazy for those two weeks, even though the kids will be home and my parents may come visit.
You don't think that's setting myself up for failure, do you?