Manic Monday: Hilarity

PS I am a dork ;)

Work It Out Wednesday: Taking Time

I need help. I admit it. The bf is constantly asking that I not work so much, but I can't help it; I am in a perpetual state of being behind. Don't know how that happens since I'm always working! While I have gotten better, I still find I can't quite stop checking emails when I'm off. That, of course, leads to my wanting to take care of whatever issue or question was detailed in the email, which, then, turns into several more responses and documentation. I'm stressed just typing this out!

This week, I requested Monday and Tuesday off for doctor appointments. Last week was very busy, so it felt good to not have to rush from work to the doctor's offices. But I still found myself working. How do I stop? Should I reward myself with a sticker for every hour I don't log on or check voice messages? At the end of the weekend, I could treat myself with a prize if I've collected enough stickers? I don't know but I have to stop. There is too much going on in my head. Monday night, I was so distracted as I rushed down the stairs into the basement, that I slipped and fell. Luckily, I am only sporting the beginnings of some nasty bruises and am a bit sore in certain places, but this mishap only illustrates that I am too busy rushing from place to place, activity to activity. 

Last week, I attended a work-related workshop that was inspiring, as I relayed here. It made me think about the journey I had started when I was younger: the journey of discovering what life had to offer- what I had to offer. Somehow, I veered off the path and wandered off. The workshop was the start of my re-thinking how I prioritized my time and this weekend added to my feelings. Sure, work is important and I pride myself on my work ethic; still, life is not all about work. It's about taking the time to stop and smell the flowers along the path, watch the sunset, go for walk, create something spectacular. 

Seen during walk along river

Yesterday, after my appointment, I went for a walk along the river. It was a beautiful day and I stopped to take pictures along the way and to listen to the rushing river. I want more days like that. Yes, I was up at midnight checking my emails, but I didn't log in the entire day. It was an amazing feeling. Plus, I was able to spend time writing, so that made me feel good.

Hayley during walk

cherry-scented stickers

I'm going to make it a point to take the signs- the workshop, falling down stairs- and slow down. Make time for the writing, creating, enjoying, seeing. Maybe I'll have to start with earning a sticker for every hour I don't work? I just got some Hello Kitty ones (they are scented). So even if I don't have any flowers to stop and smell, I can smell my stickers. :)

Are you finding yourself consumed by work duties? What do you do to ensure your time off is used effectively?

Happy Wednesday!
-M

Manic Monday: Connections

Mother's Day project from my youngest

Mother's Day: Sunday, May 8th, 2011.  Restaurants were busy, flowers were being delivered, phone calls were made to long-distance-Mother's, and people were spending time with their mom's.  I was at the zoo with my family, including my older brother and my father-in-law.  We all had a great day. I'd had a great conversation on the phone with my own mother who lives out of state.

Connections - my weekend was all about connections.  Sunday was a great day connecting with the family and focusing on relationships within the family.  Saturday I met with Michele and attended a meeting at our local writer's chapter and learned a bevy of information about book trailers (ours will be out later this year!!).  Before the meeting (which is held at a community center) we connected with our inner-Diva's in a morning Zumba class, what fun!!!  After the chapter meeting we connected at Ikea, brainstorming about our book & blog while we shopped.   Finally, Saturday night my family was invited to a friend's house for a BBQ, another connection that I was happy about.



My Mother's Day cards

Did I mention my brother from NYC was visiting too for my sons weekend baseball games?  More connections, family & baseball (my oldest son finally got out of his hitting slump & "connected" on a pitch and his run kept the inning going, ending with 2 runs for his team).

I hope you all had some great connections yourself this Mother's Day weekend. 

-Elena





Connections

I started my weekend off high from an amazing workshop I had attended most of the week for work. The workshop was offered to my co-workers and I to enhance our work skills; however, we got so much more- especially on a personal level. It was extremely interactive and explored our journeys and dreams. It also provided us the opportunity to really spend time with one another since we only really see each other a maximum of twice per month. Plus, we made connections with others in our field with whom we are looking forward to attending more events.

The gifts I possess, as uncovered by my team. *Sniff*

During my "session" at the workshop, my team helped me explore my dreams by sharing a few personal stories, uncovering my gifts, and- ultimately- agreeing to action steps. The best part about it was learning how to visually record with images which was a great deal of fun (I now want to play with pastels!) One of the action steps I set and which will lead me closer to my dream is completing my work-in-progress books. Are you surprised writing came up?  

So on Saturday, as Elena mentioned, we learned about book trailers. The wonderful guest speaker repeated the fact that thinking in images was important, which can be difficult for authors. This was an interesting connection to me, that this presentation and my workshop dealt with thinking in images. Hmmm...coincidence? I'm going to enjoy working on our book trailer when the time comes!


After our meeting, we went to Ikea, which I love; it's like Disneyland to me. So we had to take pictures! (Who am I kidding? I take pictures in the produce section of the supermarket).

Elena being quiet at Ikea

Even at Ikea, you can find time to read!

Elena and I want this library.

The weekend ended with my connecting with my inner child. While at the bf's family's home, I spent time with his nieces, enjoying the beautiful day and then playing with Legos, matchbox cars, and our imaginations. 

Great ending to a fabulous weekend.


Happy Monday!


-M

Manic Monday: Spontaneity

Spontaneity Leads to Great Things: A Spontaneous Wedding

I grew up with lots of spontaneity in my life. I remember waking up on a Saturday morning and discovering that my parents were taking us on an impromptu trip. It could be to Disney World or Key West or another fun place kids like to go. It was exciting and adventurous. 

As I grew up, spontaneity became more difficult. I started planning and coordinating my life. I have a job where I am ultimately planning and coordinating things. While life is still exciting and adventurous, there aren't too many spontaneous moments. 


I think I equated spontaneity with childhood and felt that there was no place for it in my adult life. A couple of days ago, I got a call. A co-worker who has been with his partner for thirteen years was going to get married. He had talked about the two of them uniting privately, but at the last minute, they decided to have the ceremony at our boss's home. 

We arrived at her home on Saturday to find the two of them in their tuxedos, looking handsome and completely happy. Our boss had a cherry blossom tree in her yard that was blooming and it provided the perfect backdrop for their union. An ex-co-worker of ours officiated the ceremony and I, who have never been teary-eyed at a wedding, found myself misty-eyed while watching them profess their love for one another. It was a touching moment that was completely spontaneous. They didn't have any plans; all they had was one another. That was enough. 

I feel blessed to have been there to witness their ceremony and am thankful for spontaneity. It was a beautiful day that was made even more beautiful by their love. 

Love

Hope you have an adventurous week!

--M

Be Spontaneous & Forget the "To-Do List" 

Two of my personal goals can be tracked daily by either word-count or a pedometer. Tracking is consuming my life.  Tracking equates to planning and planning takes preparation.  All of this tracking, planning and preparation is making my life VERY structured. 

Sunday I woke up with loads of laundry to conquer, a lawn to mow, and a baseball game at noon to attend.  Plus, I wanted to write AND walk before the game.  What to do??? 

I was happy I had spontaneously chosen to take a walk that morning instead of doing the laundry.  Moreover, I didn't read the Sunday paper with my morning coffee.  Instead I wrote a few pages before the baseball game while sipping my coffee.  I could read the Sunday paper in the evening if I still wished to, but at least my writing goal was accomplished.

My husband and oldest son had been spontaneous about mowing the lawn because when I returned from my morning walk, I was happy to find the two of them mowing (yay!!! That got crossed off my list too!!).  Come to think of it, our family had spontaneously gone out for pizza on Saturday night and then went to a nearby park to walk around the lake.  The kids loved seeing the baby ducks in the water and playing on the playground at sunset.  All spontaneous fun that made the day memorable.

I'm going to remain spontaneous about walking & writing and will continue to take advantage of opportunities to accomplish these daily goals, all the while putting aside other less important tasks. 

Overall, I feel satisfied at the end of the day knowing I walked and wrote, regardless of the other things that didn't get accomplished.  I know I wouldn't have had the same feeling of satisfaction had I only cleaned the house and done the laundry. 

Go ahead and do what you feel is most important to do for the day - and be spontaneous about accomplishing it - and  then do anything else that needs to be done if time permits. 

Have a great week!

Elena 

Working It Out Wednesday: One Perspective

I can't draw. Period. But I love art and have always wanted to take oil painting classes. I attribute the fact that I never got around to taking classes to my insecurity about not being able to draw. Recently, I made myself sign up at a local school and started attending a couple of weeks ago.


There are four of us in the class. After our teacher told us about her background, she asked us to introduce ourselves. When it was my turn, I shared my nervousness due to my perceived lack of ability, but expressed my love for art and photography. Her response was warm and reassuring: she told me that oil painting is what you make of it and I shouldn't be worried because oils were very forgiving. My photography background would play a role in my painting experience, she said, and she was interested in seeing how it would enhance my work. Finally, she added that aside from being comfortable with mixing colors, perspective was what it was all about. 


I have thought about what she said since then and I realized that this was a great philosophy to have about many things. I am writing a trilogy with Elena as well as my own YA novel and even though I am new to all this and feel a similar nervousness, I need to keep writing. This will help in my becoming comfortable with the process of mixing together the characters, plot, and conflict. My perspective may not be the same as others, but that is what makes life wonderful: the differing ideas and views. And it's what will make my painting and writing unique since it will be enhanced by my own experiences. 

I should have taken classes a long time ago!


I hope you are enjoying our posts. We'd love to hear your perspective!


Happy Wednesday!
--M

The picture I chose to replicate for class. Taken in Burano, Italy.

 

Working It Out Wednesday: Small Steps

Sometimes I get overwhelmed when I think about the amount of pages I need to write to finish my book.  When my heart starts beating faster than it should when I'm sitting in front of the computer, I take a few deep breaths and refocus on the amount of pages I want to write for THE DAY.  I begin to write and often I write more than I planned to.  Those written pages for the day put me that much closer to the end of the story.

Perhaps you've heard the advice to "write everyday".  I've heard this advice first hand from published authors, I've read it in writing journals, and I've told myself to do the same thing.  Although, I usually interpret the "everyday" part to "Monday thru Friday" because as much as I would love to write on Saturdays and Sundays, it usually doesn't happen because that's family time.

During my pregnancies, 40 weeks seemed so long and far away, but once I hit 30 weeks into my pregnancy, I then began the 10-week-countdown and suddenly, those 10 weeks flew and before I knew it I had a beautiful baby in my arms.  My book is like another "pregnancy" so-to-speak.  It's growing and developing and now that I'm working on the last 100 pages, I feel like I've begun the 10-week-countdown again.  Baby steps to the big finale - a complete book that I've written.

Continue to write words, paragraphs, and pages and soon those small steps will result in a finished piece of work. 

Below is a poem I found amongst my 7-year-old's school papers and wanted to share his Small Steps representing Spring.

Daffodils from our front yard

Spring
Spring has sprung.
Put on your rain boots.
Rain jacket.
I love Spring.
Nothing but mud.
Going to the park.




 Stay inspired and continue to write,

Elena

Working It Out Wednesday: Characters

Elena and I are winging it- this whole co-writing thing. Yes, we have some sort of system we've come up with and, yes, it is working (yay!) BUT perhaps we should be a bit more organized. We do have an outline and we try to talk weekly when we play tag with our story. Still, the story and characters are developing as we write.While allowing development to occur in this manner may be fine for writing alone, it might get confusing down the road with two of us.

I didn't really analyze all this until recently when I read Ink Diva Diaries regarding "How to Grow a Character." In it, the writer used an analogy I loved- though not necessarily the image it evoked. Lori Sizemore described her free writing process as vomiting her characters onto her page. I can relate to this because it is what I do; however, I commented that the character worksheets she introduces in her post might be beneficial to Elena and I so that our vomit would be consistent. (insert winky face here)

A day later, I was flipping through a book and I stopped on a page: Character Bio Worksheet. Are you hearing bells and whistles? Because I am. And the neon signs pointing to it are pretty bright!

In case you're interested, here are the questions in the Character Bio worksheet:

1. Age
2. Occupation
3. Family Members and/or Significant Others
4. Personality Traits
5. Character History (where he/she is from)
6. Highest Level of Education
7. Physical Traits
8. Biggest Motivator
9. Biggest Fear
10. Things he/she likes and dislikes
11. What kind of music does he/she listen to
12. What do they like/not like about themselves
13. What is their favorite childhood memory
14. What is their most traumatic life event
15. What is their most prized possession
16. What kind of transportation do they use
17. What is his/her favorite food
18. What is the most interesting thing about this character
19. What does this character's voice sound like
20. If limited to five words, which ones would most people who know this character choose to describe him/her

I'm not sure what we're going to do, but I do know I'll be analyzing the topic a bit more! I hope this gives you all something to think about, too.

Happy Writing!
M--