It's that time again!!

Nanowrimo...



And guess who is doing it.. me!!
And guess what she's writing about... me!!
And guess what the book is called... me!!

Well.. not me.. but "Ellemental: I got your meaning of life right here"

I know there are folks out there that turn their blogs into books, and I am not doing that, exactly. I am using some past posts of the blog, or parts of posts, but I'm filling it all in. Giving you the story behind the post. It's about my quest to finding meaning and direction in my life, while trying to survive it, told in an entertaining way (hopefully).

Here is an excerpt...

"She was a wonderful woman, a wonderful mother. She always gave us the soft white center of the bread and kept the crust for herself."

I remember thinking this was such an odd thing to hear from the man I watched my whole life tear out the soft white center of the bread and discard it to fill it with meat and cheese, and I wasn't sure if he was complimenting her or not. I realize it was a metaphor, an Italian metaphor (which means food is involved), and it was the first time I ever heard of him speak of her as his mother.

For as long as I could remember, he had been her caretaker and seemed to regard her as a limited stubborn child he had the burden of caring for. I'm not suggesting he didn't deeply love her, but I never saw this love as one a child has for a parent, so his comment was shocking.

I wonder what my sons will say about me or their childhood. Would they say they had a great childhood and a wonderful upbringing? I wonder how different their accounts of their lives will be? Will they debate the facts of their youth buried under their personal patina of experience? Will they blame their shortcomings or failures on gaps uncovered by their parents, and fault us their pain? Maybe I should start apologizing now to them for past and future mistakes to save them the heartache of having to explain these to a therapist or spouse. Maybe I should keep a copious diary and account of what happens in their every day so they will have something substantial to analyze when assigning blame.

Or maybe I will just write them a book about a middle-aged mother of two swimming in thoughts of her past, pondering her present and forging her future while turning over ham in a frying pan.

I have wanted to do this for a while now. When I write posts for the blog, I usually keep them short and concise. I assume people read on the net like I do. A little here and a little there, like sampling chocolates from the box. I try not to drone on or become too wordy, I realize your time is valuable and there are a lot of chocolates out there to bite into! I also realize that most of us have become facebook addicts!!!

The book is a place were I can ramble a bit more and fill in the gaps. I would like to think that it may be publishable someday, but for now I'm just clacking away, getting the thoughts out onto the screen.

So far I have written about 14 thousand words.. The goal is 50. I'll keep you posted, but if you want to see how I'm doing, go to http://www.nanowrimo.org/ my user name is 'ellediem'...

Oh.. and feel free to poke me now and again to keep me moving forward!!!

oink

My oldest boy, Jay, has the flu. The swine flu.

Ugh.

This is an evil bug. It hits hard and fast, and the medicine is rough on the gut.

Great.

So if you are not puking from the illness, you will most likely puke from the medication, and this is a huge concern. Jay's acute liver failure was triggered by dehydration, so any prolong vomiting is dangerous.

Poor buddy. I feel so bad for him. Both my boys are scheduled to get the vaccine too, by the way, next Saturday, but I guess the swine waits for no one.

Happy Halloween..

oink.

Hey there... an update

Remember all that drivel I wrote in my last post about astonishing myself? And how you kindly offered me some numbers with which to begin? Yes?

So do I.

What I didn't realize at the time was how incredibly chaotic the start of this school year would be and how exhausted I am every day.

I tried #5, which is to lay outside in the garden at night and look at the stars. I don't have a garden so I will lay out on the deck just as soon as I can stay awake past 8 pm.

The other number offered was 77, which is to listen to a recording of your own voice so I thought it would be fun to do an audio post about it, and I'm working on it.

I did volunteer at the kids school for all sorts of things this year as well, and actually started something for NaNoWriMo, as well as cracked open the previous manuscript to edit.

So... we're gettin there.

xo

Mind, Body, Heart & Soul....

I'm sad to see this summer go... I am expecting chaos at my school next week with the new administration and the new computer scheduling system and two more new computer systems to learn in addition. I really don't mind all the changes, I can adapt fairly easily, but I know many others can't and I am anticipating many a frazzled persons to burst through my office door in a steady stream for days. The healing effects of the summer should be completely obliterated by Friday. Such is life.

I have decided to do a few things differently this year, however.

Mind
I am going to make sure I have other things to focus on beside work. It can quickly become all consuming and I do mean ALL CONSUMING, especially in the beginning and I don't want to burn out. I am going to do more with boys school, and volunteer to be a committee or be a class mom. I am going to work on some writing projects I have in the works and definitely participate in NaNoWriMo again this year, and hopefully finish editing the book I wrote for it last year. I would like to take a pottery class or two just for fun. I played with clay some this summer and it was amazingly therapeutic.

Body
I have also decided that I'm going to get this family into some regular organic eating. There are some local food co-ops I'm going to explore because we could all used a nutritional overhaul. I am not going to even begin to address the exercising that is needed yet... fix food first.

Heart
I am definitely involving the boys in some significant charity work this year, even if it's just something our family does alone. I thought that it might be great to have them sell some things they don't use anymore and donate it to a struggling family.

Soul
I'm going to continue my quest for spiritual awareness and the meaning of life, in a more practical way. I am going to stop waiting for the giant epiphany to fall out of the sky and onto my head and look a little more... locally.

I found this book.

Astonish Yourself: 101 Experiments in the Philosophy of Everyday Life by Roger-Pol Droit

The book is a collection of 101 simple tasks that take anywhere from seconds to minutes to complete. It could be just a thought to ponder or an action to take or mindset to consider.

"The idea is to provoke tiny moments of awareness. Invent things to do, to say, to dream, that produce astonishment or the unease generated by certain questions."

Sounds fun, no?

I am going to start by trying out ten of the experiments that I will write about here. I want to choose the numbers randomly and see what the universe has in store!

So... anyone want to choose a number between 1 and 101 to get me started?

Cleaning up...

I have finally cleaned out my home office, something I have been threatening to do since June. I brought home a lot of stuff from work this year, and I think I have just been avoiding going through all of it. I guess I'm over it now, because I woke with an intense motivation to just get it done, and I did, and I'm glad.

I enlisted Jay to help a bit, for a small fee of course. The office has a door that goes out to the backyard. We hardly ever use it, but it is nice to work in here and have the door open, so I wanted to clean it and Jay helped and was it filthy!

"This door can used some of that Oxy clean, huh, mom?"

Yea, that and a blow torch, I thought.

"Too bad that guy died. The news said he took drugs, is that true?"

"I don't know, babe, I guess the doctors think that's what happened."

"Mom, why do people take drugs?"

Oh, boy. Why do kids pick these moments to ask life's most profound questions. My head is totally into cleaning this room, and not anywhere near where it should be for this discussion. I'm pretty sure this talk takes place in front of a roaring fire while wearing cable knit sweaters and involves some pamphlets or something.

"I think people take drugs to be more of what they want to be instead of just being who they are."

(did that even make any sense?)

"Oh, so that guy took those drugs to have a louder voice?"

I know it's much more complicated than this, but I thought this quite metaphorical, and age an age appropriate reason and response. So I went with it and said...

"Yes, exactly."

"Wow, could you imagine how loud his voice would have been if the drugs actually worked and not killed him? He really would have cleaned up!"

So true, I thought.

It's a hard lesson to learn to just be who we are without wanting to be better, bigger, more beautiful, and louder isn't it? Especially living in a world where every image has been digitized, enhanced and perfected.

Freedom

It is a wonderful thing that Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee have returned home and are now with their families. I couldn't begin to imagine what it must have been like for them.

The ordeal they endured reminds me of how wonderful it is to live in a country where we have a voice and we have rights. Democracy is imperfect, no doubt, but it beats authoritarianism any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

I mean.. here I sit in the comfort of my own home clacking away on my laptop, writing and publishing anything I darn well choose with being fearful that I may be swept away by the authorities, separated from my family and thrown into a jail or a mental hospital or a labor camp. My biggest worry is whether or not I ran a spell check before I published since my spelling is atrocious and I don't want to embarrass myself.

But not these folks... and I don't think they have a knight in shining armor coming to their rescue...

What shocks me about this list of foreign prisoners is that they are accused of crimes I do everyday. Blogging, using email or video equipment, having opinions and voicing them. I am free to do these things as it is my right, and their lives have been destroyed because they tried to enjoy this same right.

It's scary...

the Lil Guy's great big heart

My Lil Guy's friend Madison is sleeping over. They are only 7 years old, and are truly the best of friends, although this past week Lil Guy admitted to me in absolute secrecy that she is indeed, his "girl"friend. Lil Guy has many friends who are girls but has never deemed any one of them to actually be his, so this was a bit surprising.

We went on vacation last week and her family went the week before, so they haven't seen each other since the 4th of July. We live in the same neighborhood and go to the same beach, and when Lil Guy saw Madison walking across the beach yesterday his eyes lit up and he went to her, like a moth to a flame. After playing all day together, the two approached me and asked if they can have a sleep over. Sure, why not? Her parent's were cool with it, and we are all good friends, and this is not the first time they have had a sleep over together, in fact, it's like the tenth one this summer.

But I have noticed something is different this time. He's acting more cordial or accommodating or something toward her. Is that possible? I'm glad on one hand that he seems to have the inherent ability to be a gentleman and a gracious host, but on the other, isn't this all happening a little soon?

This morning, I was sitting on the couch surfing the net (oh, what a surprise) and the Lil Guy and Maddy were sleeping downstairs. It was almost nine o'clock and still not a peep. I told Jay to stay upstairs until they woke up because I knew the kids were tired. They swam for five hours yesterday and rode bikes all afternoon so I wanted them to sleep as long as possible. I decided to go check on them, just to make sure they were okay. I'm not used to having kids sleep past seven in my house, so I was a bit worried. I crept down the stairs and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, I could see a big smile on my Lil Guy's face. He was awake, but Maddy was still sleeping. I went over to him an kissed him good morning and asked what he was doing.

"I'm waiting for Maddy to wake up."

"Oh, that is so sweet of you. I think I hear her moving around, maybe she's waking up now."

"No, mom, she just moves around a lot, she's not waking up yet."

I realized, he must have been laying there watching her for quite some time to come to that conclusion, just watching and patiently waiting for his girlfriend to wake up. I realized he was letting her sleep and waiting for her so she wouldn't wake up alone. I realized my Lil Guy has a great big heart.

xo