Wondering on Wednesday

You know you are on a higher (lower?) plane of existence when you manage to spend an hour at the grocery store and you get home and STILL the only viable dinner option is the Chinese takeout leftovers.

Anyway, can’t stay long today, must get back to work. I am at that weird stage with this book where I kind of love it even though I feel like it’s sneaking into my bedroom at night and stealing money out of my wallet. Now I’m just waiting to see how it all turns out.

We watched “Capote” last night. Phillip Seymour Hoffman was amazing. I really appreciated the way the movie portrayed the change in his motivation (as he dealt with the murderers on whom he based his book “In Cold Blood”). There were a lot of places where you could feel a subtle shift without anybody shining a spotlight on it, which is not always easy to do. You know, no offense to movie scenes where someone stands in a shower and lets the water run over them and it hits them that they might not be a Good Person Doing Good Things, but it was nice to see a fresh take.

Today I am wondering.

I am wondering what to do with half-empty shampoo bottles I don’t want to finish.

I am wondering why I pulled all of those things out from under the sink, leaving under the sink very clean but the rest of the room full of bottles of Drano etc.

I am wondering if it’s going to rain and I should be putting out my plastic sheets over the more vulnerable areas of the hill.

I am wondering if I’m going to remember to call that one guy I keep forgetting to call.

Conversely, I am wondering if that one lady will ever call me back.

I am wondering how early is too early to drink 20 ounces of Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi.

I am wondering if my library book is already late.

I am wondering if the boots I ordered are a half-size too small, and if so, how can I make this determination, other than my most common shoe complaint, which is, “I can feel it touching my foot.”

I am wondering…

Wait, that might have been all of them.

If you have any answers to these questions, by all means, share.

Now, to work.

k.

4 comments March 31st, 2010

Balance: on seeking it.

So, some of you are very organized people. You have no problem maintaining a schedule, keeping your food healthy, getting a moderate amount of exercise, and keeping everything in your home in its proper place.

This post is not about people like you. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read on–in fact, keep reading, because you will find lots of opportunities to be happy with yourself and the discipline you have cultivated.

If you’re the other kind of person, like me, keeping all of the plates spinning isn’t quite so easy. Tending to one plate generally means two or three others slow down or come crashing to the ground: if I’m on a deadline, I’m not exercising, AND my house starts to look like the intake at a Goodwill drop-off, AND I eat marshmallow and Diet Coke fondue every twenty-five minutes (that’s not really what I eat… but it’s the nutritional equivalent). Or, if I’m exercising and eating well, I don’t seem to have time for anything else. Or, if the house is clean and dinner is cooked by, you know, dinner time, everything else falls apart. Or, if I’m keeping up with Facebook and Twitter, I’m unable to accomplish anything else.

I think this is because, as writers, we are constantly striving to find new and better ways to procrastinate. So doing something else for a while isn’t enough–we need to find a way to make that thing the ONLY thing we can do. That way, nobody can blame us when we don’t hit our wordcount.

For 2010, my goal is to find balance. Not just to concentrate on one of these things, but to divide my focus among all of them. And–gasp!–to do it well enough to keep my household running (and fed), my health in a normal human range, and my work schedule efficient and effective.

Even though it sounds impossible, I think that might not be the case. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that once you get all of your plates spinning, things actually become simpler.

The reason for this, I suspect, is the concept that we procrastinators try very much to avoid: self-discipline supports itself. It’s kind of an all-or-nothing proposition. If you’re always saying yes, it’s much harder to say no in one area. But if you’re able to temper all of your yes with a healthy sprinkling of no, you get in the practice of it.

At least that’s what I hope, and that’s why I’ve been so scarce lately. I’ve added a little no to my yes, and my house is getting cleaner and my body is getting healthier (that’s the plan, anyway), and my to-do list is getting done.

…Just in time for my editor’s notes to come and blow everything out of the water! But I’m hoping that will just be one more spinning plate.

7 comments February 3rd, 2010

Advncd Tm Mgmt Advc Frm Dbut Athr

Okay, so my life has become completely insane this week. A lot of it is the fact that it’s the most labor-intensive dog show week, but a lot of it is trying to keep my little duckies quacking nicely in their rows as we count down to pub day… wait, I feel like I used the ducks in a row line in my last post. Don’t go back and check! Have mercy.

If you want to read something thoughtful and well-written, please go see what our guest blogger, bestseller Elinor Lipman, has to say on over thar at the Debutante Ball. Her serenity inspires and taunts me in the face of my own complete lack of it.

So. Today is party day. That’s a good thing. But today is also “getting ready for party” day. And that is going to be just awful, I know it. I am awful at getting ready for things. I get all hysterical and grumpy and I tend to leave everything, like showering, to the last minute, like when guests are already arrived and waiting for their food. Luckily, my in-laws happen to be in town, and seeing as how my mother-in-law basically planned our whole wedding for us, I have every intention of appointing her head of the party planning committee and letting her handle everything. Shh! I haven’t told her yet. She’s hiking right now.

So I’m a nutcase and that’s all there really is to say about it.

But I’m really going to blog EVERY DAY this week and either have a contest or a download or something fun for every. single. day., although I may regret putting that in writing, but I MEAN it! So please stop by and visit me and say soooooothing words and forgive my complete and utter maniacalness. (Mania? Not as fun to say.)

Now the dog is barking and I have to get on the treadmill to make up for those big soft sugar cookies with all the frosting, of which I am intending to eat approximately 47 tonight at the party.

Note to self: remind party-planning committee to buy big soft sugar cookies.

I feel like this cat… minus the house full of old ladies thing, which could be misinterpreted as a statement about my in-laws but is not intended to be, I swear:

6 comments April 18th, 2009

Breaking point?

This weekend is a marathon writing weekend. Project X and I are spending quite a bit of time together. I’m right on schedule to finish up by St. Patrick’s Day. It’s kind of all I think about. On the commute, I listen to the Project X playlist. At work, where things have been nuts (wrapping up another show), the little green notebook is never more than arm’s-length away. This is that weird semi-hypnotic stage where everything around me seems to be in context of this book. And writing non-stop has been really fun.

But yesterday I hit a little wall.

Not a writer’s block wall, but one that could easily translate to “I’m just going to put this aside a for a few (weeks/months).” Because I’m nearing 40,000 words (about 200 pages), and I suddenly thought, “Gee… what if it’s no good?”

Not the idea. I love the idea. Nothing will ever make me not love the idea, which I’ll share eventually (it’s really high-concept and I feel a little protective).

The writing, though–what if the writing isn’t any good?

But one fun thing about writing really fast is, hey, even if the whole thing is as useless as a basket of single socks, at least I didn’t waste too much time on it.

I feel better this morning. Last night I hit a transition point, and the subsequent jump in narrative time is really fun and interesting to write.

Okay. I’m a bundle of nervous energy. I’d better go get some coffee.

Sorry I’m not around the blogosphere very much this week! I was all caught up and suddenly I look at my RSS feeds and I have hundreds of things to read. Bah!

6 comments March 2nd, 2008

Making, making, making… (kind of)

I have quilt pictures to post, but I have to mail the quilt off first. I don’t think the recipient reads this blog, but just in case, I’ll wait a few days.

In the meantime, we didn’t get our family Christmas card out this year, but the night after that big photo shoot, we did a little one with Winston for our annual Winston Alender Calendar. And of course, the calendar made it out the door while the Christmas cards fester in iPhoto.

Here’s a link to the photos, if you’re interested in checking them out.

Dog show and book are really pressing down on me lately, but both of those should be lifted by week’s end… Hope everyone is happy and healthy in the new year!

January 8th, 2008

A lump of coal for me!

Let’s just acknowledge that I get an F for blogging and move on with our lives. Okay? Okay.

In the plus column, I get an A+ for crafting. I have been very productive lately, making several Christmas presents. From Bend the Rules Sewing, I made a lined tote bag for my sister-in-law out of some very cute monkey fabric. I also made an apron out of a similar monkey fabric, and a very odd little trivet out of still more monkey fabric.

I helped the same sister-in-law make some very cute little teacup cozies for her mother, and then I hauled out the serger (rethreaded it myself! only took an hour) and made some coasters for the in-laws’ rental properties. Many moons ago, I made a series of crazy quilt squares using four pieces of fabric sewn together and then cut with a 6.5″ square stencil. Now I piled those together with pieces of flannel, old sweatpants, or old towels, traced a 4.5″ square on them, and serged together coasters. It was extremely cathartic and highly addictive. Only two broken needles brought my fun to a stop… fifteen coasters later.

I’m also working on a quilt for a baby (6 months late–the quilt, not the baby), some totebags for the baby’s big sisters, and some late Christmas gifts for a rather understanding segment of my own family.

I have to put the finishing buttons on an infant dress I made a while back, kind of for the heck of it–it’s the perfect gift for a baby due any day to some friends in Europe. And I also took a look at my fabric stash yesterday and saw a lot of possibilities for some very hilarious baby dresses, which I will make for my own amusement and then put on Etsy or something.

As you can see, I’ve been fitting in quite a bit of workshoppy time, when I’m not working or taking the dog to the vet. Yes, I was tossing the tennis ball for Winston the other day, and it beaned him right in the face. His eye swelled up intermittently for the next 24 hours, always returning to normal the moment a vet visit was mentioned and then swelling up once the threat of medical care had passed. It turns out all that was needed to cure it was $81 and a useless half-hour at the vet’s office, during which time they confirmed that absolutely nothing was wrong.

I hope you have all had a lovely holiday. Try to capture a bit of the Christmas spirit and take it with you into 2008. I’d love to say I’ll be blogging again before then (and hey, you never know), but perhaps as part of my New Year’s resolutions, I should try to be more realistic.

At any rate, I’ll be posting pictures of many projects before too long.

December 30th, 2007

Thith oneth for you, Tom.

Tom, 365 days seems like a really long time to do something without being certain of the results. Perhaps I’m just lazy (or maybe I’m biased).

So anyway, there is zero craftiness happening in this home right now. The pants were a total bust, in that I didn’t finish them. I think they’ll be fine, except that the crepe-backed satin doesn’t sit flat at the seams, so the pant legs look like they’re collapsing inward on themselves. I’m thinking about ironing on some hem tape to hold them flat.

In other news, Winston is sick. He ate something over the weekend, and as I was in Long Beach for the dog show, no amazing hydrogen peroxide trick was employed. So he’d been a little sick (upset tummy) all week, and on Monday, the vet told us to give him antacids, but yesterday things came to a head and he was admitted for some more x-rays (I will have a glowing green dog by the time they finish all of his x-rays) and for fluids, because the poor baby was very dehydrated.

I’m waiting to hear, but it’s looking like surgery will NOT be necessary, which is good, because not only is there a dog show to be produced (post-produced), but there is a manuscript to be revised, and sanity to be maintained. Barely.

I made a discovery the other day: I can go without craving craftiness for weeks, but the second I’m supposed to be revising my book, I start immediately trying to procrastinate by sewing. Unfortunately for Evil Katie, Virtuous Katie put her foot down in this instance.

Oh, Lordy, I’m tired. I’m so behind on blogs, but I promise I’ll catch up.

Hope everyone is well!

PS – I didn’t re-sign-up for this round of Wardrobe Refashion… more on that later.

December 6th, 2007

I love the smell of fabric in the morning…

First, big thanks to narcissaqtpie for the patterns she so kindly sent me. I can’t imagine being brave enough to actually get rid of patterns. Even the ones I accidentally bought while trying to organize the stack at the thrift store (giving back, that’s called), I have developed an unnatural attachment to. Probably because I’m anticipating the return of the Executive Linebacker style for women, and I want to be prepared.

In other news, I have had zero time for sewing lately. Zero! Well, I’ve had four minutes every morning as I wait for the iron to heat up. I’m sewing the border on a baby quilt (which is already two months overdue… the quilt, not the baby), and I get one seam pinned or sewn every time I iron.

This is unacceptable! Especially because I want to try to make a lot of holiday gifts by hand this year (sorry, 4Horses, it is what it is). And that means sewing. And that means I’m going to have to leave cookies out and hope the elves come by and do some stitching in the middle of the night.

This is not to say I’ve had a lack of inspiration. Oh, no! I’m still buying patterns and fabric. I bought a holiday print from Joann to make myself a holiday skirt along the lines of the Halloween skirt. It’s even Sue-approved, so there you go.

I also bought Simplicity 3903, these table runners that you weave through one another… as soon as I got home and looked at the pattern, I wondered why on earth I had to buy a pattern to make table runners. But they were on sale for $1.99 so I stopped worrying about it. But I love the look of them, sort of a tablecloth and placemats put together…

I’m also planning to make chair covers to slip over our dining room chairs, because, really how hard can those be?

The only problem, as usual, is finding the time to get everything done! Maybe I should get together a band of singers and have them sing me a benefit song.

(Sung to the tune of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”.)

It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be ashamed…
At Christmas time, we make a list with lots of names…
And in my sewing room of plenty, I can make a cool placemat,
Throw your arms around the sewing machine at Christmas time.

Or there won’t be woven table runners this Christmas time,
(oh ohhhh oh)
And the greatest gift you’ll get is a placemat,
Which you will want to stow
Because the seams and selvage show,
Won’t I get to sew a thing at all?

Okay, that’s all. Happy crafting! *sniff* Have fun without me.

(Oh, and no one is allowed to point out that I could have been sewing in the time it took me to create this blog post, do you hear me???)

November 15th, 2007

Why I have not updated my dog–er, blog.

You will have to forgive me, because never before in my life have I been so immersed in the world of dog shows. Actually, I’m not sure if that’s technically true; show night is pretty intense. Other than that, no. All I can dog about is dogs. If I’m not looking at the image of a dog on the Avid, I am compiling a database of dogs using Microsoft Dog. Or creating graphics featuring dog names.

The irony of all this is that the actual dog in my life is spending the week at daycare, which makes me sad, because I miss him. In the car, I keep thinking I’m hearing him shift around in his little pop-up crate, but it must be… rats? I don’t know.

Also, the curious matter of publishing this on my own blog is the result of MyDog’s blog control giving me an error dog one too many times. I don’t think it will always be like this; on the other dog, if it’s not too annoying, maybe it will be.

Either way, I am dog tired and have to go write more about dogs.

November 16th, 2006