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Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Catching Up on the Chaos

It's hard only blogging once a week because I feel like there is too much to say in one post. My daily posts were long as it was. I'll see if I can condense the chaos into one post to catch up.

Nico has the same kind of luck as I do with electronics. First, he was without a phone for two weeks because he thought he lost his phone at the rest stop on the way back from the Dells. Two weeks of a mild winter later and I went to put on my snow boots and what do you know? Nico's phone was in my boot. How in the heck it got there is a mystery. Then he had his iPod in his gym bag and didn't close a water bottle all the way and yep...another gadget bites the dust because of water damage. I don't know why the rice thing works for some and not for others but it has never worked for me. I went to look at phones for myself yesterday and I swear I am not exaggerating. The guy laughed when he saw my phone and said I was due for an upgrade two years ago. I am stuck between paying $99 for an iPhone 4 or a Droid Inspire or Infuse. Any opinions would be appreciated.

I have been wanting to do a mural in the kids' bathroom since Gia was born. We had a border in there that was really hard to take down so it took awhile for me to get the wall ready. I finally did but the towel bar was in the way. That bathroom has three towel bars so it would be no big deal to take down the one that was in the way. Except that it looked like it wasn't possible. It looked cemented into the wall with no screws to help remove it. For some reason, I thought Leo would know what to do. He was off yesterday and I told him I only wanted him to do two things: look into The Great Wolf Lodge to see which room we should get for baseball and our family vacation and take down the towel bar. We had discussed several times how difficult it might be to take it down and I said I would look it up online. Now, if you read this, you know that Leo doesn't do ANYTHING the first time I ask (or even the tenth). While I was making dinner (with plans to look it up after), he came downstairs in a mild panic and said, "I told you it wouldn't work. There is a big hole now. You made me take it down and now the wall ripped and there is a hole." WHAT?! I went upstairs and yep...huge hole. I asked him why he kept pulling it when it was obvious it wasn't going to end well and why did he do it before we looked up how to do it. He had no answer other than, "You would have kept bugging me to do it." Ha! I bug him all the time to do other stuff and he doesn't (hmmm...still half screen television over here and my computer is still in the back of his car) so that argument holds no ground at all. I was all ready to spackle small holes in the wall. I know how to do that but this...I have no idea. When I said that he mentioned that I would have to get drywall to fix it. Ha! That made me laugh. So add a large hole in our bathroom wall to the list of thing that need fixing in this house.

Leo and I thought it would be great spending quality time together playing Scrabble on my Nook (that really doesn't sound right, does it?). We have only played once and as much as I want to say it was a bonding experience, I'll just let you decide. We started at 9:00pm and finally at 12:30am, he said, "Let's finish tomorrow." My turns averaged about a minute. Unless you count the ones after 11:30...those I was falling asleep while playing so they might have been longer. The funniest part was I was beating him by at least 20 points so all that thinking was really not helping his score at all.

A funny thing has happened in the last week. I have stayed true to what I said I was going to do and I have been transferring the book that I have been writing in notebooks over the years to my old computer (the dinosaur one that at least has enough memory to hold it). The best feeling in the world (that I have not had a chance to experience in a long time) is getting completely lost in the writing. The blog is different. When I write this, I am in the moment besides the ones from the past and then I am in that moment. With the novel, it takes me to a different place, one that wouldn't exist except that it does in my head. Maybe that sounds crazy but what is even crazier is that I don't want to stop. I could literally sit here and write and revise and type for hours which is what I did this weekend. I started typing Friday night after Gia went to bed and finally at 2am, I went to bed. I was dead tired the next morning but while I was doing it, I was wide awake. The weird thing was that I jumped out of bed before anyone woke up (I am NOT a morning person at all and I love my sleep) and worked on it until they did. I have to admit that I looked forward to Gia's nap more than usual so I could continue. Luckily, Leo and Nico were at an all-day basketball tournament, Belle was at a friend's and Tommy had a friend over. Each time I was pulled away, I couldn't wait to get back to it. I now understand why writers go away or lock themselves in a room away from people in order to finish what they are working on. It is consuming in the best possible way. I get that same feeling when I do a mural which is why I am so anxious to start the jungle one. All in all, I transferred half of a notebook and rewrote a big part. The hardest part for me is fleshing out the details of the setting. I am more of a "dialogue to move the story along" kind of writer. I can see the setting in my head but the story really could be taking place anywhere. Maybe I should stop trying to teach myself and take a class. And where would that fit in with all the other chaos?

2 Comments:

At February 22, 2012 at 4:44 AM , Blogger Kendra Mareva said...

A couple of days ago I saw someone playing Scrabble on a TV show or ad and was like, "Oooh, let's play Scrabble!" Funny how that works. I'll be waiting a while though, as my hubby is not a fan of board games. :(

 
At February 22, 2012 at 7:44 PM , Blogger AnnMarie said...

I would love to play Scrabble with you! I bet you'd have some good words. :)

 

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