Hi. Remember me??
It's been, oh, five months since my last entry (and that one was a non-sequitur). Between the general busy-ness of life, slow computer, antiquated software, then wonky DSL modem PLUS feeling like I have nothing to say....well, you get the i-d-er.
So let's see if I can sum up the last few months...
FAMILY
DD#1 wound up firmly in the doghouse in April when her band teacher called to inform me that she had gone from an A to an F in band. "Excuse me? How do you get an 'F' in band?? I drop her off in the morning at the band room door and band is her first class. Is she getting lost between the car and the door? Temporal distortion? Guardian of Forever? Magic wardrobe? What?!"
Well, it turns out that they were, naturally, playing more difficult material and working in higher registers, which DD was having trouble achieving without the clarinet doing some squawking. Rather like a goose being trod upon by an elephant. Now, the funny thing is, she had managed an A through 2/3 of the school year with almost no practicing at home. So after discussion with her teacher, I got to be Momzilla and made her practice her clarinet every day for 20 minutes during spring break.
DH and I did "good cop, bad cop"...sort of. Her first afternoon practicing at home, I went into her room and asked her if I could try playing the clarinet. And she said her band teacher told them they're not supposed to share instruments. *eyeroll* I'm your mom, not the germy flute player sitting next to you, sheesh. So I gave is a try but couldn't make a sound. I asked her what I was doing wrong, and she told me all the stuff I'm sure her teacher tells her: make sure you're sitting up straight, don't eat the mouth piece, don't be wussy when you blow into it (yes, apparently he does say that).
Then DH comes in and is wondering why I can't get a sound. He looks at the clarinet, he looks at me, and says, "You know the reed needs to be wet, right?"
Uh, no. Someone left out that part!
So we had a good laugh about mom turning blue trying to play "Hot Cross Buns" on the clarinet...and after that she practiced every day during spring break without much prodding and with no arguments...and wouldn't you know, by the end of the break, she was 85% better.
Elsewhere on the family front....DBro and DSil had their twin boys on April 8. Logan was just over 6 pounds, and Mason was just under 6 pounds. And that was three weeks "early." Everyone is sleep deprived but otherwise fine. :-)
DH has rebuilt the banisters in our house -- Tommy Silva, eat your heart out! Okay, so it involved a lot of cussing and one full blown injury...but they are up and Arts & Crafts era perfect. He done good. :D Next up....a complete re-do of the master bedroom: flooring, paint, etc. This will be at the end of May. I'm painting. DH is doing the floor - pulling up carpet and laying wood laminate.
DD#2 had a major illness at the end of March....for a little while I thought it was Croup, Round 2 and was having visions of overnights in the pediatric ICU again. She was out of school for nearly a week right before spring break. But she hardly ever gets sick with anything more than a cold, so this was a shocker.
WORK
I am still self-employed and I thank God that I have been able to continue with it. It's important for me on many levels. I've had six good editing projects for manuscripts now (fiction and non-fiction)....I've created brochures and web site copy for several solopreneurs and the church....and I am doing voiceover work again as well. I hope to do some additional work for my karate master (pro bono or more likely trade)...and I'm developing a specific "PR 101 for Writers" program. I've also been approached about being a presenter at a future conference.
I've joined the Editorial Freelancers Association and LinkedIn (although until now, computer issues have kept me from creating proper profiles....they are works in progress and I should have them done by the end of the week). I'm also Facebooking, and with the encouragement of several friends, I am formulating a writerly blog. While this one is a combo of "life, the universe, and everything" the other will run parallel to my writing aspirations and my business (which is www.irwinfreelance.com by the by :D).
Wordpress, Blogger, and Blogspot are all compatible with my site...LJ, less so. So the writing blog will probably not be here. I don't know if I'll keep this one. It's kind of a "wait and see" thing.
WRITING
Same issues, different day. I need to be better about making time for my writing. I spend a lot of time worrying about everyone else's writing, but have not devoted nearly enough time to my own. Lots of ideas, and precious little time to work on them. I have enough in savings right now that through the summer (MIRACULOUSLY) I don't have to take on new projects and can work on my own stories and essays. If a good project does come my way, I probably won't say no, but pressure is lighter than normal, so that's all good.
Yes, yes, I know there are things I SHOULD be doing work-wise during that down time...but I'll do it my way, thanks. I'm tired of trying to fit myself into other people's rules and expectations.
I'm stepping down from the presidency of the Northwest Ohio Writers' Forum after the June meeting.....although at the rate things are going, I may still be in the prez seat in September when we meet again. But I know I can't take the presidency of the Forum AND rebuild the NWO Writers' Conference AND potentially migrate and restructure the web site at a new host. I have come to realization that I make a better soldier than a captain.
In February, I attended a women's writing retreat for three days with guest speakers, networking and writing time, and general relaxation. It was exactly what I needed. Hearing poet Paula Mclain talk about her memoir writing experience gave me quite a boost, and more than a few light bulbs came on during the writing exercise...in particular, how to approach a non-fiction piece about someone who's been dead for almost 150 years.
I need to go back and reread some of my journal entries from that weekend. One speaker, a journalist from Cleveland, talked about her experiences working at the Plain Dealer and how being a woman and working in journalism wove together and led to an award winning long-format article about being raped while out covering a story at night, about burying the truth for years, about finally deciding to tell her story regardless of how it was received, the support she got (or didn't get) from her colleagues, and even finding the family of the person who attacked her and getting THEIR stories as part of the healing process.
Her final observations were that for so many centuries women were strongly encouraged to sit silently in the corner and keep their stories to themselves. Keep The TRUTH to themselves -- not just the factual truth, but the emotional truth as well.
Who are WE to be keepers of stories and keepers of The Truth?
Who are we NOT TO?
OTHER
I am now a 2nd dan black belt.
I earned my new belt on Saturday, 5/9. Quite the Mother's Day present to myself. :-)
We started with the usual killer karate workout...boxing and kickboxing on the bags...but for the last 20 minutes, Master P threw in some "extras" such as requiring a sidekick or front kick before doing the combination. I tell you what, throwing in just ONE extra kick on each combination for three rounds was HARD. I'd made it to that point comfortably but I really struggled through the last 20 minutes....trying not to get "sloppy" and still following directions.
We took a short break and then did our personal defenses "in the air" (i.e. not on a partner). The precise defense against a hammerlock has always been difficult for me - I can get out of the lock itself, but have a hard time remembering the finishing sequence. And he made me do it four times because I kept making mistakes...but at least he gave me a chance to fix it!! He didn't tell me what was wrong...just that something was not correct and left it to me to figure out. We followed that up with partner work on body shields -- so he could check our kicks and punches.
Then we did all 7 kata/forms consecutively....really we did them about 21 times because he gave us two minutes to practice on our own as a group before officially testing us...so we'd run each kata in full TWICE before we tested.
THEN we did "stress lines"...where one person was in the hot seat and the other five were "attackers" with random attacks. They needed to be successfully defended....otherwise your attacker got a "free shot" which was generally a jab to solar plexus. Fortunately, I didn't have to deal with that. Smiley
We took a two minute break after stress lines and then got into sparring formation with full gear. Master P would tell us what he wanted to see...plus we did about 5 rounds of regular sparring. THEN we dealt with multiple simultaneous attackers with our backs to the wall (i.e. I had my back to the wall and couldn't go anywhere...and two people attacked at the same time....defense didn't have to be pretty, just successful). Then, we did sparring in the center of the floor with two attackers rotating in and out for three minute....talk about exhausting!! When you have to think and anticipate, it's twice as taxing as basic sparring and killer karate.
We spent the last half hour on ground attacks and grappling (i.e. we were all good and tired, so dislodging an attacker from sitting on your chest or putting you in a headlock on the ground was not going to be a walk in the park). My friend Darlene and I were partners. For the first three rounds, Master P was looking for specific defenses. For the last two, each person was given 30 seconds to dislodge their attacker, who was ordered to NOT make it easy! So Darlene and I had a pretty good grrl fight going on in our corner of the room...and we were laughing our butts off by the time we got done.
I have to say that as tense and difficult and occasionally nerve-wracking as the test was, we still had fun and could laugh at ourselves or the situation as needed. When I tested with Master G at the other school almost three years ago, it was incredibly tense...and four times the number of people. It was very rigid and you were afraid to breathe wrong. With Master P, the mission was accomplished and we had a good time as well.
So now, I have my (stiff) new black belt, with my name and date earned embroidered on the inside, and two silver bars at the end.
Who'd have thunk that the geeky girl with the owl-eyed glasses who got picked on through elementary school and junior high...would be a second degree black belt?
And now, ninjawritermomsolopreneurstoryteller has work to do. :-) Including writing the closing prayer for tonight's healing and wholeness service.
So let's see if I can sum up the last few months...
FAMILY
DD#1 wound up firmly in the doghouse in April when her band teacher called to inform me that she had gone from an A to an F in band. "Excuse me? How do you get an 'F' in band?? I drop her off in the morning at the band room door and band is her first class. Is she getting lost between the car and the door? Temporal distortion? Guardian of Forever? Magic wardrobe? What?!"
Well, it turns out that they were, naturally, playing more difficult material and working in higher registers, which DD was having trouble achieving without the clarinet doing some squawking. Rather like a goose being trod upon by an elephant. Now, the funny thing is, she had managed an A through 2/3 of the school year with almost no practicing at home. So after discussion with her teacher, I got to be Momzilla and made her practice her clarinet every day for 20 minutes during spring break.
DH and I did "good cop, bad cop"...sort of. Her first afternoon practicing at home, I went into her room and asked her if I could try playing the clarinet. And she said her band teacher told them they're not supposed to share instruments. *eyeroll* I'm your mom, not the germy flute player sitting next to you, sheesh. So I gave is a try but couldn't make a sound. I asked her what I was doing wrong, and she told me all the stuff I'm sure her teacher tells her: make sure you're sitting up straight, don't eat the mouth piece, don't be wussy when you blow into it (yes, apparently he does say that).
Then DH comes in and is wondering why I can't get a sound. He looks at the clarinet, he looks at me, and says, "You know the reed needs to be wet, right?"
Uh, no. Someone left out that part!
So we had a good laugh about mom turning blue trying to play "Hot Cross Buns" on the clarinet...and after that she practiced every day during spring break without much prodding and with no arguments...and wouldn't you know, by the end of the break, she was 85% better.
Elsewhere on the family front....DBro and DSil had their twin boys on April 8. Logan was just over 6 pounds, and Mason was just under 6 pounds. And that was three weeks "early." Everyone is sleep deprived but otherwise fine. :-)
DH has rebuilt the banisters in our house -- Tommy Silva, eat your heart out! Okay, so it involved a lot of cussing and one full blown injury...but they are up and Arts & Crafts era perfect. He done good. :D Next up....a complete re-do of the master bedroom: flooring, paint, etc. This will be at the end of May. I'm painting. DH is doing the floor - pulling up carpet and laying wood laminate.
DD#2 had a major illness at the end of March....for a little while I thought it was Croup, Round 2 and was having visions of overnights in the pediatric ICU again. She was out of school for nearly a week right before spring break. But she hardly ever gets sick with anything more than a cold, so this was a shocker.
WORK
I am still self-employed and I thank God that I have been able to continue with it. It's important for me on many levels. I've had six good editing projects for manuscripts now (fiction and non-fiction)....I've created brochures and web site copy for several solopreneurs and the church....and I am doing voiceover work again as well. I hope to do some additional work for my karate master (pro bono or more likely trade)...and I'm developing a specific "PR 101 for Writers" program. I've also been approached about being a presenter at a future conference.
I've joined the Editorial Freelancers Association and LinkedIn (although until now, computer issues have kept me from creating proper profiles....they are works in progress and I should have them done by the end of the week). I'm also Facebooking, and with the encouragement of several friends, I am formulating a writerly blog. While this one is a combo of "life, the universe, and everything" the other will run parallel to my writing aspirations and my business (which is www.irwinfreelance.com by the by :D).
Wordpress, Blogger, and Blogspot are all compatible with my site...LJ, less so. So the writing blog will probably not be here. I don't know if I'll keep this one. It's kind of a "wait and see" thing.
WRITING
Same issues, different day. I need to be better about making time for my writing. I spend a lot of time worrying about everyone else's writing, but have not devoted nearly enough time to my own. Lots of ideas, and precious little time to work on them. I have enough in savings right now that through the summer (MIRACULOUSLY) I don't have to take on new projects and can work on my own stories and essays. If a good project does come my way, I probably won't say no, but pressure is lighter than normal, so that's all good.
Yes, yes, I know there are things I SHOULD be doing work-wise during that down time...but I'll do it my way, thanks. I'm tired of trying to fit myself into other people's rules and expectations.
I'm stepping down from the presidency of the Northwest Ohio Writers' Forum after the June meeting.....although at the rate things are going, I may still be in the prez seat in September when we meet again. But I know I can't take the presidency of the Forum AND rebuild the NWO Writers' Conference AND potentially migrate and restructure the web site at a new host. I have come to realization that I make a better soldier than a captain.
In February, I attended a women's writing retreat for three days with guest speakers, networking and writing time, and general relaxation. It was exactly what I needed. Hearing poet Paula Mclain talk about her memoir writing experience gave me quite a boost, and more than a few light bulbs came on during the writing exercise...in particular, how to approach a non-fiction piece about someone who's been dead for almost 150 years.
I need to go back and reread some of my journal entries from that weekend. One speaker, a journalist from Cleveland, talked about her experiences working at the Plain Dealer and how being a woman and working in journalism wove together and led to an award winning long-format article about being raped while out covering a story at night, about burying the truth for years, about finally deciding to tell her story regardless of how it was received, the support she got (or didn't get) from her colleagues, and even finding the family of the person who attacked her and getting THEIR stories as part of the healing process.
Her final observations were that for so many centuries women were strongly encouraged to sit silently in the corner and keep their stories to themselves. Keep The TRUTH to themselves -- not just the factual truth, but the emotional truth as well.
Who are WE to be keepers of stories and keepers of The Truth?
Who are we NOT TO?
OTHER
I am now a 2nd dan black belt.
I earned my new belt on Saturday, 5/9. Quite the Mother's Day present to myself. :-)
We started with the usual killer karate workout...boxing and kickboxing on the bags...but for the last 20 minutes, Master P threw in some "extras" such as requiring a sidekick or front kick before doing the combination. I tell you what, throwing in just ONE extra kick on each combination for three rounds was HARD. I'd made it to that point comfortably but I really struggled through the last 20 minutes....trying not to get "sloppy" and still following directions.
We took a short break and then did our personal defenses "in the air" (i.e. not on a partner). The precise defense against a hammerlock has always been difficult for me - I can get out of the lock itself, but have a hard time remembering the finishing sequence. And he made me do it four times because I kept making mistakes...but at least he gave me a chance to fix it!! He didn't tell me what was wrong...just that something was not correct and left it to me to figure out. We followed that up with partner work on body shields -- so he could check our kicks and punches.
Then we did all 7 kata/forms consecutively....really we did them about 21 times because he gave us two minutes to practice on our own as a group before officially testing us...so we'd run each kata in full TWICE before we tested.
THEN we did "stress lines"...where one person was in the hot seat and the other five were "attackers" with random attacks. They needed to be successfully defended....otherwise your attacker got a "free shot" which was generally a jab to solar plexus. Fortunately, I didn't have to deal with that. Smiley
We took a two minute break after stress lines and then got into sparring formation with full gear. Master P would tell us what he wanted to see...plus we did about 5 rounds of regular sparring. THEN we dealt with multiple simultaneous attackers with our backs to the wall (i.e. I had my back to the wall and couldn't go anywhere...and two people attacked at the same time....defense didn't have to be pretty, just successful). Then, we did sparring in the center of the floor with two attackers rotating in and out for three minute....talk about exhausting!! When you have to think and anticipate, it's twice as taxing as basic sparring and killer karate.
We spent the last half hour on ground attacks and grappling (i.e. we were all good and tired, so dislodging an attacker from sitting on your chest or putting you in a headlock on the ground was not going to be a walk in the park). My friend Darlene and I were partners. For the first three rounds, Master P was looking for specific defenses. For the last two, each person was given 30 seconds to dislodge their attacker, who was ordered to NOT make it easy! So Darlene and I had a pretty good grrl fight going on in our corner of the room...and we were laughing our butts off by the time we got done.
I have to say that as tense and difficult and occasionally nerve-wracking as the test was, we still had fun and could laugh at ourselves or the situation as needed. When I tested with Master G at the other school almost three years ago, it was incredibly tense...and four times the number of people. It was very rigid and you were afraid to breathe wrong. With Master P, the mission was accomplished and we had a good time as well.
So now, I have my (stiff) new black belt, with my name and date earned embroidered on the inside, and two silver bars at the end.
Who'd have thunk that the geeky girl with the owl-eyed glasses who got picked on through elementary school and junior high...would be a second degree black belt?
And now, ninjawritermomsolopreneurstoryteller has work to do. :-) Including writing the closing prayer for tonight's healing and wholeness service.