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I figured out a reason that I have done so little writing in the past 5 or 6 years. I’ve been doing lots of reading. When my imagination is tangled up in someone else’s story there doesn’t seem space for my own stories to develop. My imagination has been captured and I can only free it by finishing the book. Unfortunately without a book in process I end up feeling at loose ends and bored. What I need to realize is that boredom is not a bad thing. When I have no book to read I have to exert myself to find something to do. When I have no book to read I do more sewing, more organizing, more creating.

What all of this indicates to me is that I need to shift my book reading behavior. Rather than racing through books to get to the end and then grabbing another book, I need to savor a book. I need to make rules about how much reading I can do in a day. I don’t need to be checking out stacks of books each time I go to the library, just one or maybe two good ones. In short I need to regulate my reading so that I have more time in my life for other things.

It is a matter of prioritization. I need to decide which things are most important to me and do those first. Reading a book is rarely going to rank at the top of that list. Unless it’s Lois MacMaster Bujold. Pretty much everything goes on hold when Bujold has a new book out.

We finished Buffy Season 7 tonight. Now I’ve seen all the episodes and I’m glad. I have to confess that Buffy herself kind of annoyed me during this season. She went all serious. The character arc I really cared about was Spike. From the moment that he started on his path toward redemption his character has fascinated me. The idea that love for another person can cause someone to shift their whole Self for the better is incredibly powerful. I want to be the kind of person who inspires that way. I want it and I don’t. It could be a huge responsibility. Although most people won’t have Spike’s stalker/creepy/demon issues, so I guess that would make it easier.

I guess the idea of being so beautiful and so good that a hero is ennobled simply by loving me has always had an appeal. Maybe I should have lived in the days of courtly love when everyone felt like that was the ideal.

On the other hand, the closest brush I’ve ever had with someone veiwing me that way was in early teenager-hood and was much closer to a creepy-stalker experience than anything beautiful. Perhaps the only kind of person who is so willing to shift for another is an obsessive person. Hmm. . . not a happy though that. I think I’ll stick with Howard who laughs and talks with me and shares my life. And instead of inspiring a single person to change his whole Self, I think I’ll just try to be the kind of person who might possibly inspire lots of people in very small ways. That’s more balanced because there are people who inspire me all the time.

About 8 months ago I gave myself an assignment.  I wanted to write a complete short story.  I also gave myself a deadline (early June).  But then the story refused to be as short as I wanted it to be and life events forced the setting aside of literary aspirations for a while.  But recently I was inspired by Rowyn’s completion of her novel and I wrestled my story to an ending.

There are so many things I wanted this story to say, but the only way I can find out whether it actually speaks to anyone but me is to ask people to read it.  So I am now inviting anyone who reads my journal to visit the link below and read my story.  Anyone who wants to comment is welcome to do so.   I’m actually hoping for some feedback. You can leave it either in the comments section below, or you can email it to Howard via the Schlockmercenary.com site and he’ll forward it to me.

Thanks in advance to anyone who bothers.

http://www.tayler.com/Sandra/bethansgarden.html

Feb 20, 2005 Edit: The above link has been updated to a final version of the story. People are still welcome to read it and comment.

It began at 3:30 am when Gleek called out. She’s been sick and needed some comforting attention. Unfortunately her call woke Patches as well. I was going to snuggle Gleek first before attending to Patches, but she told me to go take care of him. So I scooped Patches to tuck him into bed with me figuring that was the fastest route back to sleep for everyone.

Then Gleek realized that she’d sent Mommy away and I wasn’t coming back anytime soon. She cried. Fortunately Howard was awake enough to respond to her and I stayed snuggled in with Patches hoping to get him back to sleep. When Patches is sleeping he is fun to snuggle, warm and soft. When he isn’t asleep he is all elbows, knees, and feet. Not snuggly at all. After an hour of being variously poked, jabbed, and bonked I tried putting him into his crib. This lead to 30 minutes of hysterical screaming. (Which by some miracle all the other kids slept through.)

Howard and I realized that sleep was no closer with him screaming than it was with him wiggling, but with wiggling there was much less chance of waking anyone else. And we felt guilty. He’s little. All he wanted was to be with the comforting adults in his life and they’d abandoned him. Howard rescued him from his crib and tucked him back in bed with us. After a momentary spurning-of-mommy he snuggled up and fell fast asleep. It was one of those heart rending sleeps where the sobbing breaths don’t stop until the child has been asleep for 45 minutes. I didn’t stay up to wait for the sad breathing to stop, I slept too.

Morning came far too early and yet I was running late before I even dragged myself out of bed.

I’m exhausted and I’m not done working yet. I’ve still got two kids to put to bed.
Today (In no particular order) I:
Did all the bugeting and banking and setting up folders and clearing out cabinets to set up book keeping for 2005.
Ran load after load of sorely neglected holiday laundry. Folding is looming now. Literally. Some of those piles are ready to topple.
Failed to get Patches to nap despite cruelly leaving him in his crib for extended periods of time where he acquired a self-inflicted (and parental guilt inducing) bloody lip.
Put up with excessively cranky Patches for the rest of the day.
Took down and stowed my Huge Christmas Tree.
Took down and stowed everything else which even remotely looked christmasish.
Hauled boxes of Christmas stuff downstairs to hide until next year.
Fixed meals.
Picked up kids from school.
Met the mother of Kiki’s school friend so that going to play at his house is possible. There is friendship potential there for me as well. It bodes well.
Required kids to do their homework.
Rocked Patches for 30 minutes because even though he was (finally) asleep, every time I tried to actually put him down he’d wake up and scream.
Helped Kiki and Gleek trade beds. Again.
Read stories to Gleek and tucked her in.

I’m hoping that what comes next is peaceful bedtimes for Kiki and Link followed by happy and uninterrupted Buffy viewing and Sleeeep.

Okay. NOW I’m ready for school to start. The kids have been squabbling all morning.

After tonight the luxury of late nights and sleeping-in ends. Sunday morning we have to get everyone up and ready for church by 9 am. This is a significant change from the 1 pm church schedule we’ve had for the last year. I actually prefer the 9 am schedule, but the adjustment period will be rough.

On Monday school begins again. Usually by this point in a vacation I’m ready for it to be over and the kids to have more stuff to do. This time I’m still enjoying the break. I didn’t make them get up once in the past week and I only required the barest minimums of work. The one thing I did try to do was keep bedtimes sane, but that was pure self defense. Getting back to school will be good for us. Really.

At least we get to end with a bang. My parents are due here this afternoon and we’re going to spend New Years Eve together with them and my youngest brother who is headed for college. It is going to be fun.

Today has been a good day for both Howard and I. He was able to be productive. I was able to get DDR to work correctly and I got to finish Going Postal by Terry Pratchett. Now that I’m finished with the book, Howard can dive into it and in theory I can Get Stuff Done.

I’m feeling energetic and ready for a project. Unfortunately the things on the Things Which Need Done list do not match up with the top items on the Things I Feel Like Doing list. Sigh.

On the upside if I get my work done then I can enjoy guilt-free Buffy viewing later this evening. That is assuming I can drag Howard out of the Pratchett book long enough to watch with me.