Category: Personal

2013 Goals

~ K ~ 2 Comments

2013

Happy New Year! Since it’s the first of the year, it’s time to post this year’s goals! Here are my goals for 2013 (not in any order):

1. Schedule a blog post for each month
2. Go to the gym once a week
3. Strength train on Mondays
4. Read 80 books this year
5. Craft a new novel from an original idea (not something that I’ve recycled)
6. Write a new novel from start to finish in 30 days
7. Write 300 words a day whether it’s a combination of blogging, journaling, article writing, or noveling
8. Attend the Writer’s Digest conference
9. Submit query letters to literary agents
10. Complete synopsis of Getting Right with God
11. Watch a movie on Saturday evenings with Jason
12. Submit a query letter for an article
13. Develop a routine in the morning
14. Develop a routine before bed at night
15. (And oh, why not?) Become a mother

Developing a Routine

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My primary doctor has charged me with developing a routine. I am not a fan of routines as I feel that it ruins the variety of life. But for the sake of wanting to have children, they would need a routine that (I guess) I’d try to gently nudge them into. (When do children ever easily comply with routines?)

The other reason I need to develop a routine is that it would help to regulate my sleep, chronic mono, and bipolar disorder. So here’s my tentative plan for 2013:

  • Go to bed at midnight
  • Get up at 7 am
  • Drink coffee first thing in the morning
  • Take my Virastop, Prozac, and iron pill
  • Do devotions
    • Bible reading
    • Prayer
  • Write blog posts (shoot for a minimum of 300 words)
  • Exercise at the gym for 15–30 minutes
  • Read 10 pages in a book
  • Do the laundry
  • Brainstorm story ideas

Both Michael Hyatt and Steve Pavlina have good tips on attempting to become a morning person. Steve Pavlina’s post has helped me in the past to consistently wake up at 5:30 in the morning. (I also had help from Lamictal, which somehow managed to regulate my circadian rhythm.) I hope that I can once again recapture the former glory I once had.

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I’m having trouble meeting my 300-word minimum requirement so I’ll just end my post here.

Thoughts on My Marriage

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Holding Hands

The first year of marriage was the toughest for my husband and me. I had just moved to Kentucky, the place where he was employed, after 23 years of living in New York. I was homesick for my family, I was homesick for my friends, and I was in the throes of depression (or little did I know at the time it was bipolar disorder).

It was difficult to adjust to living with a new person after having lived at home with my parents and grandma for years. He had a completely different culture and different habits than what I grew up with. This made for an interesting clash.

It wasn’t just difficult but it was… different. He grew up on pasta and mashed potatoes, and I grew up on rice and beans. He wanted a clean dining room table, and I had a stack of papers that always covered the table.

After 2 years of arguments, fighting, and a hospitalization for depression on my end, things got better. We settled into an easy routine of working together, compromising, and learning each other’s habits.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that marriage is not easy, that you have to work at it. For the first two years, I found that to be true. My husband could have easily walked away from me. I had nights where I thought about driving home or driving anywhere to be away from him. (In fact, I did try that one night but I got lost and everything was dark and scary so I turned right around and went home.)

But love is a choice. And I’ve learned that every day, we must choose to love each other. That’s what makes a marriage work. The dependence on my “feelings” of love left long ago. Now, I wake up choosing to love this man who also chooses to love me. We do not fight often, but we do not have a perfect marriage. We get annoyed with each other at times. But we work through it. If I go to bed upset, I usually wake forgetting what I was upset about.

Perhaps that is also the key to a good marriage: a poor memory.

I enjoy my marriage. I cannot imagine being married to anyone else who would treat me as well as my husband does. This is not a post to extol his virtues, but rather to praise the blessings God has heaped upon our marriage. In spite of our differences, we have been able to work together as a team, as partners, to make this unlikely marriage succeed.

I hope I’m not speaking too early or out of turn. We’ve only been married seven years, but I look forward to being married for seventy-seven more.

Comfort Eating

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When I am feeling down or discouraged, I often turn to food for comfort. But it can’t be just any old food. It’s gotta be sweet.

That’s right; I am a comforter eater.

Perhaps  this falls under gluttony because I turn to food instead of to Jesus? I hope he’ll forgive me.

But I’m not sure what it is about ice cream that makes my mood better. Pasta doesn’t cure me. Nor mashed potatoes. No, the traditional comfort foods don’t soothe me. But give me cake, ice cream, or perhaps a brownie, and I’m set.

Do you engage in comfort eating? If so, what are your favorite foods?

By the way, I don’t endorse comfort eating, but exercise doesn’t satisfy my sweet tooth. If only I could find something to comfort me that didn’t involve eating…

Life in Suburban Philadelphia

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NYC vs Philly

Living in Pennsylvania is better than I ever thought it would be. In some ways, I prefer it to New York.

Oh no! Did I just say that?

New York is all hustle and bustle, just the facts ma’am, I’m trying to get where I need to go. Everyone outside of New York seems a whole lot more laid back. Not Southern laid back, but certainly not as uptight.

I didn’t like Kentucky much when I lived there, mostly because I was unable to have a life. And, it had a pitiful mall. But at least it had a Barnes & Noble and Chick-Fil-A. That’s important.

But here in suburban Philadelphia (much like I was in suburban New York City), I have many of the accoutrements of the Northeast-living lifestyle. I have a great big mall that I adore (yay! King of Prussia!), a Barnes & Noble within 5 minutes, and my choice of Chick-Fil-A within a 25-minute range. (Okay, so Chick-Fil-A is not a New York thing except for food court at NYU’s Weinstein dorm.) The traffic around here is not as slow as the south, but much better paced than the craziness that surrounds New York City driving. People don’t necessarily smile and say hi (some of the older folks do) when walking past each other on the street. That’s all right by me.

They opened up a Container Store on Long Island. The closest one to me right now is in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. I am praying for a Container Store within 25 minutes of driving distance of my home. Praying, I say.

It’s great to have my husband’s family only 10 minutes down the street, and if need be during the day, a 5-minute walk to my mother-in-law’s job. (No sarcasm. Many people would joke that the in laws are a bad thing, but they’re not for me. I am very fortunate to have such a wonderful family.) If my mom wants to visit from New York, there’s an Amtrak stop less than 10 minutes away from where I live.

I never thought I’d be content living in a state outside of the great state of New York. I didn’t know that settling into suburban Philly life would feel like a second skin. I love my job at the library, and I would be loathe to give it up. I like the flexibility that freelance life brings with the work that comes and goes. I enjoy my Bible-believing church.

I love the neighborhood I live in. I live along a major road that’s busy during the day then gets quiet at night. I live right across from the SEPTA train station, and love to hear the trains occasionally. (The sound barriers are pretty darn good.)

I love occasionally traveling out to Lancaster County to Shady Maple Smorgasbord to eat or Shady Maple Farm Market to do some grocery shopping. Amish people, or Dutch country, are the heart of Pennsylvania culture. I’m beginning to love it all.

I’ll always be a native New Yorker, and my first allegiance will likely be to where I grew up for 23 years of my life. But as a transplanted New Yorker near Philadelphia, I’ve learned that Philly is not so bad. And in fact, will just do quite fine.

2012 End-of-Year Goals Check In

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1. Schedule a blog post for each week Schedule a blog post for each month.
FAIL. I totally blew off November.

2. Go to the gym on Tuesdays for at least 15 minutes Go to the gym on Sundays for at least 15 minutes
FAIL. I have simply been too lazy and too tired to make it to the gym on Sundays.

3. Strength train Mondays and Thursdays a week for at least 15 minutes Strength train on Mondays
FAIL. I have not strength trained at all in the past 2 or 3 months.

4. Put aside $25 per paycheck ($50/month) for website redesign in March 2012 (before website expiration in April)
SUCCESS! My website has been redesigned.

5. Combat discontent by listing 3 things every day that I’m grateful for I will list 3 things every night in my journal
FAIL. I’ve failed to do this regularly.

6. Relax 2 times a month on the Sabbath (a day off, not necessarily Sunday) by reading, listening to music, dancing, napping, meditating, watching a movie (something fun) for most of the day
SUCCESS! I’ve been relaxing more.

7. Read a book for at least 15 minutes 3 times a week
SUCCESS! I am ahead of my reading.

8. Read 36 books (3 books a month) by December 31
SUCCESS! I have surpassed this goal.

9. Complete half of manuscript rewrite by June 2012 (Work on 10 pages once a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Saturdays for 2 hours)
SUCCESS! My manuscript is complete.

10. Complete rewrite of manuscript by December 2012
SUCCESS! See previous point.

11. Edit for 1 new client this year
SUCCESS! I scored a new client this year.

Overcoming Writer’s Block: 300 Words a Day

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Reading Anne Lamott makes me want to write. Is that the mark of a good writer? One who encourages other writers to write?

I am reading Bird by Bird, her book on writing and life. To overcome writer’s block, she encourages her readers (who are writers) to write 300 words a day.

Three hundred words a day. I can do that. Right?

—

I have a memory book that I’m writing. In it all are the memories that I can possibly remember. Believe it or not, I don’t remember much. Only about 20 pages’ worth of memories in a small journal out of who knows how many pages possible. 200? Although I have 20 years of journals to sort through and read to remind myself of all the horrible things that have happened to me. Because, of course, I am notorious for recording the negative events in my life rather than the positive ones.

—

Perhaps the following really belongs on my depression introspection blog, but I’ve had a really great year. Since my father died 11 years ago, 2012 has been the best year I’ve had mentally. Physically, I’m still dealing with chronic mono, but I hope that 2013 will bring a year of renewed mindfulness and energy. Normally, the fall and winter months (especially the Christmas season) bring with it sadness and depression, but thank the LORD, it’s been at bay this year. I’m finally accepting my father’s death and doing my best to move forward. I’ve accepted the fact that another year has gone by that I’m not a mother, and that’s okay. Forward. It was President Obama’s slogan during his re-election campaign, but it holds so much meaning for me. I will not let a political campaign co-opt a word that describes how I need to look toward the future.

—

I am trying to read a Bible chapter daily and pray daily. I am using Health Month to do this. I still have not succeeded in exercising. I do not know that I will ever succeed in exercising. I start then stop, in fits, like traffic on the congested Belt Parkway. I do not know that I have grown closer to God. But I am walking by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). I am reading about the Old Testament God—the Heavenly Father who was all wrath and anger and appeasement by animal sacrifice. I like the New Testament God—Jesus, the Incarnation, who is all love and human and emotional. Reading about God through Genesis makes me so glad for Jesus in the four Gospels.

“Whose god then is God? They all want jurisdiction. In the Book of Earth, whose god spread fear? Spread love?” —Tori Amos

—

I fear that my Mac is not long for this world. It is one of the discontinued 13″ white Macbooks (I almost wrote Powerbook—whew!). I don’t use it for anything anymore except to play music and to sync my iPhone to.  It was playing music when the song came upon a discordant note and the note kept playing over and over and over and… well, you get the point. It was like a CD permanently skipping. I had to force restart my Mac by holding down the Power button. But unlike the devotees of Mac, I simply cannot afford to buy a new Mac laptop of any sort. It is much too much expensive. But then again, I haven’t been sucked into the cult of Mac when it comes to computers. If I really loved Macs, I’d spend the money. But I don’t. I’d rather plunk down the cash and get a touchscreen Windows laptop for maybe as much money (or a fraction of the cost—I’m not sure how much touchscreen laptops run these days).

I am definitely an “i” girl. I use iTunes, love my iPhone, own an iPod Shuffle and and iPod Touch, and would like an iPad. Apple has won me over in the mobile department. But I figure I can make things work on Windows if need be. I would plunk down the money for an iPad. I just haven’t yet.

—

Look at that. More than 700 words. And the goal was simply to write 300. Can I keep this up? I need to whether it’s through blogging, article writing, or fiction creation. I won’t get better as a writer otherwise.

The Absorber

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I’d like to think that I’m especially good at something, but really, I’m especially good at not much.

I’m very much a retainer rather than a giver. A sponge rather than Santa Claus. I absorb information rather than disseminate it. I’d like for this to change. I’d love one day to teach a class on writing. But I don’t even know how I do it myself. Then I wonder if I should teach a class on editing. But I decide that it’s one of those things that I’m better at doing rather than telling people how to do. I don’t even know where to begin.

Memoirs, Anne Lamott, and Querying an Article about Infertility

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I’d like to write a memoir. But as with many things, it may never get done because I fear that I am not funny or interesting enough. Regardless, I have a memory book and I’m trying to record all of my memories. Especially those of my father, which are fading. I am bummed that many of my happy memories are gone replaced with such stupidness as the Korean lyrics to “Gangnam Style.”

I have many—and I’m talking 10 or more—journals or diaries, whatever you want to call them, that have recorded memories over the course of my lifetime since I was 10. Of course, I didn’t record all the major events. (I don’t know that I recorded when I found out my dad died or when I got married.) I just recorded all the mundane things about life.

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I’m reading books by Anne Lamott who is obviously a progressive, liberal Democrat. (She is a native Californian after all.) What that has to do with anything, I’m not sure but it comes through in her writing in Grace (Eventually). And I only wish that I had half the wit and talent in my whole body that Ms. Lamott has in her pinkie finger. I know she’ll tell me it’s work. I am reading her work on writing called Bird by Bird. Ms. Lamott has quite the way with words and metaphors that I can sit here forever and hope to come up with. But no, I’m more like James Patterson in my writing: just the bare bones “facts, ma’am.” I have a “voice”; I just don’t know what it is.

—

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing an article on infertility from a Christian perspective for various websites. I’m three years into this infertility journey, certainly not as long as many people that I’ve encountered, but it’s long enough to understand the ins and outs of the process. I can talk about my experience, my husband’s experience, and our unique journey together. At this point, it’s a matter of getting myself together and overcoming that initial rejection that comes with the query process.

Requisite Post and Other Assorted Thoughts

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I haven’t posted on this blog in a long time, and it’s mainly because I haven’t had anything of consequence to say. I like to post when I have profound things to spout, and that hasn’t been the case in the past few weeks/months. Elections have come and gone (I knew Obama would win re-election), disasters have come and gone (Sandy hit NY and NJ hard), and places have come and gone (I’m no longer at the library where I first began my library job).

I’ve taken to writing nearly daily in a bound journal. I don’t know that it’s always cathartic, but it is very helpful to my ability to sort my feelings out about different matters. Take, for instance, God.

I received Anne Lamott’s Help, Thanks, Wow book from Barnes & Noble today. Yay! I read it in just over an hour. She refers to God as some sort of maternal deity but I like the paternal-ness of the Bible. That might be because I miss my own father.

What did I learn? There are three essential prayers: help, thanks, and wow. I’d agree with this, if for nothing else, in the texting age, it is much easier and more succinct to communicate those three words than to write out the entire Lord’s Prayer. I believe “wow” acknowledges the greatness and awesomeness of God while “thanks” expresses our gratitude. Then “help” is our supplication. We are asking—maybe even begging—for an answer to our request.

Perhaps I’ve written about this before—probably likely on a blog—but God answers all prayers with the following answers: Yes, No, Not Yet. Not Yes is where [my husband] and I are in our prayer for a child. No is God’s answer to me becoming a successful, let alone GOOD singer. Yes is God’s answer to me being able to freelance.

Not Yet is the most common answer from God, I believe, because He rarely answers prayer definitively right away. Our prayer for a child isn’t necessarily “no,” it’s “not yet.” For four years, God’s answer to [a friend] who sought a full-time position of employment was “not yet.” Clearly His answer was not “no” or [he] would not be gainly employed right now. But not yet can feel a lot like “no.” And in some ways, it is “no”—for the time being. God has said no to J and I for the time being about having a child. But it’s a synonym for not yet. This I believe.

I kinda went on a tangent about prayer and getting it answered, but I’ve probably said before, I’m not as orthodox about God as I used to be. … But is it OK to think that God is maternal? Like an Aunt Jemima, pancake-flippin’ black lady with an apron on as depicted in The Shack? I guess so. Why not right? Male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27). God’s got to have some maternal in him to create females, right? And all humans are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). 

[Next entry]

I don’t think I got around to writing about what I wanted to write about yesterday: how I feel about God. I do believe Jesus is the only way to heaven but apart from that, all hell could break loose. I believe in love. Whether it’s Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve. I don’t believe Catholicism is a one-way ticket to hell. Female ministers are not the worse things in Christendom. And go ahead and baptize little babies if that’s your fancy. I’m a liberal. Oh noes! I believe in developing one’s spirituality. Jesus Christ and him glorified. But at what cost? I don’t believe in beating my coworkers over the head with proselytizing (like I used to).

I’ve come so far from my emergent church posts. Maybe I’m Rob Bell-ish now. Maybe Love Wins. Maybe I can refer to God as her. (Although I probably won’t.)

All I really know for certain is love is all there is. —Sheryl Crow

Success: What Does It Mean?

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What does success mean to you?

—

I look at others and often think, I’m not as successful as so-and-so who has a moderately trafficked blog (or writes for Reuters or appears on television). There are so many people I can compare myself to, and yes, it’s a bad habit, I know— comparing myself to others.

But I overlook the fact that I’m successful in my own way. I am juggling three clients for my editing business and have a fourth (a company that I’ve had to turn down repeatedly) knocking at my door. I should feel as though I’ve attained some level of achievement seeing as I’m actually pulling in enough hours to constitute a part-time job. But I don’t. I’m never happy with what I’ve done or achieved. Once I’ve hit a goal, I almost never pat myself on the back for a job well done; I’m setting a new goal that’s even harder to obtain and often dismiss the goal that I’ve attained as merely being too easy.

Am I being too vague? Perhaps. I just know that I need to bask in the momentary glow of my success a little bit more rather than brushing it aside as a speck of dust.

—

How do you handle success or successful moments?

Growing Old along with Alanis Morissette

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Image from AP

Yes, I admit it: I was one of those people who gave up on Alanis after her Unplugged album. When I heard “Hands Clean” from Under Rug Swept, I disowned her as the voice of my tortured soul.

When Jagged Little Pill came out, I was a teenager scorned who had never had a boyfriend but a series of crushes that went all wrong. “Ya Oughta Know” screamed my angst and pain, “Perfect” explained the pressures I felt from my parents to be the overachieving, A+ child, and “You Learn” reminded me that life taught me lessons that I would have to learn from. Morissette’s follow up, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie still had the right amount of angst for me. 1998 was the year that I became a Christian, but was still searching for inner peace. “Baba” was a cynical song about Eastern religion that I identified with as I wasn’t fully sold on Buddhism, “Thank U” reminded me to be thankful to God and the universe for all the blessings life afforded me, and “Heart of the House” inspired me to become the “goddess” of my home one day.

Most people thought Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie was a let-down, but I thought it was an astonishing sophomore follow-up. Unplugged was my last Morissette album. “No Pressure Over Cappuccino” spoke about the paradoxes of life to me, and “Princes Familiar” made me think that one day, just one day, I’d meet a man who treated me like a princess the way my father always treated me. (That dream has come true, by the way.)

Then I heard “Hands Clean” and thought, Alanis doesn’t speak for me anymore. I need angst. Alanis sucks without the angst. But that’s because I had just gotten out of a relationship gone wrong, and suddenly songs like No Doubt’s “Ex-Girlfriend” were speaking for me.

But I’m rediscovering Alanis. She has grown out of her angst and so have I, making me more receptive to her softer, more contemplative side. Now, I am going through and listening to havoc and bright lights, Flavors of Entanglement, So-Called Chaos, and Under Rug Swept only to realize that I can still identify with her songs but on a different level than before. I’ve grown older with Alanis Morissette, and I’m glad that she didn’t stay trapped in her angst because really, who wants to experience that emotion forever? She would have been stagnant as an artist and artistry is all about evolving. And art sure imitates life.

 

Exciting Times Ahead

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I’m in the midst of a busy season this July. Fresh off a fun weekend with my cousins who live near Washington, D.C., I’m back at work until Thursday evening when I go visit my other cousin who lives near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I finished my 9-day proofreading stint at the advertising agency and registered with another advertising agency that may need my editorial services off-site.

I’m really excited about the new advertising agency as a client. It will help me to build my repertoire, hone my skills, and do what I love to do on a more regular basis while still being able to work at the library to bring in steady income.

 

Don’t Stop Believing

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I just finished 9-day stint at a contract job as a proofreader/editor. I’m sorry to say that I think I did a piss-poor job. I wish I could have talked to someone there about it, but alas, I was just the freelancer.

I worked full-time for 9 days and it has just about worn me out. My body is so used to working part-time that temporarily working full-time wreaked hell on my body. My sleep has gotten better, though, because I’m so exhausted at the end of the day.

Reading material on paper all day has made me not want to read books at the end of the day. My eyes are tired. I’m lucky to be even typing this.

I haven’t been able to do any deep thinking lately because all of my time has been occupied by working the daily 9-5 grind. I’m devoid of interesting things to say.

Working my contract job has made me wonder if I still have the chops to be a good editor. Whether I’m still cut out for editing and writing. Whether I’m good at anything at all any more. I feel discouraged about my career. If I’m not good at anything other than checking people in and out at the library, maybe I shouldn’t quit my day job after all.

Yankee in the Suburbs: Dispatches from an Unfinished Day

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I am a Yankee (through and through – New York, baby!) in the ‘burbs, writing about my day, thoughts, and blatherings. Continue reading “Yankee in the Suburbs: Dispatches from an Unfinished Day” →