Month: October 2011

In a season of enormous wheel spinning, nights laying awake asking God to give me a sign (BIG please, as I always ignore the small ones), and general hand-wringing, I seem to have wandered off my path.  From the time I was 16, I have earned money.  Since January, I have made very little money, and therefore, not contributed much to paying the bills around here.  Do I stick with writing and hope it takes off?  What exactly do I mean by “take off”?  I can’t even answer that, but I can say that most of the time I am proud of what I’ve written here.

I was reading a blog at 2:00 in the morning that has almost 800 followers.  I went back to the beginning and read and read and read.  The writer profusely thanked all twelve of her followers, especially her sister who put the squeeze on her friends to join.  Two years later, those 12 became 800.  She did not quit.  She did not throw in the towel. She did not stop writing.

This week, I picked up two more followers, and today reached 10,000 hits since I started.  To those two people who signed up this week, and the 10,000 who stopped in along the way, (plus a sister, friend and husband who put the squeeze on everyone they knew to take a look) you have made me cry and I am not a crier.

You are my sign.

Source: thelastdetail.co.uk via Hannah on Pinterest

                              

I need to lose 10#.  I need to do something about losing those 10#, besides walking a twelve year old dog every morning.  I came across a fitness routine that I thought I could commit to on a daily basis.  It consists of:

50 jumping jacks
5 pushups
20 situps
20 mountain climbers
30 second plank
7 burpees

Repeat two times.

Well, that I could do.  That I could commit to.  That was going to lose me 10#.  Day one went pretty good, and my heart was beating like a rabbit.  I must have lost a pound or three by the time I got to the plank.

Day two.  Those jumping jacks were easy peasy when I was ten, but 50 times 2 at 54 is no walk in the park.  Which is what I should have been doing real slow with my old dog.  By #20 I decided to close my eyes and Just. Do. It.  Cuz I’m an athlete now.  I Jumping Jacked and kept counting, except in my darkened state, I was careening all over the bedroom like I’d knocked back a 5th of Jack instead of jumped one.  First I ran into the bed, then I brushed up against the door.  I went in reverse with the peeperless Jacks, and ran into the vacuum cleaner that is out every day except Christmas.

I kept at the Blind Jacking until I reached #50, then went back for round two.  Have I been sore?  You betcha, as a half-term, former Alaskan governor would say.   I’m determined to get fit and trim, but all this exercising sometimes causes me to get the Low Sugars.  I’ll tell you, when that happens…….I could swear I can see Russia from my window.

Source: None via Sid on Pinterest

Mallie Bee turned 17 in July.  Mallie Bee should be driving by now, but because of a lack of ambition on the part of her and her parents, she is not.  She wants that to change.  Now.

We started lessons this summer in the parking lot of a nearby church.  All the Fisher kids have started in this parking lot.  I am good with parking lots.  The road?  Not so much.  The road is where my Anxiety Disorder shifts into high gear.

Merge anxiety.  Drivers backing into me anxiety.  Big intersection anxiety.  Chemical spills on the road anxiety.  That one I’ve never personally had any involvement in, but I’ve read about them.  Things in the road that may cause me to swerve into oncoming traffic anxiety.  That’s never happened to me either, but it could.  Blind spots and blinding sun anxiety.  I am the Old Country Buffet of behind-the-wheel anxieties.

I took The Beester on a little neighborhood drive and proceeded to clutch the passenger door and slam on pretend brakes.  I made her a nervous wreck because I Am A Head Case.   After Fright Night brought to you by Neurotic Mom, I told The Big Daddy that this is now his job.  I am incapable of doing it and not turning her into a young version of myself.

That the world does not need.

The Big Daddy and I were eating at the local burger joint when I started telling him about walking the dog that morning.  Oh, I’m a fascinating conversationalist, for sure.  Seventeen years, I’ve walked two different dogs through the park and in the hood.  I see the same people every day, and we give a little wave, a good morning and keep moving.  All of a sudden these days, we have non-regulars in the park with their dogs unleashed running around getting their freedom on.  Which is what happened to Henry and I the other day, when the owner said “Don’t worry, he’s friendly.”  

The Big Daddy said I can top that.  This parent parked their friggin SUV directly in front of the door at the dance studio waiting for their Little Primadona to come out, causing every car to have to maneuver around them to get their kid and get out. 

The world is one big Idiot Parade right outside the door I told The Big Daddy, so we ordered another round and decided to take a cue from the dog world next time we encounter somebody who thinks the rules don’t apply to them.  We’ll give ’em a good butt sniffing, and tell them not to worry cuz were friendly.   But that might have been the beer talking.

Source: None via Keisha on Pinterest

The Big Daddy starts out the day watching CNBC.  Or as he calls it, CNBS.  He was yelling at the t.v. more than usual on a lovely fall morning, disrupting my face time with Matt Lauer on the other t.v.

After dropping multiple Eff Bombs, I asked him what had him so fired up.  “I’ll tell you what’s wrong.  The question of the day is…….If you could only pick one stock to take with you in the afterlife, what would it be?  Facebook or tweet your answer.  Now what kind of dumbass question is that?”   Pssssst, Big Daddy, you’re one of those 99%ers.  They’re not even talking to you. 

But I did have to agree with him.  Those morons on CNBS must have had one slow news day to come up with that one.  What they should have been asking is………….What morning news anchor would you take with you in the afterlife?

Newest assistants to A Speckled Trout.  Frank & Pip……………..

                                                                                   -Elizabeth Lawrence

I have read that to be a successful writer, you must pay attention to the world around you so that you can write with detail and accuracy.  I have taken this advice to heart and make it a point to start my day observing nature and my neighborhood on a daily walk with the dog.  It is while walking that I think about improving what I have been writing or find inspiration for a new subject.

Mornings have always been the best time for me to write, as these things are easier when one is fresh.  Not to compare the two, but it also happens to be the time of day that I schedule mammograms, root canals and colonoscopies.  After walking and making a writing plan, I eat breakfast; throw some laundry in the washing machine and get down to business.  I turn on the computer but first must check my email, current news, bank account, faux jobs on Craigslist, and a dress on Ebay.  After that, I am ready to begin the writing process.  I can’t remember if I put the toaster away and so I head to the kitchen to take care of that and the phone rings.  It’s my sister and it takes us an hour to discuss emails, news, bank accounts, the dress I want on Ebay and the shoes she loves on Zappos.   When the conversation ends I return to the job at hand.  I head back upstairs and the first order of business is to pick out a font and letter size that is compatible with my subject.  This takes time and some test runs before I delve into my writing.   A woodpecker is tapping on the side of the house and interrupts the flow of my first sentence and I am distracted.  I remember that I didn’t take my calcium and the women in my family have a long history of osteoporosis and this is nothing to fool around with so I head to the kitchen.  I need to eat something as well since calcium can be hard on the stomach and I don’t want to feel poorly while I am writing.  A handful of granola and a banana suddenly trigger a burst of creativity and I run upstairs with a purpose to this writing business.  I can barely type as fast as my mind is racing with sentences.  When my surge is over, I read what I’ve written so far.  I read it again and then one more time for confirmation.  Sheesh, I’m not much of a writer.

I knew I should have been a nurse.  My mom told me that was a stable income, but I didn’t listen.  Well, I listened, but The Big Daddy said I nurse like Miss Ratchett from “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” and it would be best if I let someone who was more suited to that work fulfill their dream.  I head out to the porch and pray that the Writing Gods will descend upon me and spark my imagination.  They seem to always be tending to Stephen King and Danielle Steele, and so I trudge back upstairs to the scene of the crime. Staring at me, mocking me is a cursor that seems to be blinking, “You suck” over and over.  I begin again, add, delete and use a thesaurus too many times for 500 lousy words.   I read over this version and it seems less crappy, or maybe I’ve lost the ability to discern crap from brilliance.

Lunchtime arrives and it’s time to throw in the towel on this writing day and move on to other things.  I have spent the entire morning thinking about writing, minutes actually doing it, and far too much time beating myself up over it than is mentally healthy.  If I am very, very lucky, though, I will wade through it all tomorrow and find one sweetly crafted sentence that will cause my little beating heart to go pitter-patter, and after coffee, a load of laundry, a phone call or two, a bid on a dress, 500mg of calcium and a wayward woodpecker, I will sit down and do it all over again.

We moved to Maryland when Teacher Girl was a mere Baby Teacher Girl.  The Big Daddy got a job and we moved from Illinois when our wee, little one was just a few weeks old.  We were a new family, and as such, The Big Daddy thought that he and his baby girl should bond.  Every Saturday morning, he would sit with her next to him and turn on the t.v. to see this…..

Her little head would be hanging all crooked, while The Big Daddy cracked up at Pee Wee and Miss Yvonne.  I’d tell him to straighten her head up, and he’d prop her up until she tipped over again.

Since Day One, we’ve made up this parenting thing as we went.  Sometimes with spectacular results, but often with incredible fails.  Always, though, the ability to shake it off, move ahead, and respect the Pee Wee.