Spring is Sooooo.....Disgusting.

(disclaimer.  Right now the biggest problems facing any place on this planet are Japan, any place Near Japan, and Libya.  This post is frivolous, but there are a happy plethora of sites out there related to ways to raise money and support for disaster relief. And, when you get tired of reading about updates on these situations, come on back to reading about, arguably, the ugliest spring on the planet ;-)

As I child, I got incredibly ticked-off reading the bucolic descriptions of spring, written by Mainly British OR Southern US poets. Clearly these people never ONCE tackled spring on the Iron Range. And, come to that, spring further south in Lakeville is pretty damned ugly too. North Dakota (either pre-or-post flooding) is probably pretty depressing in a similar way right now. Let me describe....

Grass - either dead-trout colored, or, perhaps, dog-sick green?
Trees - which eventually will bud a delightful pale green - but in the meantime, are two shades darker than sick or trout
Sky - hmm.  Had been blue before, but it's cataract grey now.
Flowers -  In 5-6 weeks, we'll have Pasque flowers, Crocus, and stunning wild violets in undisturbed, undergrowth-unimpaired natural areas.  Considering the first day of spring is in 4 days, flowers get a fail too.
Birds - The winter blue jays finally had it - they disappeared almost two months ago.  We might get some pretty goldfinches, if the hawks don't scare them off. We've a shiny red birdhouse, so maybe we'll work at making it more attractive in position for them.  Birdfeeder is full, but all we are getting are....birds the same color as....
the grass
the trees
the mud.

I do love the fresh and no longer bitterly cold breeze - 47 f. is DELIGHTFUL.

And, we can crack the windows open a bit each day and let it in.

Right up until the farmers start fertilizing the fields.

Love spring wherever you are, and if anyone has some (ideally non-cheesy fake flower related) ways to brighten up some Very Drab Days, please leave a comment!  Surely someone out there has WAY more cruddy spring time weather than we do - and I bet you're smarter at dealing with it, too!

Happy to be neither flooded nor freezing (but slightly concerned about the soggy-dog scent in the basement)

S.

Dams bursting, damned muses, damn amusing....and ROW 80

Well, I'm back!

After taking an extended break from blogging, poetry, revisions, short stories, and anything concretely related to writing, I feel like I'm getting back, er, in step again. Should I take a moment to apologize for the (hopefully) last feet-related puns?

Basically, what happened here at the somewhat-less-dusty orchid house is the Dr. declared my foot mostly healed. Except, er, don't do much walking yet...and how he expects a stay-at-home mom of two to Not do much walking is beyond me, but that's a digression. So, my Very Few domestic urges (vacuuming, dusting, cooking) have finally been more satisfied than they have in months. Eating better and banishing impending squalor is...pretty danged cool! I'm still falling asleep at the drop of a hat, so, um, I'm trying to keep every damned hat in this house safely in it's place.

The flip side of blossoming domesticity is the Muse is acting pissed off and ignored. Jon and I stayed up late last night,talking, folding laundry, reconnecting. All good things. He went up to brush teeth while I prepped my morning coffee, and guess who showed up in the kitchen, pouting, and dangling inspiration in front of me...

"Get back to the darkness from whence you came" was what I was thinking. What I said was, "So, How ya been? Find anything good for me lately?" (Yes, I was hoping she'd have the ickiest parts of my short story, in basically finished format, all ready for Monday, Naptime.)

"You never write, you never call..." was her response. Followed up with, "You ever wonder how it would go if a human guy married a really nice troll girl?"

I hadn't, actually, ever considered it before. 8 seconds later, the basics of a new poem are flying through my head, and I had to pause - do I do the work of memorizing it now, or do I just take notes? It's after 1, for cryin' out loud!!

Pondering this as I applied moistureizer - for the first time in weeks - I decided to take the basic notes, and write it out later. So, of course I overslept today, wrote some of the poem after lunch and sent it off to my British poetry partner, and got my daughter down for a very late nap indeed. I then spent 20 minutes on the short story - a minimum of which was spent 'de-crapifiying' dialogue, and filled out some missing ideas.

Now, there is a lot of story left, and more editing than I really want to think of. But the story makes sense again, I actually kind of missed it, and I can probably stay in my groove for a while. The ROW 80 challenge is all about making writing a routine part of your life, while assigning measurable goals. I don't think this story will be done by the end of the month, but it will be farther along than it otherwise would have been. There will be furious slicing and dicing to come, because I think I write a bit of 'filler' while I reach for 'what happens next' but as long as I get to the finish line, it will be all right in the end.

The fellow ROW-80-ers below are doing better than I am - take a peek! Who knows what you'll find!!

Hugs,

Shari

Single parenting and writing Don't Mix (er, at least in the Orchid House!)

Arrggh, says I.

I had sole charge of the kids for three days. Yesterday was a full day of Jon being home, and we celebrated his birthday.

I fell asleep on the couch at 9:30 while the kids had their bedtime snacks. While putting the kids to bed, I fell asleep on their floor at 10:10. Didn't wake until my husband - putting away laundry - came in around 1.

So, today, I should be caught up on sleep. And on schedule.

J.K. Rowling, you probably endured a mother-load of mommy guilt while writing your books. Kudo's all around.

ROW 80, I'll get back to you later tonight :-)

Winter poems, back to you soon - there's a submission for a contest I need to enter by month end!

Share the love with other challengers. I bet THEY got something done this week! :-)

S.