This is so hard

I’ve been trying to work on my outlines and characters and all that, but everytime I turn around, the boy is whimpering in his sleep… or maybe he’s getting ready to wake up again. And the apartment is still such a wreck. And I’ve had muffins for dinner, although they are zucchini muffins that I made this afternoon. The recycling needs to be done. And my back is killing me. They don’t tell you that in all that prenatal stuff. They don’t say how having kids wrecks your back and the rest of your body, actually. Sure, they always talk about losing your figure, but I’m not talking vanity, here, I’m talking function. MY BACK IS KILLING ME.

And the tv is going, oh yes, it’s going. I can’t tear myself away. I guess I just want to have a little relaxation time. Especially with my scattered brain. Of course, I wouldn’t be so scattered if the tv were not playing. I mean, really, do I NEED to watch Beauty and the Geek? It’s not even a new episode, it’s all “behind the scenes” crap. Come on, Ro. And yet, I don’t want to turn it of and focus down. It’s such hard work. And I’m so tired.

---

Rant over, I guess.

I have one day left to get this stuff done, and that day is Halloween. I’m not going to get the apartment spotless. I’m not going to have a month’s worth of meals prepared and frozen. I’m not going to have the apartment packed for the move that will probably come in a couple of weeks. I don’t have a comprehensive list of characters or a map of the land. I don’t have my plot down pat, but I suppose things could be worse. So I don’t know every scene, that doesn’t mean I can’t still write. I do have a good idea of what happens. There are so many things I could have done to get ready for Nano, but wasn’t able to get to. That’s okay. It’s because I’m living a very demanding life, and that life doesn’t get to stop just because I want to do Nanowrimo. Whatever I manage to achieve during Nano is fine.

In the best case scenario, I actually develop my writing habits and don’t fall off when Nano is done, and take my writing career seriously. That would be an even better scenario than what happened last year, where I wrote 101 thousand words or so in November, and finished a 140 thousand novel by the middle of December, but after that I crashed and burned and didn’t even look at the dern thing until the summer. (Fine I also had a baby, but we’re talking writing habit, here.) So if I just go slow and steady and hit 50k words, it’ll be good. That’s still a heck of a lot of words. I don’t need to race for a higher word count, really I don’t.

Okay. This helps me. I don’t have to do it like last year, although I like knowing that I wrote more than anyone else in New York except for Jaybiz. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. I don’t have a deadline built into my writing. I mean, well, there’s Nano, but I get to keep writing once November is over.

See more progress on: get ready for NaNoWriMo 2007

More Delays

We are trying to get this new apartment in an unorthodox way, so things keep getting put off. First a failed attempt at subletting, then going directly to the landlady skipping the normal channels. It’s only a couple of days to the first of the month and we haven’t met the landlady yet.

Packing also keeps getting put off. Which makes sense. Why rush to pack when we’ll be here for another two weeks. Or is it another month? Or maybe we’ll be here until the end of the lease? Who knows. I suppose the packing aspect could be considered organized if I were actually doing it. And it’s as timely as getting a lease has been. Unfortunately.

If I were in charge of this matter, would things be expedited? Would we be getting ready to move right now? It’s frustrating.

But on the plus side, I have more time to pack. I don’t have to be so driven. Especially since I’m not getting any help from S, who I don’t think is ready to let go of this apartment. He says it’s an end of an era, Joe Torre is no longer with the Yankees. His old cat passed away two days ago, and we have to leave the apartment he’s lived in for almost 15 years. I’ve only been here 3 years, and am not as attached. I’m ready to let it go for the nice light and space and neighborhood of the new place (that I hope to all that is holy and good will actually come through.)

So, back to packing. Back to tossing things we don’t need. And I’m ready to toss. Forget the stupid moving sale. If I’m not getting any help with packing, I’m certainly not going to get any help with getting ready for and holding a moving sale. For the few things that are too nice to put out on the sidewalk I can make a listing somewhere. THROW IT ALL AWAY. Or give it. I should call my sister, maybe she’ll take it. Maybe she’ll take my desk! I bet JJ would like to use him. (He’s a he. I made him my boyfriend when I first got him, 15 years ago.)

Packing here is about releasing things into the wild, or wrapping them up to hold onto them. I’m getting more and more ready to release EVERYTHING, and let go of this interminable process.

See more progress on: Pack my apartment in a timely and organized manner

Where does little guy with a cold fit into this strong and happy thing?

Poor G has a cold. The sore throat is over, but he has a cough now. And everytime he goes into a coughing fit, he starts to cry and gag. He’s miserable, not just because he’s sick, but because he’s miserable. It’s the first time where he’s been really aware that he’s sick, I think, and he’s feeling sorry for himself.

Before, he cried because he didn’t feel well. Now he’s crying because he’s sick and he doesn’t like it. There’s a difference. I suppsose it’s about cognition. It almost makes the cold worse, because he’s not just lying there feeling miserable, he’s lying there miserable, cranky and fighting it. He doesn’t have any coping strategies for dealing with it. So he coughs, chokes, and then cries, “mama, waaahhhhh…” And he won’t take the medicine, either, or anything I offer. Not even hugs.

There’s nothing I can do about it. He’s just got to learn to handle it, I suppose. I guess that will make him stronger.

See more progress on: Raise strong, happy children

While I Pack

I’ve been trying to think about where these things will go in the new place.

Will I have a spot for them, or will they stay in the box I am packing them in right now?

I found so many old papers. I must keep them, but do I have room in my files? Not really. I have stuff for my active files that I’m still using. This is a hard one, because I’m a writer, so I have lots of paper. I’m also a teacher, and I have a lot of writing for that, too.

This idea keeps me from holding on to things that are not really important or really useful. I’m working on it. It’s a hard mind-shift, actually, learning not to hold onto things. But I do not want to keep all this stuff in my life. I don’t want to be cluttered in home and head.

Breathing is good. Breathing room.

See more progress on: Have a place for everything and keep everything in its place

I've been working on character

A novel is all about character to me. The story is led by the characters. It goes where it goes because of their actions. They must deal with the results of those actions and grow or change accordingly.

If the characters in a novel or a movie do not touch me, if I do not connect, then I am not invested in the movie, no matter how exciting the plot.

And as a writer, the characters tell you where to go. Or they go there of their own will. That is the funnest part of writing; when the characters take over and you are just sitting there as the story zooms off into life.

Love that.

So I’m developing the characters. You’d think that I know who my characters are, since I have already written one lengthy book about them, but I learned so much about those characters during the writing, that all the thought I had done on them has now changed. Plus, I need to know where they are at the start of all the new action.

I also discovered that I was about to make my main character passive to the whole story, as everyone else took action around her and she was simply swept along on the tide of events. But doing the outlining helped me catch that and turn the main character into an active participant, even if she is doing stupid things that make everything in the story fall apart. Before, it seemed as if I was keeping her safe and keeping her ‘perfect’ and never allowing her to make wrong choices. She’s the youngest character, kind of an Alice in Wonderland kind of girl, so it’s easy to make her at the mercy of the other older characters, but that doesn’t help the story or the character grow.

I may have thrown my poor little girl in front of some bullets, but she’s making the story a lot more interesting.

See more progress on: get ready for NaNoWriMo 2007

Feeling Panicky

So time to center. Time to be a warrior. As Castaneda says;

A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war: wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it might never live to regret it.

A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.

A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That’s control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That’s abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions.

_A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything
needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the experience of experiences is being alive._

THIS IS IMPORTANT for me to remember when I am losing it. When all I can see is how much I am not where I need to be. It’s okay to be afraid, that’s natural. But fear is just fear. It doesn’t need to stop me. I know what I’m doing. Just do it. And whatever results that come from that, I’ll deal with.

See more progress on: Be a Warrior

10/20 The Day of Family

I finally got to purging and packing some things that have had me frightened and pulling the blankie’s up over my head. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. And now it’s DONE. Woohoo.

Then we had lunch with hot dogs and home made fried zucchini for Mama, Papa and G, and some yogurt and bananas for baby. We don’t often all get to eat together, so it was nice. And we watched Monster House while we ate, just hanging out.

For dinner, we went out, walking down the street, G in the stroller, and Ivy being carried by papa. Papa has been focusing on G for the last few months, and maybe has been intimidated about taking both kids at the same time, so he doesn’t often end up spending as much time with Ivy, but that is starting to change. And Ivy got to spend some time up high on Papa’s shoulders. Fun.

At bed time, G was having his milk while Ivy nursed, and we were all sitting on the couch. Poor Dama the cat, who is dying, jumped up on the couch, and we told G to be nice to her because she’s old and sick. G put his finger to his lips and said, “hmmm,” which is what he does, I think, when he is wondering what something means. So I told him, I said, “that means Dama is sad.” And then, all of a sudden, his behavior changed. He started meowing at her, and patted the sofa next to him for her to sit. Then he covered her with his blankie and offered her some milk and his pacifier. It was really sweet, and the first time we’ve seen him really be that compassionate. (Although he has given toys or blankies to Ivy when she cried.)

See more progress on: list three things every day that made me happy

On the Difficulty of RaisingTwo Kids in the City

One of the problems with having two kids and no car is grocery shopping. Particularly when you live in a walk up apartment.

It’s almost prohibitively complicated. I can’t buy too much, because I can’t haul it all back if it doesn’t fit in or on the stroller. Tied to that, I can’t buy groceries that are too bulky or too heavy—like bulk toilet paper or lots of cans. And I can’t use a shopping cart because I can’t push the stroller and the cart at once. And there’s nowhere to put the double stroller if I were to put the kids in the cart.

I usually use the handbaskets to carry the groceries in the store, but if I put it on the stroller, it can be tippy or dangerous for the little one in the lower seat. And if I carry it, it kills my hand, and the stroller is difficult to navigate through the aisles.

The double stroller also does not fit through any of the checkout aisles, except for the express lane. Plus, I have to remember that at the end of shopping, I’m gonna have to haul all bags, a baby, a toddler and myself back up the stairs to my apartment.

This is all on top of the normal fitting grocery shopping in between double naps, diaper changes, meals, and screaming fits.

But!

I think I have figured out a sort of technique to simplifying the grocery shopping technique.

Bring my canvas shopping bag instead of using the plastic bags. Then, not only can I carry my groceries home on my shoulder, I can also shop using the bag instead of the store baskets, which are hard to wield while steering.

Also, limit my shopping items to ten items or under, so I can just go straight to the express aisle. Then I can buy some of the bulky things I need, too. And everything will fit in my bag or on the stroller, and I can carry them up the stairs with baby while wrangling the boy to climb the stairs himself.

This basically means I have to go to the grocery store a lot more often. But soon, perhaps, the boy will be able to walk to and from the store without trying to run off (he walked all the way home today, and did pretty well.) And soon he will be climbing stairs without me having to follow quite so close behind him lest he stumble.

I do think lots of things will get easier when G is able to motor under his own power without such eagle-eyed supervision. I won’t always need the double stroller and can use the more manueverable single. Or skip the stroller altogether and just put the baby in the carrier and bring a shopping cart. It’ll almost be like shopping like a normal person.

(In case anyone is interested in my child transportation modes, I use a Phil & Ted E3 with toddler seat, a MacClaren Triumph, and an Ergo Baby carrier. All excellent and sturdy options for getting babies around a city. The Phil & Ted is a technological marvel. The Ergo is the bestest carrier, and doesn’t hurt your back. And the Mac is super convenient and sturdy. I recommend them all—just not for grocery shopping with two itty bitty littles.)

See more progress on: Take care of business

We Adventured Into Greenpoint Today

And walked down unwalked-down streets. I found the YMCA, it’s across the street from both a police station and an Elementary School. What’s cool is that that corner is only a couple of blocks away from the apartment we’re trying to move into it.

We went to visit said apartment. It was up high. Third floor! Walk up! Yipes. But manageable, because the stairs are carpeted and not as steep as our present stairs, which means the boy feels more comfortable going up those stairs, and I won’t have to carry him up and down forever. It’s a little smaller than our current place, but not by much. It is a hundred times more gorgeous than this place. Love high ceilings, wide windows with real shutters, a bay window, gorgeous molding, dark wood doors and even a pantry. No washer dryer. Tiny kitchen. Oh well.

It’s totally doable. Extra doable since we are still considering our move to California in a year or so. We might someday soon try a left coast life style for a while. Interesting idea.

As for the adventure part, G loved running through the place, closing doors and heading through into other doors. And then closing them. And he went down the stairs on his own, sliding butt first style. He seemed to enjoy it. Adventure boy and the twisty stairs. Did I mention they twisted, too?

See more progress on: go on adventures with my children

What Would Jane Austen Do?

I did some research today on my upcoming novel. Surprisingly, the research was on Regency England. Yes, I’m writing a science fiction novel, but I’m also writing about an oppressive, colonial society with very a strict social order—but a lot of privilege, luxury, jostling for influence and standing. Well, privilege for the ruling class. The higher your rank and title, the more of the good stuff you get. It’s not so much fun for the grunts.

I got some good ideas about how high society worked in Regency England. Salons and spa holidays and gambling. Economy and fashion—because Napoleon Bonaparte linked the two… who knew? He made the men wear white britches to court, and made the women wear new gowns every time they came. So they had to buy more clothes all the time. And gowns with trains came into fashion, so people had to buy more fabric. And he banned the import of foreign textiles. Also, women who had big fortunes could afford to wear white dresses all the time because they are high maintenance to keep clean and pristine. All good details for my book.

I don’t know if I can quite use everything, but I think it’s some interesting stuff.

For instance bonnets and gloves were important in England, but they wouldn’t be on a interstellar space ship. Not much chance for a tan. But what happens when they arrive on a planet that they need to build into a flourishing society from scratch????? What would be the most prestigious? A tan or pale skin?

Just some details to consider, which might add life and body.

See more progress on: get ready for NaNoWriMo 2007

What Would Jane Austen Do?

I did some research today on my upcoming novel. Surprisingly, the research was on Regency England. Yes, I’m writing a science fiction novel, but I’m also writing about an oppressive, colonial society with very a strict social order—but a lot of privilege, luxury, jostling for influence and standing. Well, privilege for the ruling class. The higher your rank and title, the more of the good stuff you get. It’s not so much fun for the grunts.

I got some good ideas about how high society worked in Regency England. Salons and spa holidays and gambling. Economy and fashion—because Napoleon Bonaparte linked the two… who knew? He made the men wear white britches to court, and made the women wear new gowns every time they came. So they had to buy more clothes all the time. And gowns with trains came into fashion, so people had to buy more fabric. And he banned the import of foreign textiles. Also, women who had big fortunes could afford to wear white dresses all the time because they are high maintenance to keep clean and pristine. All good details for my book.

I don’t know if I can quite use everything, but I think it’s some interesting stuff.

For instance bonnets and gloves were important in England, but they wouldn’t be on a interstellar space ship. Not much chance for a tan. But what happens when they arrive on a planet that they need to build into a flourishing society from scratch????? What would be the most prestigious? A tan or pale skin?

Just some details to consider, which might add life and body.

See more progress on: get ready for NaNoWriMo 2007

Mama made meatloaf

And I did that sneaky chef thing and put all sorts of vegetable matter in there. The boy didn’t eat last night, but that might have just been a not hungry day. He’s already had a slice for lunch today. All I had to do was give him a blob of ketchup for dipping and he asked for more. I put mine on a hamburger roll and had a meatloaf sandwich.

I remember my mom making meatloaf all the time, and I always loved it, but my years of being a vegetarian made me out of practice in the carnivorous cooking. Now, here I am making all meat and starches because the kid won’t eat a veggie, and I have to get creative with my mom’s old recipe. Lemme remember what was it?

Rosymamacita’s Meatloaf

1.5lbs ground beef
3 chicken sausages
5 mushrooms diced fine
1 grated zucchini
1 onion diced fine
1/4 cup of olives, diced fine.
2 slices whole wheat bread, turned into breadcrumbs (I think I could have used less bread) soaked in milk (which maybe I didn’t need, with all the veggies)
Some tomato sauce… maybe half a cup
worcestershire sauce
mustard
1 egg
salt and pepper
oregano

then you do a sauce with many of the same ingredients. tomato sauce, mustard, worcestershire, a little anchovy paste, a dab of vinegar. Thin it with some beer, or, barring that, I used water and it was fine.

Make your loaves. I made muffin meatloaves, and used an icecream scoop to fill them. Pour the sauce over the meatloaf/muffins. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. More if you’re doing a big meatloaf.
With all the veggies I added above, I ended up with 12 meat muffins and two small loaves. The muffins are good for freezing.

See more progress on: create healthy, well-balanced meals for my family like a good mom should

It's Possible That Yes Means

accepting the possibility of getting hurt, or losing, or falling flat on your face, or rejection.

I guess it’s not possible at all. That’s what yes means. Yes, I will put myself out there even if I am taking risks. Yes, I will take a chance on someone not living up to my expectations, because maybe they actually will. Yes, maybe I have to struggle and be sad or in pain sometimes so that I can be there for the joy and the success.

Yes, yes, yes, even though I am afraid.

See more progress on: say yes to life

The Day of Ivy's First Pizza

We went for pizza tonight and since Ivy's been so in love with cheerios, I thought I'd try another solid food. Pizza! I got a small piece of crust and gave it to her to taste. She liked it, but wanted me to hold it so she could gnaw on it. Then I showed her that she could hold onto it in her fat little hand and chew on it all she wanted. Her eyes lit up and she went through three separate crusts before she moved on to a bottle. She even offered some crust to the cute bartender. It seems she has an eye for the boys. The best part about it is that we're heading towards self feeding! Yeah baby.

I also heard from my buddy who has been in Costa Rica for the last couple of years. She's visiting and we made plans to meet in Union Square. Yeay. S is not sure he's up to watching both kids, so I might bring Ivy with me, or maybe I'll let him take care of them both. I'm sure he can do it. I do it everyday. Although I might be inwardly snickering if he was overwhelmed with watching both all by himself the way I do every single day. Does that make me a bad person?

And bedtime was extended, since both kids wanted to play and play and play (Ivy is really stepping up her game) but we ended the night with two rounds of Dr. Suess's _There's a Wocket in my Pocket_. The both sat and listened and looked at the pictures.

Monkey Man took a monkey tumble right out of his crib

He didn’t want to take a nap, so he climbed up over the side—I’m sure he was quite proud of himself for managing the climb, something he’s been shy about doing—and landed on his head!

It is the end of an era and the beginning of another. How will we get him to nap when he doesn’t want to go to bed now?

Stay tuned for more exciting adventures.

See more progress on: get the monkey man a big boy bed