Lemon

I'm 14 weeks pregnant today and just read that the size of the baby is about 3-1/2 inches, close in size to a large lemon. I've felt it move for about two weeks, but only very intermittently.

Stretching, with Cookie--and Pictures

Cora just dropped off to sleep after many minutes of babbling and playing with her animals in her crib. Then she repeatedly announced "I'm all done sleeping!" until I went into her room and helped her settle down. This has become a trend the past few days. She waits for me to come in and rub her back until she's asleep. Soon her breathing becomes heavy and I creep out of her room.

Then I open this laptop and sit on the couch, enjoying the sight of our Christmas tree and the trees being buffeted by the wind outside our windows, and I try to get my brain moving. I eat a cookie. Or two. And sign into this blog.

Writing here is much more casual than writing a novel, for obvious reasons of course. I don't have to think about plot, or dialogue, or how to get from place to place. I'm not concerned about geography or personality quirks, or psychological issues. I don't get that hung up on grammar. Instead, I suppose I do a bit of what Cora does: I babble. This is my stretching session, I'm limbering up.

It's also my journal, or has become one. I used to write longhand in a journal every evening. I hope to begin that habit again because this isn't the same. No matter what, I know someone is reading this, and it's inhibiting. I don't feel like I can really go deep, explain my fears or vulnerabilities, the way I worry about the smallest things or can quickly be transported or made happy or upset by memories of moments that happened years ago.

So I decide to start small. Just write. And for the past several days I have started a writing session with the same sense of urgency and hope. Each day I manage to distract myself somehow--checking email, reading the news, checking favorite blogs. Today I made the grave mistake of looking at the Decade in Pictures slideshow featured on msnbc.com. Now I am so emotionally humbled by the images that I can hardly think. Once again I am reminded of the sheltered life we lead here in this house, the security and safety and calm, the daily focus on fostering happiness and love, of the teeny tiny little orb we fill on this rapidly changing planet. I am saddened and confused about how it's possible to be happy when so many are suffering. It goes against a connectedness I used to believe in as a child.

Tuesday

Until yesterday, it hadn't rained in 10 days. It was sunny and clear every day, and cold enough that everything was frozen. The air was crisp. There was clarity in the sky and air.

It wasn't until this morning that I looked out the window and realized how green it hasn't been without the rain.

The kitchen window is open and the sound of water pooling and falling is rhythmic. We don't have eaves; our windows get covered with water. I like to watch it hit the glass and merge into rivers. Rain is romantic.

I think I'm reaching a mid-Winter acceptance (appreciation?) of the rain. Does that make me a Seattleite?

I think it just means that going 10 days without something can help raise it back up to a romantic standard. I'll talk to you in another 10 days.

Cora's nanny share went well yesterday. She had a few breakdowns, mainly toward the middle and end of her three-hour stay, as she explained to me (in the third person) over lunch:

"Cora was yelling 'Mama! Mama! Mama!' but Mama no come knocking at the door." (Shaking head adamantly.)

That made me sad, but I was glad that she could communicate about it with me. I was also happy that when I arrived back at the congregation of cuteness (the three other girls in the nanny share are quite darling) she was more interested in staying and playing than leaving. She said she had a good time:

"We kicked the ball. Throw! Catch! Run run run! Ate snacks. Read stories. I went potty."

She's developed a small stammer the past week and seems to have the most difficulty with M, N, and D. It's very sweet ("M-m-m-m-ama sit d-d-own!"). I assume this is just one of the many phases of her speech, not a theme that will continue for too long.

Does parental worry ever end?

I started feeling the baby move about a week and a half ago. Last night I couldn't feel it at all and I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about it. I am sure everything is fine but it reminded me of the anxiety I felt during my pregnancy with Cora. It's amazing how stressful, joyful, incredible, and terrifying it is to have a person inside your abdomen.

I just felt it move. There you go. It's in there. It didn't just dissipate into thin air over night. It has legs.

Two

We celebrated Cora's second birthday on Saturday. It was a cozy morning party with friends. I spent last week remembering childhood birthday parties while thinking about the small details of Cora's party--things like cupcakes or cake, what sorts of brunchy things we'd serve, ways to get toddlers to dance, things like that. More, though, I was imagining picking Cora up in the morning with a full heart and a pronounced sense of my daughter's babyhood ending. I didn't feel that way; I was just so excited to celebrate her birthday--more excited, maybe, than she was.

The thing is, her birthday party wasn't on her actual birthday; she was born two years ago today. So I was a little surprised to feel all those feelings this morning. She sat across from us in the kitchen, spooning oatmeal and yogurt and wearing beads around her neck, and I stared at her while remembering pacing around the Seattle University's track near Swedish hospital, trying to get my contractions to speed up. And now she is a little person with opinions and stubborn behavior who is able to gracefully maneuver a spoon of milky oatmeal into her mouth.

She's growing up.

To make matters more oddly emotional, I dropped her off this morning at the new nanny share we're trying out Monday mornings for a few hours. I'm tucked away at a bookstore trying to get started on the next chapter of my novel, and a baby is crying nearby. A woman just walked by with her bundled seven-month-old who is placidly sitting on her hip and staring at everything she stares at--no squirming, no begging for down, no sudden launching into space and beyond with strong legs.

It's not that I am sad to see her grow. It's that the growth is sometimes astonishing, and I wonder if I'll ever get over the growing pains from the joy of watching her turn into herself.

Thumpityswish thump thump

We heard the little plum's heartbeat on Monday. There's nothing more thrilling; it gets me choked up every time. I am becoming so excited about this new little person.

We officially told Cora about the baby on Monday, too. While I feel quite sure she'd already figured it out from the peripheral conversations going on around her, we had a "real" conversation about it in the doctor's office and showed her pictures of babies in bellies. She heard her sibling's heartbeat, too. She's been wandering around the house the past two weeks periodically slipping a doll under her shirt and explaining it's in her tummy. When asked if she wants a brother or a sister, she gives changing answers--sometimes a brother, sometimes a sister, no a brother, no a sister. I'm glad she seems so flexible about the idea.

My ability to concentrate is generally nil. Writing? What writing? Time is slipping away and very little has been done. I find myself periodically searching for classmates' names on google and discovering their recently published piece of writing, or I see a sudden facebook update announcing an upcoming novel. Sometimes I worry that writing is just one of those things I'm fooling myself about. I become either melodramatic or realistic (we won't know which that is until my life is over, I suppose. See? Melodrama.). I imagine turning 50 (or dying at a ripe old age) and having nothing to show for my own endeavors except a bunch of cluttered piles of paper and unfinished manuscripts, and diary entries in spidery, arthritic script. When I'm feeling optimistic, it's arguable that I'm feeling way overly optimistic because I imagine the path opening up before me--the manuscript finished, edited, and rewritten very easily, and the publishing process a success.

It's easy to become discouraged when nothing is getting done. That said, I am feeling better. I don't feel the need to sleep away the afternoon, so perhaps I can take back a few of these afternoons for productive work.

I am, however, slated to spend at least the next 20 minutes trying to read my last chapter draft while imagining a BABY in my belly.

Gratitude and an oversize lime

Once again, after taking a hiatus from writing here (and, alas, writing in general), I feel a bit tongue-tied. That's what happens when I take a break. It's like living in a new city and knowing only a few people, hiding away and being quiet for days and then showing up at the grocery store and running into an acquaintance. Talking at a time like that can feel canned, like you're listening to your own voice and wondering whose it is.

Where do I start. Ooh, I want to dive right in but instead I think I'll take a more meandering path, by starting with the fact that this fall here in Seattle has been a wrinkled experience. Unlike my sentiments in my last post, I have settled into the reality of not going to the park with Cora and running three miles in the sun on a daily basis. Still, I remember the summer enough to be sad about having to say goodbye. I really miss running. It made me feel happy, and strong, and incredibly motivated. I've also become more accustomed to the rain and even willing to listen to people explain to me why they like it. I especially like listening to it at night, drumming on our rooftop and windows and reminding me how content I am in this house while Cora dreams in the room next door.

I've been cooking a lot more, too, which is characteristic of this time of year. I've made a fair number of soups. Chicken soup, noodle soup, chili, tortilla soup, vegetable soup. And roasted vegetables, tamale pie, lasagna, enchiladas, noodle casserole, baked mac 'n cheese and quiches, salmon and potatoes.

Oh, and amazingly delicious gluten-free bread based off this awesome recipe from Gluten Free Green Mommy. It's really good and worth the long list of flours and baking agents.

We've been using the oven a lot more and it reminds me that it's one of my favorite ways to cook. Right now I'm thinking about diving into the world of sauces--white sauce, brown sauce, reduced sauce, balsamic, mustard, curry. Sauce.

All that cooking would lead one to believe that all I've wanted to do is eat, right? But no. I've been mainly dragging through the days, dealing with a fondly remembered phase of life, one that involves feeling tired and sick in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening. Sound familiar? That leads me to the big news: I'm 11 weeks pregnant and aside from a yucky cold, I'm feeling much, much better. I just read that at 11 weeks the baby is the size of an oversize lime or a plum. How cool is that?! That's the reason I haven't written; I haven't had anything else I wanted to write about but every time I sat down to talk about being pregnant, I remembered there were still a number of people who didn't know, and it seemed unkind that they'd find out on my blog. So I'd delete the post, log off, and take a nap instead. There are still a number of people who don't know, but since this forum is meant to be very much of a diary for me, I've decided not to worry about it so much.

Eleven weeks. We decided to have another baby, and then I was pregnant. I felt pregnant pretty much immediately, and took a pregnancy test six days before my period was due. I will never forget reading the results in the morning and shrieking out to the kitchen to hug Brian, then Cora (she had no idea why, but she was excited nonetheless).

As any seasoned parent knows, being pregnant the second time around is fairly different. I'm certainly not seasoned, though; it's a new world to me. For one thing, I've just been a heck of a lot more tired. Keeping up with Cora, carrying her, hugging her, chasing her, tickling her, cooking and cleaning, and doing it all day long while feeling close to vomiting is more physically tiring, for me at least, than it was working at a full-time office job. However, I do get to take afternoon naps, which has been luxurious.

Also, this pregnancy has been more physically challenging in other ways. I've had spotting and cramping, which can be more common in a second pregnancy, particularly an active one, and there have been days when I have been so tired I haven't known how to approach the onset of another day. I haven't been running and the early-morning writing I loved so much has been nixed for obvious reasons (the notion of rising at 5:15 sounded about as lovely as eating a dirty shoe, and anyway I can't drink all the caffeine necessary to make it work).

Luckily, my all-day sickness started to wane at about 8-1/2 or 9 weeks, which was much earlier than it was with Cora. And, lo and behold, we've seen the heartbeat of our new little bean. There is nothing more miraculous, me thinks, than the image of a tiny person in my abdomen, lodged there cozily, with a beating heart. I've reentered that stage of going for a walk with my small family and suddenly realizing that there are four of us present. Disbelief still reigns sometimes, and June 18th feels like a long time away, but as my faith has grown that this little person will, indeed, be sticking with us, I am getting more and more thrilled to think about the things to come: butterfly movements, an ever-growing belly, elbows in the ribs, kicking and turning, and silly food cravings that must be met. More than anything, I am looking forward to dreaming about who this little person will become, what its little hand will look like against Brian's, and how it will be for Cora to hold her sibling for the first time.

For now, I am trying not to think (too much, at least), about the sleep deprivation and 2-hour feedings, the challenging world of nursing an infant and trying not to fall asleep while entertaining a 2-1/2-year-old, and all the roller coaster rides associated with becoming a bigger family. That's why it takes nine months. Plenty of time to get as adjusted to and prepared for the idea as possible.

Meanwhile, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. You'll find hundreds of gratitude lists online these days. I have deleted this list several times because it feels embarrassingly narcissistic to yammer on about my life in a list (because, ultimately, I'm not going to list things beyond my own personal microcosm). And also because the list somehow sounds a bit like the dedications I made to people my Senior year in high school. However, I'm stubbornly keeping it here for the sake of posterity. And because it fits with the premise of this blog--to be openly thankful, and to dream. So, I am joining all those other online lists sending my gratitude up to the sky to mingle with yours and season the months and years ahead.

Gratitude for:

*Cora's hands, her wit, her sensitivity, her bright eyes and mind, her nearly-2-year-old response of "No!" to nearly everything I ask, her desire to party with her animals all day long, and her ability to dance and jump at the same time.

*This new babe in my belly, working so hard daily to rapidly divide its cells and become a PERSON.

*Brian's love and patience, his depth of creativity and his ability to work hard on anything he sets his mind to. Especially how he manages to come home smiling every single day and be funny and silly and sweep Cora up in his arms and give her a huge hug. He's making memories for Cora every time he does it, and I love him dearly for that.

*The ability to have choices in how we construct our lives right now.

*Brian's job. I am so grateful that he loves what he does, that he has found a good company to work for, and that he lives out his dreams in small and big ways each day.

*This house. I like the way the living room feels at night when we wrap our feet under blankets and read books or talk. I love tucking ourselves into our bed and listening to the wind and rain.

*My family, immediate and extended, especially for my mom and sis who live nearby and are so invested in being close.

*My friends. I miss many of them and wish we saw each other more often, but I love following their interesting lives and seeing where our paths intersect.

*Our collective health. This has been an odd health year for Brian, Cora, and me, but I think in many ways it has been valuable. It's helped me to focus on the power of the mind and the importance of being positive, the relative strength of the human body, and the ability to repair oneself.

*The ability to fill our refrigerator with nourishing food, and to know there are friends who will join us to eat, celebrate life, and fill our house with laughter and giggling children.

*Last, but not least, the enduring interest in writing. The book won't be done by the end of this year, but I know it's still there, waiting to be written. I'm thankful the idea is percolating and willing to wait.

Thinking, I guess

Ah yes, Friday. Rainy, drippy, overcast, gray gray gray Friday.

As I drove through Seattle today, I composed letters in my head while Cora kicked at the back of my seat with her rubber boots. "Dear Summer," I'd begin. "You tricked me." Writing letters to summer seemed so...cliche, desperate, sad. I'd stop, fiddle with the music, stare at taillights in front of me. And then I'd let loose. "You lead me to believe I lived somewhere else. You made me believe in the integrity of parks and beaches and meadows, in running and playing and walking outside whenever I wanted to. You made me think it was easy to get strong and sturdy in the sun. You inspired me to wake early. Now it is different. I see six months of this unfurling itself before me in its gray splendor and I am not amused."

Blah.

Also, I'm just really tired these days, sleepy dopey tired. All I want to do is sleep in and roll out of bed for a cup of tea or a giant mug of milky coffee. Getting up at 5 with a pot of tea is more complicated than it was a few weeks ago. I feel angry with Autumn for making all the trees look so gorgeous but then putting on such a torrential drippy show that I am not that interested in going out to walk.

So there you go. How's that for negative negatron thinking.

Of course, I know something. I know it's all linked. I'm not getting up early, so I'm not writing. I'm not writing, so I'm irritable. I'm irritable, which makes me depressed. I want to take a nap instead of doing anything productive, but instead of doing either I look at email and facebook and the news and while away the 120 minutes of me time that could be used to pen my opus. (Obviously, I like to say "pen my opus," because of the tongue-in-cheek nature of it. The work to get there, to finish this draft, feels daunting to say the least.)

Also, I spent the first few days of this week stressing out about our refinance, mainly just because I seem to have a knack for anxiety over such things. To add to that nervousness, our agent called last Friday and convinced me to let some people look at our house a second time. Somehow I thought that being open to the possibility of people looking at it would help her feel less resentful towards us for taking it off the market. I wagered that since we'd had it on the market for 40+ days without a written offer, we wouldn't get one out of these people. So after a really long discussion, I told her they could look, but she should tell them it wasn't a sure thing. Of course she didn't say that. I think she said something like, "You can look at the home before 11 or after 4." She didn't explain to the agent that I was having the house appraised at Noon and that we were moving forward with our refinance.

Anyway, they looked. They were a younger couple and they were talking about where they'd put the TV, and how Cora's room would be the office/den, and they reminded me of Brian and me when we first looked at this place, but I didn't give it too much thought until the next morning when the agent called to set up a final showing because his clients probably wanted to buy our house. And I explained that we had the wrong house for his clients, that we had decided not to sell it and we shouldn't have let them look at it again, that we'd spent the week being homeowners, not sellers, and we couldn't switch back, and that we wouldn't accept anything less than a full-price offer anyway so they should look elsewhere, blah blah blah. He continued to explain that they probably wanted to buy our house and they would likely write us an offer that day. I said I'm sorry, and got off the phone shaking. Something about the offer staring at me in the face undid me a bit. And now our agent is peeved and rather sour with us, which isn't our fault in the end because it's our house--something that was surprisingly easy to forget when it was on the market.

I still like our house. Yep. I do. I even love it. So here we are, in our house. When we opened the door after walking in the rain, I was actually just thankful for a dry, warm place. It's amazing what rain will do to simplify things. I'm writing in our office. Cora is sleeping in her room. I made a quiche for a friend this morning in our kitchen while Cora ran around the house and entertained herself with her toys and her music and her growing imagination. I actually often stand in our kitchen and feel grateful all the way down to my toes.

At lunch, Cora presented me with one of her teddy bears. I asked his name and she said "Warren Tomtin." I shook his paw and she busied herself with feeding him some quesadilla and soy milk. Warren seemed pleased.

So this rain. It's still out there. I just pulled opened the shades and confirmed its presence. Yep. Even though Cora and I splashed through the puddles today in an arguably cute presentation of the super fabulousity of being a Seattle child, I am still not convinced. I mean, a man just walked by with an umbrella and a little dog. The little dog was dressed in a bright blue rain suit. It had two belts and red trim, and the sleeves went all the way down to his paws. I mean, really, right?

Choice and contentment

Sigh.

You know when everything in life is going at a mad pace--frenetic, confused, a bit disconnected, but nevertheless productive--and then you make a decision? You turn your life from one direction down another, and the first thing you notice is it's more quiet there? You're walking down this new path and you start to notice things, like it's breezy and there's room to sit on a mossy rock and observe the ants. It's a sort of drawing in, a simplification.

That's what this week has been like. After weeks of indecision, this Monday morning we called our agent and took our house off the market, and we're refinancing into another 30-year fixed at a lower rate. Cora and I drove up to our place this morning and the sign was gone. I heaved a sigh of relief. I felt so grateful. It was actually, if you can believe it, like buying our house all over again. Only this time after what feels like years of searching we found a house pre-packaged with memories of our first nights sleeping here, of months of landscaping the yard, refinishing the basement, painting every wall ourselves while eating take-out from restaurants in our new neighborhood, re-grouting the bathroom floor, conceiving a child, working from home, sewing curtains while 8-months pregnant, going into labor, bringing Cora home from the hospital and introducing her to each room....

(I'm getting choked up remembering it...yep, my eyes are swimming with that memory. Tiny 5 pound 8 ounce Cora wrapped up in our arms, little newborn eyes opening briefly to look at our kitchen, at the living room, at the bedroom we had taken such pains to decorate for her, while our hearts brimmed over because we were able to tell our daughter that this was her house, her cupboards of food, her clothes, her little bed. It wasn't the fact of the house, it was the fact that she was here, that we could explain to her that she would be alright, that we were going to do everything in our power for the rest of our lives to take care of her. The kitchen, the house painstakingly cleaned by her aunties, and all the bouquets of flowers from friends and family heralded the start of her life.)

I feel a great deal of relief to be able to say that right now I don't want to live on an island and I don't want to move out of my house--not yet anyway. We want to continue making improvements, finishing other spaces in the basement, and enjoying our cozy Northeast Seattle neighborhood. Even if it means sitting here in a depreciating market, or realizing that someday, indeed, our desire for more space (indoor and outdoor) will become bigger than our little house, still, we're fine right now. The present is more apparent to me right now than the future, and the past feels like it's rolled out behind me with an odd feeling of pattern and plan.

I am reminded, too, of how I made the decision to quit my job last year. It took signing the offer letter and spending the weekend in that new life to realize it wasn't the life I wanted. Maybe I'm just one of those people. I need to live some of it a little bit to know if it's for me. Maybe I needed to give our house away to everyone who walked in the door before I realized I didn't want to.

And also, of course, it is nice to live in a house that is relatively ordered, clean, slightly more updated, exactly how I thought someone else would want a charming old 1942 house to be.

And so I have to pause for a moment and consider, full circle, the story here. Gratitude for what you have. Not because you have to work hard to be grateful, but because it fits, and it works, and it is nice. Quiet. Contented. Sitting still and honing in on other things, like thoughts and friends and family, and weeding the yard and going on local outings. Taking care of the details that get shoved away when everything else is made distracting by the desire to be somewhere else, doing something else. Digging in. It fits with winter and as we enter these colder days, I am happy to settle in to our warm and happy home.

Autumn

I know how boring it can sometimes be to listen to the exuberant exclamations of people in love with the weather. But bend an ear my way just for a second because it's one of my favorite times of year (stiff competition with spring). Cold, crisp, sunny and clear. Leaves are dropping, frost is forming, temperatures are falling, and we're eating some of the best Gala apples we've had all year. We pulled out an extra blanket for the bed at night and even turned on the heat. Oddly, despite my constant protestations as our beautiful summer visibly waned, I love it. I can't wait for the bursts of color and the baked dinners, and a reason to make pie.

Cora and I made cookies this morning and met friends for a play date at the zoo. Our children zoomed around at full speed while all the other animals seemed to be in pre-hibernation mode. The two 850-pound bear brothers were fast asleep on their rock perch, one with his enormous head resting on an extended paw. The otter den was filled with two, entwined otters with eyes tightly shut. The lions were piled atop each other and snoozing in the sun. An elk was asleep on the ground in such a pose as to look, well, permanently there. The fox was in his den and the wolf was nowhere to be seen. Only the giraffes and shiny-eyed eagles were up and about. The kids' cheeks were rosy from an abundance of giggly shrieks and fresh air.

In other news (maybe our only news these days?), we're still here, still living in an unsold house. And I'm writing. Just tipped over the 80-page mark, so that's something. I've been getting up at 5:15 and brewing a huge pot of tea, then tiptoeing downstairs and writing until Cora wakes up and we all gather together for breakfast. I'm a little tired today, but I'm excited. I feel like I'm getting somewhere.

Happy Autumn!

In which the author dreams of sleep...and a finale

Cora's asleep right now and I am vigorously hoping she manages to get a good, solid nap today that lasts well into the afternoon. She seems to be coming down with a bit of a cold today, which isn't much of a surprise since we just returned from a trip to San Diego and I am recovering from a small cold myself. Either that or she just has a runny nose because she's teething again, as she continues to point out by poking her finger in her mouth and opening wide to show us the little tooth that's coming in. Oh, to be almost two.

Almost two. This is one of Cora's favorite things to say. People ask her what her name is and she pats her chest and says, "Cora." Then she holds up her little fist with one finger up and the rest at half-mast, her hand trembling with the effort of not putting up two fingers--yet!--and says, "Almost two." Sometimes she'll start singing Happy Birthday to complete the picture.

I am lost in a book these days, which is helpful, because I seem to be trying to hide from some more pressing realities...like, for example, that it's already September. Mid-September, actually. We have our house on the market, still, and it's nearing the time of year when we'll be bundled up in sweaters and crunching through leaves, making bubbling pots of soup and baking bread, carving pumpkins and getting rosy cheeks from the impending chill in the air. Where will those pots of soup be bubbling? Here? Somewhere else? Crap.

Where on earth has the time gone? I am nearly at my one-year anniversary of being a stay-at-home mom and writer. If I am going to show anything for this year of writing except a few first drafts of starts of novels, I need to start getting up early every morning. I also need a day or two a week of childcare so I can really focus on this endeavor. Either that, or I need to start drinking a ton of coffee. Maybe I need to try all three. I have managed to write quite a bit, probably several hundred pages of stuff, these posts included, and I am happy that I have an idea for a novel I'd like to finish, but I seem to be missing that creative genius spark, that thing that pushes people beyond their limits in pursuit of their dreams.

In my perfect, ideal picture of heroic extremism, I should be able to push myself to new horizons, get up at 5 every morning and go to bed late until the draft is done. I would be sitting here, neatly arranging the crisp white pages of my opus, primly writing comments to my editor in the margins, calmly sipping a bit of tea before writing the last and perfect sentence.

The only problem is that my spark seems to be perpetually tired.

I am sitting here with a plugged up nose, crumbs on my plate, and a house on the market. Not exactly forcing myself to the finish line in a frenzy, not quite the picture of vigor I'd envisioned. Huh.

Thus, the coffee. Perhaps if I drank more of it I could conjure up a semblance of such perplexing anxiety and angst that I could write this thing. If I had a little teapot or coffeepot sitting down here by my computer and I dragged myself out of bed at the crack of dawn (or before), and plodded through, could I manage to complete a draft before 2010?

TWENTY TEN! Two thousand and ten? Holy crapola. I need to set deadlines for myself and work toward something I commit to as singularly important, otherwise I risk falling into a pattern of distraction and lost opportunities. Oops, I think that was me falling between the cracks over there. Yep, I just checked and there I am, staring up at the sky while life goes marching by.

TWENTY TEN? Am I the only one who stumbles when I write that? Weren't we supposed to be able to drive flying cars by now? Or skip the airplane in lieu of beaming ourselves there?

Life goes by so ridiculously fast. I wish I had a way to extract every bit of goodness from it every minute of the day, so that I wasn't so afraid of finishing up short.

So, here's my pledge to myself and to you, even if you don't care: I will finish a draft of this novel by January 1, 2010. I'm not promising it'll be perfect. I'm just placing my hand down on my book, looking at the possibility in there, and pledging to get there somehow.