Shopping for a Baby is so Relaxing!

(72 °! Are we sure it's November? Tomorrow is supposed to be just as beautiful as today.)

We were supposed to go to a baby shower this afternoon, but I was afraid we might pass along our cold germs, and I certainly wouldn't want to give them to a lady who's 8 months pregnant. We had fun shopping for it this morning though. Eler Beth and I went to Burlington Coat Factory, one of the places where the mother had registered, and we had fun putting together a whole basket full of gifts. (Yes, I waited til the last minute to buy a gift!)

We dropped off the gift and came on back home. Eler Beth could have gone, but didn't want to go without me. I had a bit of a fever last night, though, and a scratchy throat all day. I was worried about Thomas. He was really feeling bad last night and this morning but went on into work anyway. I had tried to get him to go to his doctor yesterday after work, but he always waits until he's tried all his home remedies first. Well as soon as he got home this afternoon he said, "Where can I go to get some antibiotics?" So we went to the Little Clinic at Walgreens. There was a time when he could shake off these colds pretty easily, but now they almost always go into an upper respiratory infection.

Nothing really interesting to talk about. I'm reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. I'll let you know how I like it when I finish it. Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

A Hodge Podge

I see in the news that there has been another shooting, this time in a high rise in Florida. So tragic and so senseless.

Thank you to everyone who commented so nicely on my previous post. My little dear got out for a while this afternoon to do some scouting with Thomas since gun season opens next Saturday. I need to go through my big freezer, rearrange a few things, and give away some of any deer that's left from last year to make room for this year's offerings.

I had something specific in mind to write about today, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. I have really enjoyed writing an entry every day this week, and am beginning to think that maybe I'll actually succeed in NaBlo with some good entries and not just drivel. As for my Nov-Nov, it's coming along. I'm up to about 4,000 words, which is below par, but I'll catch up. As for the quality of it, I'm not going to venture to say. It is what it is, and in December I'll tidy it up.

I've been sneezing a lot. I really don't want to get sick. But more than that I really don't want Thomas or the kids to get sick! Eler Beth has been fighting allergy/sinus/head-cold for two weeks now; just when we think she's over it she gets it again. And two days ago Thomas starting having the same symptoms. Now Andrew is sneezing his head off and feeling excessively tired. We're all drinking lots of hot tea and juice, and taking echinacea and vitamin C. So far no one has run a high fever, had chills or severe stomach pains, or had anything get down into their chests.

I usually wipe down my bathroom doorknobs, faucet handles, and light switches every morning with bleach water as part of my morning routine; now I'm doing them throughout the house every day, but with alcohol, not bleach water. And I have started carrying more hand sanitizer in all the vehicles; I have some in each of the door pockets and in the glove boxes. I make sure I wipe down the shopping cart handles when I have to use one, and I didn't always do that before. With more and more cases of flu and other viruses being diagnosed and more deaths from H1N1 in the area, I don't want to take any chances.

So what specific things are you doing differently because of the flu threat?

Well, this hasn't been the most interesting of entries, has it? Maybe I'll remember what I wanted to write about for tomorrow. I hope everyone has a safe and beautiful weekend.

My Little Best Friend -- or Mothers, Daughters, and Sisters

My favorite people to be around to bring up my spirits has always been my sisters (well, Mom, too, of course). We never get together without a lot of laughter, and it's the best kind of shared laughter, where you know what the other is thinking, know where their joke is going, understand the code their talking, if you know what I mean. As my nieces got older each of them has been added to this club. They each can hold their own when it comes to "witty repartee" when they're with us girls, and my own daughter has now risen to those ranks as well. I don't know why but the boys just don't quite get our humor sometimes, and none of them is slow by any means. It's a girl thing, a sister thing, a woman thing, I guess.

It occurred to me a couple days ago that Eler Beth has truly become one of my best friends. And that's all right because we still, believe me, have the mother/daughter dynamic in our relationship. She's always going to love and hate me the way she will love or hate no other. I tell her things no one else can or will because I know her as no one else can or will, at least until she finds her soul mate and has been married for a few years. And even then I'll know her in ways her mate never will. She can say things to me that she'd never say to anyone else she loves because she knows it is safe to do so. We can share secrets and dreams that perhaps we'd never speak of to anyone else. She is right there beside me almost every day, and she is right "in step" with me, figuratively speaking, wherever I go.

Once a few weeks ago I took advantage of going shopping for myself without her while she was spending the day with a friend. I don't like to shop as a rule, but when I have to shop for myself, particularly if it's clothing, I prefer doing it alone. I have never been one who liked to have a friend with me shopping. I like to go in, find what I want, and then get out. Well the whole time I was shopping -- actually even in the car on the way there -- I was missing my daughter. I realized that I actually enjoyed shopping with her. She makes it fun. She always discovers something new and interesting when we're out together and we always end up laughing our heads off over something or other.

I have always been in love with both my children. They are special in different ways, and I have a different relationship with each of them, to a certain extent at least, and not just because of their different genders. As alike as they can at times be, they are still both very different individuals. But now that Eler Beth is becoming more mature I find that our relationship has moved to a different level. And because she is my only daughter, this is a level I hadn't yet experienced and hadn't even foreseen. I think of my own Mother and her six daughters. We are all very alike in many ways, but we are also very different. I have different things in common with my five sisters. We have different shared histories and memories because the age range is so wide. And I know that Mom knows us each better than anyone else can or ever will. She always said when asked how you raise seven kids, that you treat them each as individuals. I have heard her say this, and she always has. She never lumped us together or expected something from one just because she expected it of another.

Eler Beth and I can exchange looks and know what the other is thinking. Yes, she has arrived. She's part of that club now. Yesterday she told me something that she thought I should know. She said, "I thought I'd better give you a heads up in case you didn't already know. Because you know," she said, half teasing, "I'll always have your back."

And she will.

That Crunchy Time of Year

My front yard is once again full of crunchy, red and brown maple leaves. I do love the sound they make when I walk down to get the mail every day. I like leaving them on my yard longer than my neighbor, Ms. B, probably likes. I like the way lawns look covered in leaves. I do need to get Andrew to clean out my gutters though.

We had a little rain this morning, and it was chilly and cloudy. By noon the rain had stopped, the sun had come out, and the temps warmed up to around 60°. I couldn't take Eler Beth on any little side trips today because I just had too much to do this afternoon, so she was very bored. Even after the sun came out she didn't want to go outside, and she never even asked to go to a friend's house after school, so I guess she's just having one of those blah days we all have sometimes when we don't really want to do anything but still we're bored.

I was noticing when we drove out to the grocery this evening that another house on our street has a For Sale sign up. I think that makes three just on our street, and there are several in the neighborhood. When I pointed it out Eler Beth said, "Oh that's the one with the cute little shelty! I'll miss that dog!" She still knows all the dogs and cats and birds in the neighborhood and identifies the houses by them more so than by the people who live in them.

I also noticed that several houses on the street that have siding have green mold growing on them. My neighbor across the street was talking about how bad it is on one side of her house but that she just can't afford to hire anyone to do anything about it. I guess most of us are in that boat and are having to put off doing some maintenance on our homes.

Well, once again I'm getting this in under the wire, and I don't really have anything interesting to talk about. It has been a typical fall day. Our weather is supposed to be very nice for several days, so hopefully we'll get out with the camera and do some more exploring downtown. I hope everyone is having a very nice fall so far. Ta for now!

Strolling Downtown

It has been very pretty today, so this afternoon I decided that Eler Beth and I would do something I've been meaning to do for quite some time now, and that was visit the Historic District downtown. There are certain little shops that we visit irregularly, but -- especially in this economy -- there are new store fronts popping up all the time. Some new venture will fail and move out and a new one will move in. I remember it was about a year ago that I discovered Jeff Book, a wonderful little bookshop run by and for a charitable organization, and it had been there for a couple of years before I found it. So I'm sure I've probably missed some good ones that have come and gone. (If you click on that link you'll see a small shot of part of Spring Street.)

The buildings on Spring Street remind me a lot of those on Main Street in Hardinsburg, KY, where I'm from. I don't know enough about architecture to teach anything about it to Eler Beth, but there are books at the local library about our historic district and the type of architecture that Downtown Jeff boasts, so we'll probably tie our downtown visits in with some local history lessons. What I do know is that I love looking at the old buildings like those, and it is pleasant just to stroll up and down the street window shopping. Today I particularly wanted to check out any new shop I hadn't noticed before and that looked interesting.

So we parked on Spring St. near the big Chase bank and began our walk going South toward the river. Our plans were to browse all the way down to the overlook and walk back up North Spring to our car. Another day I figured we'd do the intersecting streets as well as Court Avenue, the main four-lane street in the downtown section of town. I forgot my camera, of course, so I won't have pics this time. But if you click on this link and then on the "Historic District" link at the top of the page, you can see some of the examples of architecture there, including Italianate, Victorian Goth, Queen Anne, and others, if that sort of thing interests you. Clicking on the thumbnail picture will enlarge it.

We had only gone a few paces when we found a shop that was new to me called Forever More II. I found a write-up about it in one of the local papers just now. It has been open since June, but I'd never seen it or heard of it. I guess I really should read the local paper more often. The lady who owns it does estate sales and decided that she'd open up a shop to help sell some items. The shop is very well stocked and everything was very prettily arranged, not crowded or slip-shod like some antique stores. Eler Beth and I spent a good 40 minutes browsing and talking to the owner.

Eler Beth found a very old, very pretty French-made fan of bamboo and black lace that we had to have. And in the course of talking to the owner we mentioned Eler Beth's collection of foxes. The owner said at one time she'd had a painting of a fox but thought it had sold, and she gestured over to the area where it had hung. So as we were leaving Eler Beth was keeping her eyes open for it, and she spotted it hanging with some other paintings but partially obscured from our sight by a lamp. I don't know how we had missed it. We had to buy that too of course. It's an actual painting and not a print, and it is very well done.

As for me, I saw a lot of things I would have liked to have had, but I restrained myself. I did get a couple of old books and four beautiful old neckties, the kind that Thomas and Andrew really like, the narrower ties from the sixties. I mentally "bookmarked" a few things, though, that I may have to get if they're still there when my budget allows.

When we left we went next door to Schimpff's to buy a little bit of candy and continued our walk. But we didn't go inside any other shop. We made mental notes of the next places we wanted to visit, walked as far as the newspaper office, then turned and went back to our car. I'm going to try to get back down there again this week while the weather is nice, and I'll take some pictures. Visiting and writing about Downtown Jeff should provide some nice posts this month!

P.S. I should probably link to Eler Beth's blog in case some of you don't have it any more. So here it is.

I Write Where I'm Told

(I really must start doing my blog post earlier in the day, because if I don't one of these days I'm going to put it off until it's too late. I'll wake up in a sweaty panic around 2 a.m. and realize that I missed a day of posting, and I don't want to go through that -- and you don't want to read about it!)


Okay, so I thought I would write about writing today; specifically about where you write. Is there one place and one place only where you can write or does it matter? I have a desktop and a lap top, so I can write just about anywhere, but if I'm working on a project (like Nov-Nov) sometimes I find that I have to be in a certain place or the muse doesn't visit me.

For example I was working on a project a couple years ago and started it sitting at my kitchen table. My brain sent the right words to my fingers, my fingers flew, the characters started doing and saying things practically on their own. The next day I took my laptop to my bedroom to write so no one would disturb me and . . . nothing! I sat on the bed, I sat at my desk, I sat in an easy chair. Nothing. So the next day when I had some time to myself I sat at the kitchen table again, and the magic was back. Later I tried writing outside on the front porch, in the back yard, in the living room. I could not get anything decent to come unless I was sitting at the kitchen table!

The last big project I worked on I wrote in my bedroom, sitting on my bed. Again, nothing would come to me unless I was writing in that spot in that room. It's very strange I think. I'm a big believer in stories taking over and writing themselves, especially if it's a character-driven story. I've had characters jump up and shout until I noticed them and realized that they were actually more of a major character than I'd planned on them being. Conversely I've had characters kind of huddle down and hide and refuse to say anything until I left them alone. So I suppose it would only make sense for the story to prefer one place of creation over another. Whatever it is, I'm not going to ignore it. If I'm going to be on the computer for a long stretch of time I prefer using my desktop because I have a nice ergonomic chair there, and the desk is just the right height. So Nov-Nov is getting written here at the desktop, and so far it doesn't seem to mind.

I did 898 words yesterday. I had planned on coming back to it after showering and getting ready for bed, but I was just too tired. Today I did 1,018, so the grand total so far is 1,916. That's below par, but it's a good start.

Happy blogging and noveling!

P.S. Eler Beth decided at almost the last minute that she'd join NaBloPoMo this month too, so she made a post last night, and hopefully she's got one in today by now. Nelishia is doing NaBlo too this month.

Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear!

It's November 1, the first day of National Novel Writing Month, and the first day of National Blog Posting Month. Oh dear, what have I got myself into?

I had meant to have had my first post written quite early this morning, and I was planning on writing the first 1600 words of my November Novel (which I'm calling "Nov Nov" {get it?... get it?!} as a working title, since it doesn't have a title yet) well before this evening, but I still had the remnants this morning of a two-day headache. Only in the past hour has it subsided enough to think, let alone write.

And as for this blog post, I have no idea what to write about!

Oh, wait, yes I do. Or at least I know one thing I want to write about. In the welcome email from NaNoWriMo there were three bits of advice that I thought were very well done, so I'm going to share them here. The first one told us that it is okay to not know what we're doing: "Write every day, and a book-worthy story will appear even if you're not sure what that story might be right now."

The second bit of advice is worth completely quoting here: "Do not edit as you go. Editing is for December. Think of November as an experiment in pure output. Even it it's hard at first, leave ugly prose and poorly written passages on the page to be cleaned up later. Your inner editor will be very grumpy about this, but your inner editor is a nitpicky jerk who foolishly believes that it is possible to write a brilliant first draft if you write it slowly enough. It isn't. Every book you've ever loved started out as a beautifully flawed first draft. In November, embrace imperfection and see where it takes you." I would like to know how they know my inner editor so well!

And their third piece of advice is to tell everyone you know that you're writing a novel in November because "This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who've had to hear about your novel for the past month. . . The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse."

There was an addendum to #3, and that was that though there will be times we'll want to quit we must stick it out and see it through. "Week Two can be hard. Week Three is much better. Week Four will make you want to yodel. And we're talking the good kind of yodeling here."

Cool, huh?

Martha is participating in NaBlo this month, and Mara is participating in NaNo, so I have some old J-Land friends to keep me company -- and it's good company at that! So please drop by to give them some support and encouragement.

Well, gotta go for now. Nov-Nov is waiting for me!

P.S. Just found out that Betty and Rose are participating in NaBlo too, so please stop by and check out their posts this month.