Adjustments

I’ll get up early, write then swim

I sleep in

I get up later and write 

I’ll write till 7, then take my son and go swim

I write till 8

I'll take my son and swim, we’ll get home at 9 and I’ll take my daughter to the writer’s workshop

We swim till 10

I’ll take my daughter to the writer’s workshop and meet husband and boys downtown at 1

We aren’t ready to leave till 11

I say to my husband “We’ll meet you downtown at 2”

My youngest son throws up

“Never mind,” I say. “We’ll come back home at 2:30”

My daughter and I write till 3

We make it home by 3:30

I take my older son to the branch library for his research project at 4, the library closes at 5

“That’s an interesting topic,” says the helpful librarian.  “I’ve never looked for information on the space programs of monsoon Asian countries before.  Perhaps upstairs in the college library?”

At 4:45 my son and I are sitting on the floor in the stacks looking in the indexes of a dozen books on Asia and space.  They blink the lights.  The library is closing.

We make it home with a pile of books - what to make for dinner?

Husband and older son will leave at 6:30 to go juggling

Dinner is on the table at 7

They leave at 7:30

Sick son feeling a little better.  I tuck him in.

I’ll just write a quick slice.  I’ll be done by 9

It’s 10

Today a List of Stories

The alarm

Tea - don’t forget to get the tea going before you get in the shower

Find something clean in the dryer

Start the shower

Wake the kiddos

A little light, a little kiss

Same for hubby

Water’s hot

brush teeth

“Are you ready? Are you out of bed? We have ten minutes!”

The tea, remember the tea

Drive teen daughter to high school

She talks about the story of Moses and

Slavery in the antebellum south

I think how everything, everything I know 

is knit into my memory as a story

At work I tell stories

About people who spoke Latin

About the invention of Algebra

I listen to stories

About why he wonders about stars

About how Tock, the new puppy, came home

About her love of bees and magic

We work on telling together

on how to say Eyjafjallajökull

and other fancy words

Drive home

Listen to stories about budgets and cardinals

both sequestered on the same day

In the grocery store we tell knock knock jokes

Buy a dizzy chicken - spinning while it cooks

Stories round the table

Stories before bed

Write a story for Slice of Life

Set the alarm

Bed and I tell myself the surreal stories of dreams.

First Day Spring Break

First day and the week spreads out before us full of potential.  What a wonderful moment. The sun is warm, there is no rush. Everyone stays in pajamas. I don’t have to push anyone to do anything, anything at all. I go to a “spin class” - a class where we all ride stationary bikes to music and the encouragements of the trainer. Sounds a bit odd, but really quite challenging. I come home for breakfast and everyone is still happily lounging about in pjs. I go to the first session of the advanced screen writing class (ooo! advanced!) and come home for lunch. The girls have eaten, put on swimsuits. They ride off on their bikes to the pool. The boys are building master pieces of lego. The husband wants to browse around CostCo (he loves CostCo). Ahh... first day of spring break.  Everyone is happy.  I sit down to uninterrupted writing time...Lovely!

Youngest Son Guest Post: The Eight Diamond Lords

The evening began with my youngest son looking up at me, a sheaf of Colorado's ‘fill in the bubble’ practice writing tests spilling out of his backpack.

“Mom,” he said, tears streaming down his cheeks, “my writing doesn’t have any flow. I feel like tearing up everything!”

So he dictated a story while I typed and then we edited together for flow. Here is the result with the editing below:

            The Eight Diamond Lords


There were people falling from the clouds. The sons of the gods landed in the desert in a western town. The eight lords, each wearing their own color, were hungry so all decided to go to a bar, buy some drinks, and play cards. Then some cowboys came up to them and said “Get out of this bar. You’re not welcome here.” All the lords got in a huge argument and then got in a fight with the cowboys. The gold lord, punched the leader of the cowboys in the face and he went flying back and smashed through the wall. The lords decided to leave the town. While traveling they found awesome looking diamonds. Each of them picked one up. Oh, and did I mention that you can’t see their faces?  The diamonds started glowing the colors of the capes and hoods the lords were wearing. And then a beam from the clouds came down that matched the colors the eight masters were wearing. The beam took them back to their home.

Here is our editing: 


We made one word illegal: “they” (we decided we could keep only one “they”). He  crossed out some words and added new ones in blue. He read bits aloud as he made his decisions. Doing this on the computer seemed to add a bit of high tech fun.

There were people falling from the clouds.

They The sons of the gods landed in the desert in a western town.

They The eight lords, each wearing their own color, were hungry so they all decided to go to a bar, buy some drinks, and play cards. Then a some cowboys came up to them and said

“Get out of this bar. You’re not welcome here.”

And so they all the lords got in this a huge argument and then they got in a fight with the cowboys.

The gold one lord, he punched him the leader of the cowboys in the face and he went flying back and smashed through the wall. And then they the lords decided to leave the town. While And then they were traveling and they found these odd awesome looking diamonds. And each of them picked one up. Oh and did I mention that you can’t see their faces, the people, you can’t see their faces. And so each one picked one up. No - uh mom, I already said that. Mom! I don’t want that in my story.
“Is she writing down what I’m saying?” says big brother.

And the diamonds started glowing what the colors of the capes and hoods they the lords were wearing. And then this a beam from the clouds came down and the beam was that matched the colors what they the eight masters were wearing. and they got The beamed took them back to their home.

What are you reading? (one day late)

I’m reading a lot of inspiring encouraging blogs

in quick morning moments

I’m reading screenplay pages from my fellow students

on Fridays before class

I’m reading The Hobbit and bits of Beowulf

as I drift into sleep

I’m reading Luke, out loud 

with my daughters on the way to school (teen is driving)

I’m reading Seven Daughters of Eve

and

How the Irish Saved Civilization

and

Brian Green’s The Hidden Reality and Icarus at the Edge of Time

to keep up with my students

And cuddled on the couch before bedtime

with the wind outside whipping around the trees

I’m reading Wind in the Willows out loud

calling in the spring with my boys

True Love: Three Mundane Examples

1. I come home from work on Friday. Three of our four children are ill. House is  a disaster area. I begin to restore a bit of order. I set the table, light some candles and wonder what to make for dinner. Husband and healthy son come in the door with dinner in hand. Surprise!
2. Socks have been washed but not sorted for a week. That’s six people, so let’s see...12 socks a day, 8 or so days plus all the socks that could not find their mates from last week...mixed piles of socks blanket the living room floor. Four children watch a music video on the internet where socks are animated as fish. Suddenly the adult socks and the children’s socks begin swimming to different island pillows on the floor.  The teen socks swim up the stairs to the girls room.  The boys finish the game by loading their sock island into a blanket spaceship and blasting off to explore the closet planet in their room.
3. 3 a. m. Healthy son is barfing all over the rug as he runs to the bathroom down the hall. I clean him up and fix up a bed in our room. Poor kiddo. As I go down to the kitchen to make him some ice chips I hear my sweet husband cleaning the carpet with the wet-vac.

I am so blessed.

Rated AAA Risk Free

It is Wednesday and I am going to write for 15 minutes. . . I had thoughts in the car, listening on the radio. Yes, today I am going to do it.  Sit down and write. I am.

My dear husband has Wednesday afternoons handled.  He picks up all four of our offspring from their respective institutions of learning and trundles them all off to circus arts classes at the Boulder Circus Center. Then he feeds them junky American fast food on the way home (if I were a good mother I would pack them a nutritious dinner the night before and leave it in the fridge…but…sigh).  I guess the exercise offsets the fried chicken sandwiches.

So back to my point, Wednesdays I can write.  I will come home, sit down and write.  I had thoughts -  in the car - listening to the radio.  Two bright young women were talking about the European Debit Crisis and I was feeling October 2008 déjà vu all over again.  So I will write. 

I walk in the door and I see that my blessed husband has cleaned the kitchen and folded last night’s laundry.  Still, my house starts screaming at me: another load of laundry! Sort through that box of stuff! Bake a few of those little somethings so you won’t be tempted to buy them at the coffee shop tomorrow! You’ve not watered those plants in a while! The bathrooms could use some attention! For the love of God woman – CLEAN SOMETHING!

But TODAY I WILL WRITE!  I had thoughts of my own, about risk, in the car.  The two women were talking about how ratings of AAA were taken to be essentially without risk and that this is the second time this has happened recently.  The mortgage backed securities were rated AAA, so were treasuries issued by Italy and Greece – AAA – risk free.  Yet…

I put a load in the washer, mix up a yeast dough and let it stand in the warm oven and run upstairs to write while the washer runs the first cycle and the bread rises.  My husband and the children will be home soon.  Nothing is without risk.  They could get hit in the head with juggling clubs, fall off their unicycles or eat tainted chicken and cantaloupe.  The washer could leak, the bread could fail to rise, a meteor could crash into the planet and send us all reeling into a dystopic nightmare.  As I kneed the bread I spin out possible futures: Greece and Germany dance in a mirror, reversing roles in 1919 demands for reparations from the Great War.  Europe deftly shoots itself in the foot, again.

The garage door opens and my family is home:

“Mom! Mom! I was juggling on a unicycle and I was swinging the poi but the they collided and then I dropped them and I fell off but I’m all right then I went on the bola-bola and tried the diablo but the string was too short so I could just toss it but I didn’t quite catch it.  I did do a pinwheel though! Two of us on unicycles held hands and went around in a circle and Quarto (the youngest, who is eight) was riding on the teacher’s shoulders!”

Nothing is risk free.

Just ask Dr. Who

School's Out

School finished yesterday.  All my reports are done and I left my room and desk spotless.  Now the summer stretches before me full of potential and here I sit, at a bright yellow table in a hip independent coffee shop.  My daughter is taking the SAT and I am waiting for her.  I thought I’d write a bit.  First I clean out my iPhoto; all the photos from a school year’s worth of adventures with remarkable students.  I think about writing something meaningful, wrapping up the school year and getting literary closure. I am overwhelmed by the thought.  I finish a chocolate croissant - forty minutes have passed.  I clean out the e-mail – another thirty minutes taken care of.  I finish my tea.  TEDx Denver has finally posted the April talks on Youtube.  I learn how to post Libby’s talk (the amazing woman from the S.A.M.E. Café) on my facebook wall – twenty minutes.  It is simply wonderful how easy it is to distract myself with worthy online chores when I sit down to write.  I have two goals this summer: write everyday and clean my house to a depth. Well, in truth, I have many goals, many, many, many; too many to accomplish in ten weeks.  But my main goal is to reign in my scattered self and really accomplish these two. I know the writing is possible because I did write everyday in March. The house – well, I’ll let you know.

Pirate Lightning

            We took our four kiddos to a truly amazing exhibit about the pirate ship Whydah.  My youngest son, who is seven, awoke this morning, dressed himself in his pirate costume (a bit small – it was Halloween from two years ago) and fed himself, all before the rest of us even knew the sun was up.  He woke his oldest sister, face painting kit in hand, asking her to paint a mustache, beard and gold earring on him – “quick, ‘cause we’re leaving any minute!”

            The exhibit exceeded every expectation.  We tied knots, walked through a life size model of the ship, raised the pirate flag, looked at real cannon and REAL pirate treasure, last touched by REAL pirates, whose names we now knew.  There were costumed interpreters as well: a period pirate with attitude and a proper Boston matron.  After talking with them about Boston in 1717 the matron asked my sons about where they lived.  The boys then spent a full fifteen minutes trying to explain the wonders of modern technology to the matron.  My ten-year-old son tried explaining electricity:

            “It’s like lightning, traveling along wires.  And we hold the wires up in the air on big wooden poles.”

            “Heavens above!” cried the Matron, “That sounds terribly dangerous!”

            My seven year old walked away shaking his head in wonder, “I guess they really didn’t have cars or electricity back then,” he said.

            There was a healthy dose of serious history as well.  The Whydah had left Britain as a merchant marine with money and goods used to buy slaves in Africa.  From Africa it went to the Caribbean to trade slaves for sugar and tobacco.  Then back to Britain to sell the new world goods and start the circle all over again.  But then pirates captured her!  We found that pirate ships were run as a democracy, albeit a violent one, with men of all colors and cultures elected to positions of authority by their peers.  British navel vessels at the time were strictly hierarchical based on class; the lower classes usually treated like dirt. 

            We got to the room where we saw the ship capsize in a fateful storm and sink to its 300-year resting place.  My seven year old sat next to me on a bench.  The light was blue, dim and flickering; we might well have been sitting quietly at the bottom of the sea.

            “Mom,” he said, “I think that the pirates actually got all their money from stealing.”

            “Yup,” I answered.

            “Stealing is not a very good thing to do.”

            “You’re right,” I said.

            “But the other guys were selling people to be slaves.”

            “Yup,” I answered again.

            “That’s not a very good thing to do either.”

            “You’re certainly right about that,” I said.

            He sat silently for a minute, then turned and looked at me.  His face was so solemn I felt my heart twinge.

            “Mom, now I’m not sure who were the good guys.”

Spring Break, first day

Well, spring is in the air.  And today is the first day of spring break, beautiful, awash in warm sunshine and potential.  My family is up and excited by the prospect of a week off.  What to do, what to do… I’ve gone swimming and three loads of laundry are in progress.  I noticed a lot of garden chores that need doing when I came home from swimming.  I am sitting upstairs trying to think what to write.  The kids are downstairs singing “I’m blue, da ba dee da ba dye da  ba dee da  ba dye, if I were green I would sigh da  ba dee  da  ba  dye!”  They have made blueberry pancakes and cleaned the kitchen.  I am overjoyed and grateful but now I don’t know where all those important papers are that were piled on the center island.  My husband has finally gotten into the shower and is singing, at the top of his lungs, little ditties of his own creation. I sit here still trying to think what to write for slice of life post.  My eldest daughter comes in and starts telling me a story of the complicated relationship shiftings in her high school.  I try not to let my eyes glaze over.  My second eldest daughter comes in to tell me we are out of toothpaste.  I tell her to start a list.  The boys are in the backyard now screaming with glee and chasing wild bunnies in the bushes.  Perhaps I will quietly close the door and take a nap.

I ate nothing but cookies today

I ate nothing but cookies today: Girl Scout thin mints.  I slept in ten minutes, so skipped breakfast and no time to make lunch.  I walked into our office and there they were, sitting on the bookshelf, minty chocolate, one sleeve already opened.  Now, I do keep very healthy cereal in my desk drawer for just such a time, but I’d overfilled my morning and didn’t have time to walk across to the cafeteria for the milk. “Just one thin mint to tide me over,” pop! Mmm, “one more perhaps,” pop!  And off to Latin class.  Then an anxious math student worried about today’s test, pop! Talk with another teacher about next year’s class configuration, pop! Pop! Oops, lunch meeting in three minutes – too late to run across to the cafeteria, pop! Pop! Pop!  I was having a little trouble focusing. I get nervous speaking in meetings under the best of circumstances, but all the important things got talked about and I managed to jot down some good pointers.  At one o’clock I had fifteen minutes till my appointment with a student who had missed the last two weeks of math class.  Just enough time to run out and buy a burrito.  Tonight I’m making lunch before I go to sleep and I’m giving up cookies for Lent!

Fire and Ice

Church – Daniel 8 – there’s some fire.

We don’t stay to chat long, just one quick coffee. 

Our kids went to church in their snow pants. 

They walk to the car, donuts in hand.

The skis are in the back.  We drive up to the mountain.

Gliding down the hill – there’s some ice.

For the last Sunday before lent, that will suffice.

Out of the Starting Gate

A slice of life from Denver every day for a month.  Lets see if I can do it!

Dropped my oldest of at 6:30am! for her high school philosophy class.
Had chai with my second oldest, she worked on math while I worked on my novel - wrote one sentence in a half hour - then dropped her off at her middle school writing club.
At work, today was the first day of Latin class since break.  The students and I decided it would be best to hold class at Starbucks, so we did.  Translated a cartoon about the Saturnalia and had more chai.
Back at school had to find a costume designer, a theologian, an expert on ocean ecosystems and a cartoonist to meet with students for field trips.  Found all but cartoonist - I think he changed his e-mail.  Checked out Art Museum's upcoming exhibit: Cities of Splendor: A Journey through Renaissance Italy - So excited!  Now off to teach Algebra - graphing rates of change in height of water as we fill up several odd looking vases.  Maybe drink one more chai? Then staff meeting.  Husband is picking up all four kids and cooking dinner.  Drive home, feed, launder, bathe, read to, kiss and tuck in children.  Talk with husband and work on sketch of Jupiter's clouds - they look like some kind of tapestry. Fall exhausted into bed about 8pm.