Learning how to split in half and still keep one’s sanity

Wow! Time is certainly travelling along, isn’t it? It has been too long since my last post, so I will try to remedy that.

My life has been split in half. So has my sister’s. Therefore, so have our husbands’ and all else connected to our private existence.

Life has changed a lot, being a full-time part-time caregiver has affected my life drastically. With my sister, I am alternating weeks living with our dad (which makes it part-time), but we are going to be doing this for … who knows how long? (which makes it full-time) Even when I’m not on my ‘shift’ I’m still sort of on-call – if my sister phones and needs support or information or whatever. She does the same for me. That’s how we have it set up for each other and so far it is working out.

Recently, we were approved for a few hours respite each week, which is a blessing. A huge blessing. We were getting very weary, it’s a mental thing — always having to be alert to where, what, when — so getting a break is an assist to retaining sanity. Respite is so new to us that it is taking a little time to work out the glitches, and I find it hard turning things over to someone else even for a few hours. But, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it and need it.

Can anyone relate to any of what I’m sharing?

When I get home from my week on duty, I lose at least one day from total weariness. Being on constant alert mode is exhausting, and even feeling tired there it really hits when getting home and being able to let my guard down. whew! I don’t know how people do this for years, and not being able to alternate weeks. Perhaps it’s a little different having one’s own home to maintain as well, but either way … it is taxing. Even so, it is an honour and a blessing to be able to do this for one’s loved one, regardless of the difficulty as conditions worsen. Further to that, it’s not really understood that there is even a problem. Challenging.

So, how do we do it? To be honest, The Lord is our Strength. Prayer, talking to other people who understand, getting those little blocks of time out of the house or just being able to read or work at a hobby while a nap is happening .. usually not our own 🙂 .. all are very important in order to keep one’s sanity. Another top thing is that our families are understanding and very supportive in this. I doubt that we could do it otherwise. So, really .. the wheel that turns it all is LOVE.

I originally set up this blog to track my journey in writing. Why do my journeys seem to always have side roads? Do the sidetracks add to the well from which stories come? I’m hoping so. The novel I got well underway in 2010’s NaNoWriMo (refer to https://lynnadavidson.wordpress.com/nanowrimo-updates-2010/) has not been altered one bit since. Do I try to work more on it in NaNo 2011? I really want to finish it instead of starting something new yet. My hesitation is because I fear attempting NaNo this year would set me up for an incomplete. But gosh! If I keep putting it off I could be years .. or never! ..getting back to it.

How do people write, sometimes their best work, during times of stress?

It seems I still have much to learn about splitting my life in half while keeping hold of some measure of my established interests — and sanity.

Do you have a similar story to tell? How did or do you manage it?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Are you a ringer? or a leaner?

Have you ever played horseshoes? It’s a fun game of skill.

My dad and I have been playing horseshoes a little this Summer (now turned Autumn) and – although we certainly aren’t the greatest at it – we have lots of laughs.

Two pits are prepared, into each is driven a stake forty-two feet from the other. From beside one pit the players throw two horseshoes each, in turn, trying to get a ringer (shoe around stake) for five points, a leaner for three points, or within a horseshoe width for one point. Then the players walk to the other end, add up their points and pitch the shoes to the other pit. Eventually, a total of 21 points wins.

Take a look at the image here. This was amazing!

Both the ringer and the leaner are mine! Dad got one shoe close enough for a point, the other just a little too far out. This was such a great toss that we had to capture it because I thought no one would believe it. Of course, we have not been able to repeat this exactly again. In fact, when we get a point it’s occasion to cheer. 🙂 That’s right, we won’t be asked to join a team any time soon, but, as I said, we have fun. It’s a good way to get exercise, too.

Looking at this picture I began wondering about it in relation to life.
A ringer — do you hit your mark? Do you reach your goal?
A leaner — do you nearly get there, not quite where you want to be but enough so that you can say you did it?
Close — the old saying is, “close only counts in horseshoes.” Do you get nearly there and then decide this is close enough?
Not quite there — do you think, “well at least I tried”?

I wonder what my own attitude has been. I can go many ways with this but if I relate it to writing I know I have not made that ringer. I’m not sure I even have a leaner, either. But I may be close, although for me it’s not close enough yet. And I have had many days of thinking, “well, at least I’m trying”, but if I am truly going to succeed I know I have yet to develop my skill.

The secret, the trick, is to never quit, never give up. In writing there are so many, many ways to express one’s ideas and imaginings, many places to apply one’s talent, many word avenues to travel. And one has to learn how to pitch, how to lean in, how to get close enough so as to eventually succeed.

Am I there yet? No. But I am still trying, still in the game, even with all of life’s sidelines and stressors and detours.

How about you? Are you a ringer? a leaner?
Are you close? or not quite there yet?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Crazy bag (bat?) lady!

“Do you have a bat on your wall?!”

Tuesday morning I was sitting in the shop talking with my hairdresser while waiting for my cab. Squinting, I said, “Is that a bat? or .. what is that!” He turned to look in the direction I was indicating. “I do have a bat on my wall!”

“May I have it?”

He turned and looked at me hesitantly, if not a little surprised.

“I would like to take it home and release it at my house. I really like bats,” I explained, “and I don’t like mosquitoes. I haven’t seen a bat around all Summer.”

Satisfied with my explanation, he immediately began looking around, “What will I catch it with?” Grabbing a small towel he climbed onto the chair that was conveniently there, then reaching up he neatly and quickly covered the little brown bat with the towel. Carefully wrapping it securely, he stepped down and picked up a plastic grocery bag. After he gently placed the towel into the bag we tied off the top to be sure its contents stayed inside during its relocation journey. Then my cab pulled up.

Settling the bag carefully on my lap, I began chuckling as we drove along. clickclickclickclickclickclick

“Do you hear that?” I asked the driver.
He looked over, “What?” His radio music was quite loud.
“Do you hear that clicking?”
He turned the radio down and listened. “Yeaaaahhh?”
“It’s a bat.”
“A what?”
“A bat. I have a little brown bat in this bag.”
“Ooookaaaaaaaaayyyy.” The look on his face was priceless.
“Does that bother you? Is it a problem?” I asked him.
“Oh, no, … it’s not a problem.” He kept glancing over at the bag.
I explained what had just occurred and that I was taking the bat home. “I think it’s a fair trade. He didn’t want the bat in his house, I want it outside mine.”

The driver agreed it seemed fair. Then the conversation began, mostly about bats. He told me that one of the cab drivers got into her vehicle one morning and there was a bat in it. He said, “As soon as she knew the bat was in her cab – she wasn’t!” We laughed.

The drive was less than twenty minutes but it didn’t take long for the bat to find its way out of the towel. He crawled around in the bag, clicking, which I believe was his sonar .. trying to find distance so that he knew it was an opening to freedom. I checked the bag to be sure I had not mistakenly been given one with a hole in it. Even though I like little brown bats I don’t think I would appreciate one crawling on me.

After the cab left my yard I took the bat-in-a-bag up onto a little hill beside my house. Setting the bag down beside the trees I untied the top, stepped back and waited. It took maybe twenty seconds for the bat to find the way out. Soon his little head popped up over the edge and with a flurry of fast little bat wings … zip! zoom! … he was gone, silently flying away between the trees.

When I told my girls about my fun experience their teasing remarks varied: ‘weird yet cool’, ‘not cool’, ‘crazy bag lady’, ‘strange’, ‘way to preserve wildlife’, ‘odd’. 🙂 I told one daughter that I enjoy doing the odd thing once in awhile. She replied, “Well, that was it then.”

And you know, she was right. That was it … for this week. 🙂

PS
Would you believe … just as I finished writing the above my husband called to me, “There’s a bat in the house!” He had seen one flying around but lost sight of it, so we went looking. Sure enough, from the living-room he saw a little brown bat hanging upside down from the ceiling in the adjoining room. Hilarious!

I grabbed a towel … and released the little guy into our yard. Again. Could it have been the same one?

How marvellous is that! 😉

What weird and wonderful thing have you done lately?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Do you use a pen name? Here are famous ones.

Pen names.

I got thinking about this strange name game that writers employ. Which famous writers are better known by their pen names? Why did they adopt a different name? I decided to do a search to see what fascinating things I could find out about famous writers – or rather, their famous pen names.

There are many more, but here is a list of what I found, with the pen name mentioned first:

Acton Bell was Anne Bronte
Anatole France was Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault
Andre Maurois was Emile Herzog
Angela Knight is Julie Woodcock
Anne Rice was born Howard Allen O’Brien
Ann Landers was Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer
Artemus Ward was Charles Farrar Browne
Boz was an early pen name for Charles Dickens
Clive Hamilton and N.W. Clerk were both pseudonyms C.S. Lewis used
Currer Bell was Charlotte Bronte
Dr. Seuss was Theodor Seuss Geisel
Elia was Charles Lamb
Ellery Queen was Frederic Dannav and Manfred B. Lee
Ellis Bell was Emily Bronte
Ernst Ahlgren was Victoria Benedictsson
Flann O’Brien and Myles na gCopaleen was Brian O’Nolan
GBS was George Bernard Shaw
George Eliot was Mary Ann Evans
George Sand was Amantine (also spelled Amandine) Lucile Aurore Dupin later to become Baroness Dudevant
George Orwell was actually Eric Blair
Isak Dinesen was Karen Blixen
Irwin Shaw was Irwin Gilbert Shamforoff
J. D. Robb is Nora Roberts who was born Eleanor Marie Robertson (Nora Roberts is really her first pen name)
John le Carre was David Cornwell
Joseph Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski
Lemony Snicket is Daniel Handler
Lewis Carroll was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
Mark Twain was Samuel Langhorne Clemens and also Sieur Louis de Conte
Mary Westmachott was Agatha Christie
Maxim Gorkey was ALex Makimov Peshlov
Moliere was Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
O. Henry was William Sydney Porter
Orion was J. K. Chesterton
Pearl Grey was Zane Grey
Poor Richard was Benjamin Franklin
Publius was a pen name for Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, when they were writing the Federalist Papers
Richard Bachman is Stephen King
Saki was H. H. Munro
Toni Morrison is Chloe Anthony Wofford
Voltanic was Francis Marie Arouet

You may not be familiar with all of the above-mentioned authors, but were any of them a surprise to you?

Why do authors use pseudonyms? Reasons I have found are varied.

Some writers do not want people knowing that they write in a certain genre, examples being erotica or genres commonly written by men. In the latter case they often use their initials, as in the case of J. K. Rowling.
Some prefer a name that better suits what they write. An example is Pearl Grey who used Zane Grey for his western writing.
Some, an example being Stephen King, are advised by their publishers to use an alternate name so that when they have a few titles released around the same time the public will still buy them.
Many women would use a man’s name because it used to be that women were not accepted as authors. Mary Ann Evans, aka George Eliot, is a good example of this.
Some writers simply want a name that stands out better than their own. There are other reasons, too, but these are the most popular ones.

If you were to use a pen name, have you thought about what it would be?

For what reason would you use a name that is not your own?

If you do use a pen name has it been a positive experience for you?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

To blog or not to blog .. is that the question?

I have not been posting to my blog as regularly as I had hoped because of family obligations, but still I try to keep at it. This past week I was thinking about writing, in particular “blogging” —

There are hundreds – no, thousands! – of blogs out there to read, thousands of blog artists sharing their thoughts, ideas, talents, rants, advice, art forms, humour …

It’s a wonderful way to share, vent, contribute, advertise, hone skills, meet people, reinvent oneself. It’s also a sure way to reveal one’s lack of skill, talent, intelligence, tact, and common sense.

Blogging is an expanding sense of community, a way to connect with others while building one’s platform – one’s identity and presence in this world, or at the very least – on the Internet.

A quote I found which also follows along nicely with my last post about laughter is by William Saroyan, a writer known for his stories celebrating the joy of living in spite of poverty. He said, “The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”

For some, a driving force in life is writing, for others it is the reading of wonderful stories that stimulates their lives.

So, my questions to you are as follows:

Do you agree with William Saroyan’s advice? Or do you have another quote or word of advice to share with me?

If you have a blog, why or why not?

Why do you read other people’s blogs, what do you look for?

How has the blogging world impacted your life, or has it made much of a difference at all?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

What is your passion?

I’ve been thinking today about what is my passion – where I put my efforts, how I use my time. Besides being with my beloved husband and my family, that is. This week I am working more on Valley Sunshine publication, hoping my duplicating machine won’t quit on me again. During the printing of the last issue my antiquated machine broke down but, strangely, when the repairman finally was able to come out to look at it, I tried it and it worked again! Now, I don’t know for how long it will be functional, but it means I can print off this issue, or at least for as long as it prints off the pages. That is one place I put my time – writing, compiling, sharing the Lord and His word through this little publication. I enjoy the contact with my readers/subscribers.

And you know I like to write stories, but I haven’t been able to really settle into being creative that way the last several months – except for book reviews and a few interviews. Working on my novel is something I have yet to mold into my life again, but I am really enjoying blogging. Because of time restrictions now I don’t get to visit many of the blogs I follow, though.

Another thing is, of course, reading books. Last week I began reading War and Peace which is four books in one, and I learned that it took Leo Tolstoy six years to write it! I figure it will probably take me a year to read it. 🙂 At least. But I also have several other books on the go at the same time, so I will keep adding titles to my “have read” list for this year.

But I think my greatest passion is worship – worshiping the Lord, and being in fellowship with other Christians to “be the Church” with them. It is uplifting and joyful and a blessing to all involved. Part of that is talking about God’s Word, learning more and sharing about it .. such wonderful food for the soul. Religion does not quicken my spirit, but relationship with Him does.

So, what is your passion? Where or how do you most like to spend your time? Do you enjoy creating? If so, what? Do you like to travel? If so, where and how?

What is your passion?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

What colour are you?

Yes, that’s my question. What colour are you? No, not the colour of your skin – that isn’t what I’m asking at all, but what colour as it relates to your personality.

Studies have shown that the colour a person prefers often reveals what that person is like.

I had a wonderful list which gave all kinds of tips and advice regarding colours and colour choices, but when my computer crashed I lost that information. Here are some examples I recently found for your enjoyment:

RED – passionate, energetic, vivacious, a risk taker, aggressive and strong and full of ideas.

ORANGE – a confident go-getter, extrovert, class clown, the life of the party with a kind nature and cheerful attitude.

YELLOW – sunshine and happiness, smart, generous with time and money, and love to laugh.

GREEN – a calm feeling of hope and grace, freely give advice, creative and caring, generous nature and optimistic attitude.

BLUE – peaceful and harmonic to make people feel comfortable and secure, extremely trustworthy and patient.

PURPLE – often a dreamer, mysterious and artistic, insightfully intelligent, expressive.

BLACK – elegant, stylish, strong, classy, deep and often serious, fearless nature.

BROWN – caring and considerate of others, loyal and dependable, certain of self and what is wanted in life, a good friend.

PINK – playful, fun, a hopeless romantic, love life, emotional and expressive.

WHITE – drawn to purity and innocence, a peaceful nature and spiritual view of the world, love truth and justice, balanced in life.

Now, please don’t take these as gospel truth. This is just something fun I wanted to offer you today, so don’t be offended. If you really think about it, often we choose colours to suit our mood, or a colour will affect how we feel. Interesting, isn’t it?

My favourite used to be blue. Then I had my colour palette done and learned that I am an Autumn wearing all the wrong colours to suit my skin tone and all that. 😦 So, I tried to change and now I sometimes wear blue but in other shades – ones that suit me. I also like pink and green and purple, and yellow really jazzes it up – but not all at the same time. 😉 If you look at the above descriptions, it tells you a mixture of things about me. Believe ’em or not, that’s up to you.

So, play along with me — what colour are you?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

PS (In case I should give credit for where I found this particular list it is from socialphobiaworld.com)