Well, hope you all had a happy memorial day. We went sailing and I got a sunburn. But it was fun, and the dog didn't even throw up!

I missed my Monday Sparks yesterday; I'll make up for it this morning:

Monday Sparks #11

(First, a background note: I don't know about the U.S. so much, but in London all the dressing rooms are wide open. One big room where everyone has a mirror and everyone can see everyone else's bumps and bulges while everyone is trying on clothes. Kinda humbling.)

Now, onto the Spark:

It's Saturday. It's The Biggest Sale of the Year day again. Describe the scene in the dressing room.

THIRTEEN GROOVY SUMMER SONGS

1. Beach Baby--First Class
2. Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer--Nat King Cole
3. Summer Breeze--Seals & Croft
4. Hawaii Five-O Theme--The Ventures
5. Summertime--The Zombies
6. Sloop John B--Beach Boys
7. Well, pretty much anything by the Beach Boys...
8. Sailing--Christopher Cross
9. Ice Cream Man--Van Halen
10. Patio Lanterns--Kim Mitchell
11. A Summer Song--Chad & Jeremy
12. Waves--Ray Fogg
13. Anything by the Gipsy Kings (looove that Spanish sound in summer...)

Feel free to add to my list--I'm always looking for more music!

The Lost Art of Conversation

A co-worker and I were talking yesterday when she informed me that one of her friends had "gone low-tech". They got rid of their cell phones, computer, etc... all the way to the television. She talked about how refreshing it was to go to their house to visit and actually have conversation.

I wish. How I wish.

Don't get me wrong here, I like my computer, I think my cell phone is great. I'm pretty ambivalent about the TV; there's hardly anything on most of the time and I'm confident I could live without it.

What I find myself living without, more and more often as I grow older, is conversation. Just sitting around and talking. It doesn't happen much in my house, unfortunately. Son and I talk, but it's mostly about his issues, not just conversation for its own sake. And Sweetheart has totally bought into the "More Is Better" techno-void. Seriously, we have a television in almost every room of the house. If he's in the kitchen, the radio is on (the talk channel, naturally). Sometimes he'll be on the computer in the living room in front of the TV. The man believes this is multitasking--I call it certifiable. Again, don't get me wrong--we do talk. But we really don't have much conversation.

The more I think on it, it seems the only true conversation I have is with my family. When I visit my sisters or my parents, we talk. And talk. We gorge ourselves on talking. And it's fabulous.

I wonder what the future will bring. I wonder sometimes if Son will be able to sit down and have a conversation without checking his cell phone or turning on the TV or whatever. (Side note: the other week in church, some kid in front of us was TEXTING. During CHURCH. I was completely appalled.) I wonder, when Sweetheart and I are old and there's no more jobs or anything, if we'll be able to talk beyond small stuff. Days like today I wonder if Sweetheart and I will make it together to old age if we don't converse now.

Okay, enough. I'm getting depressed.

Missing Words and Monday Sparks


It's been such an exasperating couple of days.

I've gotten a lot done, rest assured. The garden has been planted and the mulch thrown down and the weeds pulled and the laundry done and the grocery shopping and the housekeeping and so on...

Anyone notice anything missing in that list? Yep, you guessed it. No writing for me. And I'm kind of mad about it. Mad at the world because of course we all want to blame it for not accomplishing what we want to. But also mad at myself for not stopping myself, not getting up earlier, not turning off that rerun of Man vs. Wild, not putting down the latest book--though The Cater Street Hangman was a worthy read--thanks, Robyn!--and, inevitably, not standing up for myself and saying f*** it to the rest of the world.

Over at Deadline Divas last week they were discussing whether or not writing comes first. Whether or not "you" have put enough importance on writing to finish the book, to get it out there, to be a writer.

I didn't comment over there that day, mainly because I was ashamed to say that no, writing is not my first priority at this time. And I've been trying to figure out ever since why I can't at least make writing more of a priority than it is. My daily schedule is something like this: Get up at six, get Son off to school, try and squeeze in a bit of writing for that 45 minutes before I have to get ready for work, work 8 hours, come home, get dinner on, take Son to TKD or PSR or wherever he needs to be (he always needs to be somewhere), get back home...and by now it's after eight, I'm tired, and I just want to lay down. I'm usually in bed at 9:30, sometimes sooner if I want to read because the bedroom is about the only place I can have peace and quiet when Son and Sweetheart are around.

Obviously, 45 minutes a day doesn't beget progress. Most mornings I'm lucky if I pound out 100 words. I was on a streak for a while, writing daily, getting into it, but life got in the way again and I let it.

Will I ever finish the book? Who knows. Will I ever allow myself to make writing my top priority? I don't know. All I do know is that it's after eight and I have to stop and get ready for work. Joy.

Monday Sparks #10

Desperate for work, a woman enters an establishment, determined to get the job no matter what she has to say, do or accept. What establishment is it? What happens?

Happy writing, all...

THIRTEEN "UN-USUAL" THINGS ABOUT ME

(Or perhaps 13 lame things or 13 stupidly boring things... okay, okay, I couldn't think of anything really cool to blog on this week! so sue me! arrggh!)

1. I can drive a tractor.
2. I once rode a camel in Egypt.
3. I know at least 15 different varieties of apples.
4. My first official car was a 1965 Ford Custom 500. We called it "The Ark".
5. I probably read 2-3 books, on average, a week.
6. The first time I drove a car, I ran down a birdhouse.
7. Even though I can swim, I dislike being in water when I can't touch the bottom.
8. I once got propositioned by a man on a London street who thought I was "working". (no, as a matter of fact, I was wearing jeans, a t-shirt and jacket!)
9. Once, I replaced the wheel bearings in my car all by myself. Did a good job, too.
10. I used to train hunting dogs for a living.
11. I've lived in 3 states and visited 8 others.
12. I only tried skateboarding once.
13. I like the American side at Niagara better than the Canadian one. So there.

Monday Sparks #9

Scene: A quiet city park
Protagonist: A woman jogging
Antagonists: A pair of Canada geese


Hope you all had a nice weekend, and have a lovely day today.

THIRTEEN REASONS I LOVE BEING A MOM

1. ummm....

I'm kidding!! KIDDING!!

okay, let me get serious here.

THIRTEEN THINGS ABOUT BEING A MOM (the good, the bad & the ugly)

1. "Because I said so!!"
2. All the hugs I've gotten from my kid, from when he was way little to the big galoot he is now.
3. Gray hairs. Joy untold here.
4. Being, for a brief moment in time, the smartest person in the universe.
5. His goofy laugh.
6. Making him feel better just by a kiss or hug.
7. Rocking with him at night before bed.
8. Bedtime stories.
9. "Excuse me? Who do you think you're talking to? I KNOW you're not talking to me because MY SON would never speak to his mother so rudely."
10. Being able to fart out loud and he thinks its funny.
11. Attitude adjustments.
12. The endless WHY.
13. I made a human being. How cool is that?

If I don't post again before next week, happy mother's day all. XXXX's and OOOO's for all your kids, whether they be young or old, two footed or four.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign...


I live across the street from a park. It's a nice community park with ball fields, a building you can rent out for parties and a playground.

At each entry to the park, and in several other spots, there are signs stating quite clearly: No dog walking, No golfball hitting. Kind of a bummer for me because I own a dog, but I respect the ordinance and don't take him into the park.

So I'm looking out the window today and what do I see? Some guy practicing his driving. Golf bag set up and everything, right out in plain sight in the middle of the park. I've seen this same guy more than once, BTW. And on top of that, I've seen people--seriously--bring their dogs in a car to the park, let the dog out of the car on a leash to POOP in the park, then put them back in the car and leave.

WTF? The obvious rude factor aside, why do people not read/heed signs? Perhaps there is a significant population out there that has sign-blindness. Perhaps there are so many signs out there people just ignore them all rather than take a whole 5 seconds to read them. Perhaps people's lives are so mundane they feel a need to push the envelope, if only in the slightest way.

What about you? Do you read signs? Heed or ignore signs? Do you feel there are too many/not enough? What's the funniest/strangest/most contradictory sign you've read?

The other day I saw a sign that read: "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, I am my mother after all." This gave pause to my daily life as I considered the possibility. Have I morphed into my mother?

Hmm...


Dyeing my own hair because I'm too cheap to go to a salon? Check.

Unable to sleep past 5:30 a.m.? Check.

Can't wait to climb into bed at night, a.k.a. The Sooner The Better? Check.

Feet on fire? Check.

Out of ideas for dinner? Check.

Most used phrases: "Good God In Heaven!", "I feel for you, but I can't reach you" and "You'll get your reward in the next world". Are they phrases of my mothers? Check, check, check.

Well, looks like I'm about as lost of a cause as I can get. At least I don't say "NO" to every single suggestion that comes my way...

..but my son does. My nickname for him is Gramma.

Monday Sparks #8

Waiting and worrying over whether or not she will "get the job" a woman dials a psychic hotline on impulse.

Have fun!!

THIRTEEN PIECES OF EYE CANDY FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE...



























Of course, being a little more than slightly blogging impaired, I can't figure out how to get the names next to the pictures. But here's the list:

1. Clive Owen
2. Sean Bean
3. Colin Firth
4. Matthew McConaughey
5. David Boreanz
6. Gary Sinise
7. Adrian Brody
8. Hugh Jackman
9. Eli Roth
10. Simon Baker
11. Christian Bale
12. Orlando Bloom
13. Viggo Mortensen

Enjoy---Hey! HEY!! NO KISSING THE SCREEN!!!

2:15 PM: Lost Eli somehow. Will try to repaste him back in later. (oops)
5:15 PM: Repasted. Hope that little rascal stays put.

Songs of My Youth

Every Wednesday afternoon at my job I get a little "off" time. This means I can sit in the office at my official desk and fool around, or write, or play Bookworm until my brain freezes up.

I also take advantage of my library's impressive music collection while I'm in my off time and lately I've been diving back into the 1970's and rediscovering songs of my youth.

So tell me if any of these tunes spark a memory for you:

Afternoon Delight--The Starland Vocal Band
Boogie Man--KC & the Sunshine Band
Love Will Keep Us Together--Captain & Tenille
Turn the Beat Around--Vicki Sue Robinson
Saturday Night--Bay City Rollers
Summer Breeze--Seals & Crofts
Never Gonna Give You Up--Barry White
The Night Chicago Died-- (?)
Miracle--Jefferson Starship
Beach Baby--First Class
Sugar, Sugar--The Archies

(Are you singing yet? Dancing a little disco? Come on...)

Happy day!