Yikes!

Okay, so now I am officially starting the "freak out" with regards to what is expected of me from my class. Last night we went over what our final portfolio is supposed to look like and I realized that I’m in big trouble. We’re supposed to basically turn in a complete revision of one of the fiction pieces we’ve done and revision of two poems. As we were going over that, I realized (and pointed out) that because of the way this class has been set up, that means that we have two stories to choose from and no choice but to revise both the poems we wrote. The problem is that the poem I turned in last night, I don’t WANT to make any major revisions on it. I’m sure I’ll make some minor changes in wording and such, but for the most part, I’m happy with it as it is. So half my poetry grade is out the window. And of the two stories I turned in, I don’t care for either enough to do a substantial revision on them. They were pieces of attempted fiction that I don’t feel the desire to finish. Which tosses out my fiction grade. He did allow for us to write one new work for our workshops (which is what the entire class will be reading and critiquing) and I’d really like to make another attempt at the fiction, but nothing I can think of feels right. I'm hoping that I can come up with something a little more light-hearted than my first couple of papers, but I'm struggling. I have a couple stories in my head, a couple of amusing anecdotes that would be fun to write about, but nothing that would fulfill the requirements of the four page (1000 word) story that includes characters, tension, conflict, and resolution. Even if I found a way to string several of them together to form a complete story, I find that any theme I try to work with feels forced and fake.

And then the panic starts to set in. What was I thinking taking this class????

Lately...

It's been awhile since I last posted. This is not for any particular reason. It's not that nothing has been going on or that so much has been happening I haven't had a chance to sit down and tell about it. It's not that I've been depressed and hiding from my friends. I guess if I must offer an excuse, it would be that I'm spending all my creative energies on my stories and poems for class and that doesn't leave much for the blog. But that's not a very good excuse, so I'm not going to use it unless I have to.

So, what's been going on lately, you ask? Well, let me tell you:

Mom and Don finally left for their trip to Alaska. It took them a long time to get everything up and ready, but I'm glad they did. A six-week trip is not something you pack lightly for and six-weeks on a C-Dory (that's a boat) requires a lot of precautionary preperations. But eventually, they got everything done and managed to leave town. When I last talked to mom, they were still in Canada (the weather is keeping them from moving very quickly) but having a great time. Mom has been blogging about the trip and you are more than welcome to follow their adventures through the dangerous Alaskan waters: http://knottycadventures.blogspot.com/

While they are gone, I'm staying at their house with the dogs. It's like a mini-vacation for me, even though I still have to get up in the mornings and head off to my job. Belle and Lucy are very easy to care for. Troy was the troublemaker when it came to me opening the gate (I used to have to tie him up or he would try to make a run for it, and as big as he was, it wasn't easy for me to stop him); the girls just hang out by the gate and wait for my car to enter or exit like little doggie-faced angels. And they hang out with me at the house, occasionally asking me to throw a ball or play a quick game of tug-of-war, but for the most part just staying out of trouble. Neither of them feel the need to chase Esther (who I brought over with me since I'd be gone for so long) which Esther appreciates, and they both play with Jade on the weekends when I bring her over for my custody days (Derrick and I had to work out a way to share the pup since neither of us wanted to be without her for six whole weeks).

There's only one problem that I have with staying with Lucy and Belle. They like to lick. It's their way of showing affection to their people. Mom and Don don't mind it at all and allow them to lick their faces and feet whenever they want. But I don't particularly enjoy getting a spit bath. I feel bad when I tell them to leave me alone because I know that they are just telling me they love me, but.....yuck!

I did a little babysitting the other day. That was a lot of fun. Kristina called and told me that she was having trouble getting caught up on her homework and would I mind taking J'sai for a few hours so she could get some work done. Of course I didn't mind! We decided I could take him on a Sunday, so after church, I ran over and picked up my new friend for the day. I took him with me to brunch (he was such a sweet little guy) and then we spent the afternoon at mom's house in the comfortable A/C (the weather here has been crazy hot lately. This week we've been reaching triple digits!) J'sai is at that stage in his development where he's trying to push himself up, managing to get his head off the floor and look around the room for a couple of minutes. He can also roll himself from his back to his stomach and back again. I laid out a blanket for him to play on and he was pretty content to entertain himself checking out the unfamiliar environment. Eventually, he'd just wear himself out and lay his head down and take a short nap. Then he'd wake up, I'd feed and change him, and we'd start over.

The dogs were intriged by this tiny person. Lucy (the maternal one of the three) really took to the baby. She'd occasionally go over to him and check to make sure he was content and safe, giving him a little lick on the head like he was a little pup and she his mother.

Jade, on the other hand, pouted about no longer being the center of my attention and the baby of the group.

Other than that, it's mostly work, class, way too much mindless computer, a little scrapbooking, and trying to keep myself from melting into a Deema-puddle on the sidewalk outside. Do you know how hard it is to appear refreshingly cool and effortlessly together when your hair hangs limply, your clothes cling stickily and your make-up melts down your face in the 100 degree weather? There's a reason that I haven't joined DJ in Death Valley!

One of my friends mentioned to me that he heard on the radio that they were talking about how to bake cookies from inside your car in this kind of weather. Maybe I should give it a try.... At least then it would be worth it to get into my stifling hot car at the end of the day.... Mmmm, cookies!

An Explosion of Creativity

I'm feeling an overload of creative ideas. It's good in the sense that it gives me lots to work on, which keeps me busy. But it's not so good in that all my projects take time and I just can't do everything all at once.

Let's start with scrapbooking: I haven't really done much other than the memory board for Grandpa since the weekend of Mother's Day. I've done a few more of the Death Valley pages, but not much. But that will change soon. I'll be moving over to mom's house to dog-sit while they are in Alaska (for SIX WEEKS) and so I'll have lots of room to spread out my scrapbooking stuff and get some things finally finished (like the Death Valley book and last year's Best Year Ever book). In an effort to jump start my motivation, I've planned another scrapbooking gathering for this Saturday and I've already gotten several of people telling me they will be there. I'm really excited. Our gatherings are always so much fun and even if I don't get much done that day, I always end up with tons of ideas.

Which all leads to my photography hobby. Since Don will be taking his camera with him to Alaska, I've asked my Grandma if I could practice for a little while on Grandpa's camera. I've been playing with it since the 4th of July and I'm starting to get a feel for the different modes and speeds. The camera is something between my "point-and-shoot" camera and Don's fancy-pants SLR, so it's working out pretty good. I took it to church with me last week and took some pictures of the kids playing in the nursery. Toddlers are great for practicing action shots (so are the dogs, but it was nice to practice somewhere other than mom's yard). I got some really cute pictures, but I'm not going to share them here as I didn't talk to any of the parents and I don't know how they would feel about their kids' pictures being on the Internet.

And speaking of my practice photography, Don talked me into entering some of my pictures into the fair this year. I've got to pick out a couple of pictures and get them developed at the required size and everything and then take them in to be judged by the end of the month. I'm nervous, but excited too. If nothing else, it's thrilling to imagine that this year, when I'm looking through the photography exhibits, I'll eventually seen one I recognize as my own. How cool is that?

And then there is the other area of creativity that I seem to constantly be playing with: writing. I'm taking a Creative Writing class this summer and I'm really enjoying it. I'm not sure how much of the assignments I'm going to post on here, but I don't mind telling you about what I'm doing. It's a Tuesday night class and tomorrow will be my third class. Our second assignment is due tomorrow at the beginning of class. We were supposed to write a poem, and let me tell you, it has not been an easy task for me. I haven't written poetry since I've been back home, so that's several years now.

The funny thing is that when I took Creative Writing at Lee (way back when), I had little trouble with the poetry section and completely blocked when we did short stories. But this time it seems reversed. Last week we were supposed to write a short story that was at least one page long. Mine ended up being four pages. But then when he assigned the poem, I froze up. It's taken me almost a week, but I finally have the skeletal beginnings of a decent poem on paper. As I go through and do the revisions and corrections and changes, my confidence in my ability to write keeps waivering. First I doubt my ability to write poetry:"Does the poem say what I want it to? Does it say anything at all? Did I get enough emotions without making it overly sentimental? Will anyone else be able to identify with the ideas or am I only speaking to me?". Then my worries start to stretch out beyond what I'm working on right now to what I've already done: "What if I get my paper back tomorrow and it's covered in red marks where he tells me how terrible it was? What if he hated what I wrote and informs me that my writing style sucks? What if he tells me to leave his class because he obviously can't teach me anything about writing? What was I thinking, taking a class like this?".

But I suppose if I truly was a terrible writer who was unable to evoke any type of emotion from my readers, I probably wouldn't have very many people following my blog. And once I start reminding myself of that, I start to remember that the papers and poems I've written in the past have always been well-received, so why should this be so supremely different?

So there you go: I have a summer full of creative expressions all planned out. I just hope I don't peak too early.

American Pride and Joy

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, my family does 4th of the July in a big way. Food, family, and fireworks! It's the best.

Our family seemed smaller this year. It felt like there were many missing from our numbers: Grandpa and Bill, Derrick and DJ, mom's cousin Greg, Scott's girlfriend Peggy, Debby and Woody, Terri and her family... Kristina and J'sai were only there for a short time... But we enjoyed the gathering all the same.

Fort Vancouver didn't do their usual fireworks display, so we went ahead and made our usual spectacular show just a bit more exciting. I didn't get video, but I did manage to snap some pretty good shots. I'm using Grandpa's camera for a little while and I discovered the fireworks setting. It took a little while but I eventually got my timing down.

This was Jade's first Independence Day. She did really good with all the people and with our attempts to honor Bill with dry ice bombs. But when we sat down to watch the fireworks, she freaked out at the first shower of sparks. Poor baby! She ran into the house in terror so I put her in the safety of Troy's old kennel where she settled down and waited until I came back to get her.

I put together a little slide show of the day for all those who were unable to attend the festivities. I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday.




(In the interest of truthfulness, I feel I should disclose the fact that a couple of the pictures are not actually from yesterday, but from the BBQ a couple years ago. It's just that I had no pictures of a couple of people I really wanted represented.)

The Past In the Present

I found my college ex on Facebook this afternoon.

It's been years since I saw him. Many years. Too many.

I've moved cross country, re-invented my life, fallen in love, and had my heart broken much worse than he was able to do. I've dated several different people and made hundreds of new friends. I've discovered new talents and mastered old ones. I've forgiven and moved on from the hurt that came from the turbulent relationship we shared. I rarely even think about him any more.

And yet, there was a strange, sad pang in my heart when I saw his picture.