How I inspired myself

I have untold amounts of time to lay around. I practice attachment parenting (the co-sleeping, extended breastfeeding, babywearing type) and he’s a very dependent sleeper. So I nurse him to sleep a few times a day. Which equates me laying around a lot.

I forgot to grab my book to read at nap time and my mind is very busy. As Summer McStravick says her mind is like “a little yappy dog that’s always on the go, yapping”. (That’s a paraphrase of her I can’t recall her exact words and since she said it on a podcast I don’t have a link). My mind is a “yappy dog” that never shuts up. I’m pretty sure I’m a little ADD, and I hate being unentertained.

So, on the note of Summer McStravick, she has this idea called Flowdreaming. Where you do a guided mediation with positive energy and emotions and thinking. It’s like positive thinking supercharged of sorts. Which equates with what I read in The Purpose of Your Life by Carol Adrienne where she says positive thinking isn’t just all happy thoughts, it’s setting your intention for the way you want to feel and going after that feeling.

Back to where I was lying around and my mind was yapping at me for some direction. I turned to my next hockey novel whic h I abandoned due to lack of feeling it. I abandoned the project I went to after that, because of my second Rule “No writing stuff that isn’t fun.” I wasn’t having fun. And I know the hockey thing is going to be good if I can unravel the characters. If I can fall in love with the characters.

So my mind said, if you aren’t in love with your characters, which characters are you in love with?”

I loved “Sleepless at Midnight” by Jacquie D’Alessandro . There are some great romantic scenes which are really hot. Really hot and swoon-worthy. I mean you want to be the heroine and have a hero who acts exactly like him. She is that lucky. I love the emotions between them. The tension. The way you want to grab them and scream “You love each other. Just get together already.” Except the conflict is out of their hands and they can’t be together, except they have to be because they love each other.

Anyway, I’m feeling all the happy feelings inside me.

And then my whole plot came into my brain. I’m so fucking excited to write it, but I had to write down how I got there.

(And then I have to write something else totally unrelated, but is pervading my life and I understood it in the shower this evening. Freaking Freecycle moderation. DId I ever mention that it is occasionally the bane of my existence and i want to quit? I can’t wait to move so I can stop the insanity).

So, that is the story of how I inspired myself. If anyone has a story about how they had fun writing today leave a comment with your email or shoot me an email.

BTW, no affliate links here. Except y'know, my Smashwords.

Where I am is a good place

My mom and I took the kidlets to the water park yesterday. And we were talking about people and spending money on silly things like Gel Nails. If that’s your thing, I apologize, or well I don’t care, personal appearance means little me.

I confessed I have zero items of make-up. that’s not true, I do have some eyeshadow, eyeliner and lipstick that I never wear and is probably old enough to need to be thrown out. I cannot manage to care about wearing make-up. If you don’t like my face without it then too freaking bad quite frankly.

I don’t want to tell you how long my leg hair is. Except for the small patch where I started waxing … last week.

Anyway, my Mom then asked if I spend money on myself.

Not really, I reply. I got my Kobo eReader this year. Last year, I got the Wii Fit and Balance Board. I do spend a little on myself from time to time but over all no, I don’t spend much on myself. My husband likes to buy movies and he smokes. It’s an unfair balance. But, I like to worry about saving our money so we can move up the financial ladder. That makes me happy. Spending $6 a month on movies makes him happy. And he isn’t ready to quite smoking, I’m ready, but he’s not so I’m not going there. He smokes outside. He doesn’t share a bed with the baby.

My mom then tells me when I was growing up she never spent money on herself because they didn’t have any. Which isn’t really true. It was very unstable, non-secure money. My dad is not a saver. He isn’t deeply in debt but he’s always a little in debt. That’s none of my business so I don’t go there.

But it drove my mother crazy. She hated not having savings, hated scrimping, hated how he’d spent what he felt like.

She resented it and him. She was miserable because neither of them could compromise.

I’m not miserable. I accept that my husband needs to spend a certain amount to feel satisfied. It’s not really that much and we both agree not to go into debt for consumer goods. We make very little money but manage to stretch it A LONG ways. While he was unemployed and I was working 70% we managed to pay off $5000 including a new furnace.

Anyway, I don’t need to buy a lot of stuff for myself. I’m happy getting my books from the library, using scraps for sewing, making all of our meals, using my leftover yarn, and buying used for most of our consumer goods.

Right now I’m waiting for an email from a person selling a front load washer and dryer for dirt cheap. My washing machine isn’t wringing all the water out of it. It’s nearly 8 years old, not the best lifespan and I could probably get it fixed.

Anyway, what more do I need in life? I have a computer, internet access, a vehicle of my own, my eReader and mp3 player, TV, 2 video game systems … the list goes on and on and on. I’m pretty fucking blessed. I have enough money for food and shelter and savings. I went to school part time for like five years and I got to stay home with my daughter for ages and will with my son (we don’t trust other people). If I have anything to complain about it’s First World Problems.

In addition to being an author, my dream job is playschool teacher. When I was in high school I did a work experience day at a playschool and I was pretty sure it was worst job ever. But, now that I’ve pretty much done it, I want to do it again and again. I want to create the lessons and teach them and see the children enjoying learning.

I don’t want to teach elementary school or high school or anything else. Just playschool. It’s awesome.

And if anyone has a good podcast catcher, let me know. Ziepod won’t work, I don’t know why. I’ve uninstalled, reinstalled. I don’t like iTunes, but I’ve resorted to it because EVERY OTHER thing I’ve tried gpodder, juice and something else, won’t let me add feeds.

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The split

I keep hoping my mother will be the mother I want her to be.

It’s kinda of like banging my head against a wall.

In the past she has expressed her desire that I be everything. A stay at home mom, work full time, and go to school. Mind you it was on different occasions that she said each statement, but it’s like MAKE UP YOUR MIND.

She also wishes I were perfect. I mean the perfect housekeeper. I am not. She is Born Organized (read up on flylady.net if you want to know more), I am a Side-Tracked Home Excutive (SHE). I hate housework. I start things and never finish them. Sometimes we still have last night’s dishes on the table the next morning. My house isn’t a hazard like you might see on How Clean Is Your House? I rarely leave dishes more than 16 hours. I clean the bathrooms sporadically and I keep us in clean clothing.

We have a lot of clutter. Last weekend when a high school friend of my husband’s showed up, I had to take 15 minutes to find the spare bed. Thank goodness he was only sleeping one night in there and had no suitcases (it was also good because he had no vehicle nor a job). Anyway, my desk is piled with papers, toys litter various areas and the floor could use a sweep. (but you aren’t sticking to the floor and as of two days ago the funky fridge smell is gone).

Anyway you get the picture.

My mother is obessively clean. Her house is perfect. I could excuse myself by saying that she doesn’t have a kid and I do. That’s an excuse. I’m lazy. I just don’t really care. My partner cares more than me, but he doesn’t do anything to remedy it, so …

I invite her over last night. Stupid stupid stupid. I’m still beating myself up for it.

She starts in on the things that are wrong. I get defensive and hurt. Wondering why she can’t be the mother I want her to be? The mother you see on TV. Which is a stupid thing to want.

I have to stop running into the same wall. It’s counterproductive and it hurts.

Then again is being accepted unconditionally too much to ask for? (this is rhetorical and needs no answer).

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Feminism and parenthood

Feministing had an article about the Salary.com study that “a mother’s love is worth 117,00 per year.”

First of all, what the hell does that mean? I thought love was something you couldn’t put a price on? I thought that was the last remaining hold on out price. We put a price on our time, now we should put a price on our love? What the fuck is that shit about?

If a stay-at-home mom could be compensated in dollars rather than personal satisfaction and unconditional love, she’d rake in a nifty sum of nearly $117,000 a year.

I’m more annoyed than I can say right now.

So onto the Feministing bits.

As if women who contribute at home get a once-a-year chance to brag about how much they’re worth – and then it’s back to cleaning up socks with no compensation. Am I just jaded?

Yeah, just a little. There’s a little more to parenthood than cleaning up socks. Parents are a little more than underpaid daycare providers (?!?), taxi drivers, cooks and cleaners. To boil it down to that is to trivilaze the importance of parents (and BOTH parents. Dad’s do stuff around the house too. They drive, they cook, they care for children, they do house maintenance. Maybe not always on the scale of what mom’s do but they are still important for the raising of a child).

Do we put a price on nurturing? On comforting? On coaching soccer so the a bunch of kids can play because no one else stepped up? On helping with homework? On sacrificing work commitments so you can watch their class play? On giving advice on how to deal with a bully or a friend who’s having trouble? On cuddling your baby? On watching your child go off happy to school? Fostering self-confidence? On seeing them go off to college with most of the skills they need to succeed?

There’s some good comments on the feministing site.

They calculate that number to help people understand that mothering IS work-I’d be happier if this was calculated for stay at home parents instead of mothers, but if people continue to insist that raising PEOPLE is not a worthwhile cause, they’ll still need to do them.

I mean, it would be nice to get a paycheck sure – but just to have more money, not because that would somehow validate my worth as a mother. I recognize that I am extremely lucky to be able to stay home with my infant right now – but it is still hard ass work. And as “icky lovey dovey” as it sounds to some, the rewards ARE better than money. This does not make me a better mother than those who work. But it is my choice and I am happy with it. –jennifer

Exactly, there people. Money is not the point. Some of the rewards are better than money. Knowing that I will have a capable adult someday is the goal I keep focused on. It makes the little things much easier to deal with. It does make it worthwhile in the end.

Some things are more important than money. Because, when you die you only get the legacy you left. And money isn’t much of a legacy.