New Years Resolutions

Last year, I did really great about staying on top of my new year's resolutions.  I dropped the weight and focused more on my own little family, instead of trying to be super mom.  Yes, I still went to school, and found a million things that still needed done. But, I kept my focus so directed at the kiddos that I have good habits and will keep going how I'm going.

So, this year, I'm really focusing on being a better human - less waste, better practices - and teaching that stuff to my kids.  Because, after all, I don't just want them to have a better world to live in.  One day they will (hopefully) give me grandbabies.  Those kids need a clean world too.

I thought we were pretty good at it now, but oh how wrong have I been!  There's a million things I could do to make things better, and as I flipped through a simple google search about how to be more environmentally friendly, my mind started to spin.

After looking at a million things, I finally shut my computer down and just sat there, staring at the wall.  It was late at night, and the world was all asleep except save-the-world-Estelle.  Didn't I just spend a year trying to get out of the habit of conquering the world, and instead being the master of my tiny little corner of it?  Oh, how easy it is to back slide into old habits.

The solution here is to pace myself, so this is what I'm going to do.  I'm going to pick three things every month to make the world a better place.  They will be things simple enough that I can teach the boys, so that impact will not be just for today, but for the future as well.

Gasp!

I can save the world (a little)!

Opening up my computer again, I started to search for this month's three things with a little more careful direction.  It turns out somethings I was already doing.  For example, we wash almost everything in cold, except whites.  This cuts down on the water heater power, but you know what doesn't?  Bathtime.

Baths use up 2x as much energy and water as showers - and I'm as guilty as the boys.  I don't shower. I run a steaming bath and lay around with a book until I'm as pruney as I can stand.

But that's an easy thing to change and teach the boys.  There's number one.

Number two has to do with my coffee.  I do bring a refillable cup so I'm totally irresponsible. But I always fill my coffee, and then then mix in my creamer using those little sticks.  If you put the creamer in before you fill it, it mixes itself just fine, no little sticks needed.  This saves on manufactured materials, and landfill space. I often bring a kiddo for hot chocolate, and they do the same thing, so I'll teach them right way to do it.

Number 3 has to do with dinner time. We aren't big meat eaters, but we do eat some. It turns out that the kind of meat you eat can have a big impact on the environment.  Cattle, even grass fed, chemical/drug free, still have a huge impact on the environment.  They require a ton of pasture and release a ton of methane gas into the atmosphere.  If we cut down on our meals that include beef, we also cut down on that impact.  So, at least one meal a week meat free is number three.

Review: Mind Games by Kiersten White

I loved this book.

Like, couldn't-put-it-down-read-through-it-unbearably-fast-and-now-am-aching-for-the-next-one-in-the-series-kind-of-love.  If I could give it a twenty on a five point scale, I seriously would.

So, the gist of this is that there's people in the world who have psychic abilities.  You know - read minds, see the future - and they are brought to this school.  This isn't the usual school - but we're not talking x-men either.  It's a bad school with some really negative agendas.  The story circles around a pair of sisters with different abilities, and...

That's all I'm going to say.  Every piece of this book is fascinating and I feel like if I give anything more - anything at all - I rob you of the opportunity to discover it yourself.

That said, you should just read it.  Right now.  Get on Amazon - call in sick to your job - make you mom take the kids - don't go to school - whatever it is that you need to do to have a day with your kindle.

It's worth it.

Firing up the Doubt Machine

The semester is coming to an end today.  As in, I have to take that last Statistics final, provided I don't step in front of a bus first to avoid it. Then I can pretend I've never even heard of graduate school for three blissful weeks. Hopefully, the best thing will start - I'll even sleep at night.  I'll stop studying after the kids get to bed and I'll... dare I say it... sleep all night long - even past my 5:30 am train back to school. Angels will sing.  Quietly, I hope.

So, why does this not make me pile up the pillows, burrowing down under a pile of blankets while I have all the episodes I've missed of Grim lulling me to sleep?

Because now I have time to think about things unrelated to HR or being a mom.  Even Grim can't occupy my mind enough to stop the what ifs from drifting into my mind in the wee hours when my husband is snoring softly beside me.

I'm 80% done with book 2 of the Timeless Games series, and I have even started outlining the first of a completely different series.  I've finished a couple of novellas, and they are out to my betareaders. I've already contacted my editor - it's coming - get ready! But, I'm back to worrying - what if this book sucks?  What if no one else loves it like I do?  What if I step back one day and say, huh - indie writing was expensive and other than crappier clothes and some serious stress weight loss, I really am just not going to be able to hack it as a writer.

So where is the doubt coming from?

I'll tell you.

A couple of times over the last couple of weeks, I've had classmates say something along the lines of the following to me. Now, keep in mind... there's 33 of us, but only 5 are female.  The rest are male - a more gossipy group of males than most junior high girls, but they are still male.  So they say.

Them: So what is your book about?
Me: Oh, it's a YA novel. You wouldn't like it. Unless you're a high school girl (My subconscious is nodding here - yes, yes they are...)
Them: Oh, like Twilighty vampires or something?
Me: Oh, no! It's nothing like that.

Hard to display tone, but I've done a couple of things here.  First, I communicated that I would never lower myself down to write something like Twilight.  Never.  I am so much better then that, which is completely absurd, because I love Twilight, and devoured the series in a week a couple years ago, and then bought it in Arabic to read as well.  I would love to have thought of the idea, and had the chance to write their story.  Bella might have been a bit less of a pushover if it was me writing, but the whole love story thing?  Of course I'd write that because I already did!  Almost every movie I've seen/book I've read had some big love story as part of the core, so it's absurd to not assume that's going to be a major component what whatever I write.

Second, I made it sound like YA is obviously beneath my cohort because we are all snooty grad students, and would never read anything written for that age group.  PFFFFTTTTTT....!  Really?  With the exception of the Cousins' war series and WWZ, I've read nothing but YA for the last couple years.  It kept me sane when I was alone in Jordan and really needed someone else's problems to combat that loneliness.

So, if I can't even admit what I'm writing, then the quiet hours that are keeping me from the sleep already 16 weeks late in coming are sending a giant, pressing message.

I need to take a good hard look at myself.

YES, I write about high school aged characters, and so what?  There's a solid camp of people who say the high school years are some of the best in their life.  I also have some more adult aspects of my book that appeal to ... well people my own age.  A single mother, raising her kid alone.  Overbearing men and trying to live your life in spite of them - is that too teenie bopper?  I don't think so. Further, the books getting like over 4* from reviewers, and emails from folks saying when's the next one coming. Surely, I can't be a completely talent-free hack.

I think the problem with genre writing, especially with this genre, is that we get too stuck in the idea that it has to be a certain thing that only appeals to a certain kind of person.  We forget that, much like our own lives, things have complicated layers that appeal to far more people then we might first think - ask any mother who likes Spongebob more than their kids (Guilty!).  People are reading my book, and they like it - so I must be doing something right.

How do you know winter is bad?

When the car does this backing down a drive way.

To be fair, this house we were staying at has a heated driveway that wasn't working, which might suggest that this could happen.

But still.

Really?

My poor husband was going off to work, and took a picture.  Ya, boss... I might be late...

Puppies and Race Cars

Sunday is the day reserved for our family.  The week is crazy, but we find some place quiet, some place were we can reconnect together. Near my house is a canyon that is blocked off from cars - safe for the dogs to run off leash when other dogs aren't around.

Today I spent our walk stuck in reflection. My kids chatted with each other and my husband, but I was quiet - thinking - stuck in my own head.

My husband and I have been married for a while now.  One thing that has always been true about us is I've always had a small pack of dogs following me around, and he's found a reason to drag race whatever he was driving at the time.

Early on in our marriage we saw the first in the Fast and the Furious franchise with all our drag racing buddies. Every couple years there was another one, and I'll be honest - as much as I love being out in nature,  Friday night drags always have been big part of our life.  I'd bring a dog, and watch my husband race his baby, while I sat next to mine. Those movies felt like extensions of that experience - all our friends meeting at the theater with their loud little race cars.


Yesterday, when I heard that the Buster, Paul Walker, had passed, I was so sad.  At first I couldnt understand why I was so impacted.  I'm not into celebrity gossip, and while a celebrity crisis can seem like such a big deal to the public - they are just people with the same problems of everyone else.  Theirs is just more public than the rest of us, plastered all over the tabloids.

Life is too short to get wrapped up in a stranger's problems, so I've never got into that.  But this tragic death felt very different for me.

With this death, it feels like a piece of my marriage, my history, passed with him.  Sure, I can throw on a DVD and watch it again and again, and the drags are still there with the smell of melted rubber every Friday night. But, it's just not the same, knowing that that guy with that sweet, genuine smile isn't around anymore.

I didn't know the guy, but he seemed like such a nice guy.  He was active in his charity, and he loved dogs. Anyone who loves dogs has a special place in my heart.

This morning in the canyon, I couldn't help but wonder what the world will miss out on, now that Mr. Walker is gone.  Frank and the labs happily romped with the boys, and I felt so lucky to have them, to watch them play.  I couldn't help but think of Mr. Walker's family, and how a Thanksgiving passed for them, blissfully unaware that the end was so near. I hope that his family is comforted with that memory at this time.  I hope that his legacy of kindness lives on. RIP Paul Walker.