mimsy and outgrabe

I've spawned! Sunday, March 10, 10:56 p.m. To one super squirmy infant (7 lbs, 15 oz, 20 inches long -- for those who care about the stats) who has decided to be just like her older sister: a night owl. We're not sleeping much these days, but we forgive her. She's squishy and fun to cuddle. I'm not taking an official hiatus from the blog, since this blog isn't really an official, respectable piece of interweb fodder anyway, but it'll probably take a while before I can write often or with any regularity. I do intend to write, though -- this is, after all, a very cathartic exercise for me. And having to adjust to this new three-child system may call for a little bit of catharsis, methinks.

Last year I didn't publish my resolutions publicly, or post such lengthy reflections, either -- but I did do the reflecting, and I drafted some resolutions, too, and wrote them down on an index card which I kept at the front of a file holder on my desk, which occupies one corner of our living room. I thought that each time I sat down to write or check email I'd see my little index card and be reminded of the important things, the things I'd deemed important enough to write down, and that I'd work (more) actively to stay true to those resolutions. Of course, one of my resolutions should have been to "keep a tidier house," but it wasn't, and as I only really act when my actions have been dictated by an official list, my desk stayed buried under several inches of piled paper (miscellaneous pages of catalog, things identified as "to read" but rarely read, misplaced bills, and returned school/artwork from the kiddos), and so I didn't use my...

I feel like I should put some kind of disclaimer on this blog . . . not much is going on lately. I've been incredibly sleepy lately, and indulging that sleepiness, so that I'm actually logging about 10 hours of sleep a night . . . which is just incredible for me. (Usually I get about 6-8 hours  . . .) I've had lots and LOTS of kid time lately. Little Girl's camp doesn't begin until next week, so I've been full-time mommy for about three weeks now. Because I've been sleeping in until I hear the pitter patter of little feet (or, more aptly put, the stomp stomp stomp of those little feet), I've relinquished the two hours of quiet, in-my-head time that I find necessary to do any real writing or reading or reflecting. It's not terrible, though. I'm finding it difficult to push through this exhaustion thing -- hell, I'm even napping when The Boy naps during the day, so that's about 1 to 2 more hours of sleep -- but I've been spen...

I'm a little behind in my blog posts, I know. Imma little behind in everything, frankly. Practically the second after I posted that last revision of my sabbatical report, and sent the real sabbatical report off to Stuffolk's Sabbatical Committee, I appeared on the radar of some angry and vengeful god who decided it was about time I pay for all of the past six month's writing productivity. Zap! And like that, I awoke to a world filled with all-of-the-stuff-I-haven't-done. And I haven't written much of anything since then. Not a good sign. This weekend, however -- the first low-key weekend in quite some time -- was good for getting some of that done. Mostly homefront kind of work like: paying past-due bills (our usually neat-and-orderly finances another casualty of the sabbatical); laundry; going through stacks of old mail and paper cluttering the kitchen counters; cleaning up the yard; and planting some peas in the vegetable garden. Mostly, it was all stuff tha...

Little Miss Talkalot is Little Miss Very Sad. Because she's caught some kind of virus replete with fever, she missed the Valentine's Day celebrations at school yesterday and she's missing today's 100th day of school celebrations. (Apparently, there's always something to celebrate in our elementary school, which really isn't a bad way to live life, is it?) A. stayed home with the girl yesterday, and today it's my turn. I'm missing two meetings and cancelling the same class I had to cancel on Friday when the boy was diagnosed with strep throat. This season of illness is kicking my butt. It's been a week since I assumed the new administrative role and yet I haven't really had a chance to fulfill its duties. But at the very least, I can say that I'm not falling behind in four classes, just one. Also, it's just really weird to see my daughter so sick. And it's not that she's near-death, but that we're just not used to seeing ...

I'm up late. But at least I'm up late because I've been writing, and not because I've been skulking aimlessly on the interwebs, which I have a tendency to do when I'm tired and mush-brained. (Hopefully the tired-and-mush-brained-ness didn't result in tired and mushy poetry. We'll see tomorrow, when I wake up and reread tonight's work.) I haven't had a chance to write much this week -- both of my children have had colds, probably some distant cousin of the plague I had earlier in the month. The youngest (the boy) insisted that he was too ill to go to school on Monday, and so I let him stay home and I did what I could in between multiple trips to the kitchen for snacks (apparently the plague didn't affect his appetite) and playing puzzles and turning on the TV for 10 minute intervals of Wonder Pets or Jake and the Neverland Pirates or whatever nonsense attracted his attention before he decided he was hungry again. Then Tuesday morning the g...

I'm due for my beginning-of-the-month Survey of Completed Sabbatical Work, which more often than not tends to be part of my Continued Sabbatical Freakout. So here I am, ready to take stock of what I accomplished in November -- but surprisingly, even though this precious writing time is dwindling away, I'm significantly less freaked out than I was a month ago. I'm not finished with my Fairytale Poem -- but I've made good progress. I feel so much more sure of myself since I returned to the original storyline and began working revisions of those original lyric poems into the narrative. I realize that last sentence kinda sounds like a recipe for disaster, and I suppose it's very possible that the project could, indeed, turn out to be a disaster, but I'm confident that it won't. For now I'm confident, at least. I finished reading Blank Verse: A Guide to Its History and Use by Robert B. Shaw yesterday, and I would like to go on record as saying that Robe...

I begin the weekend with a rare feeling of enthusiasm and optimism about my work. It's not that I usually start my weekends feeling pessimistic and ambivalent -- about life in general OR about my writing. It's just that I have absolutely nothing going on this weekend but hanging out with my kids. Since my husband's out of town, I'm going to attempt productivity in the downtime I have (early morning, nap time, those odd moments when they're playing with one another peacefully, and after they're in bed.) After writing for the past two days, I believe I've found the happy middle ground with my accursed fairytale poem that I've been searching for, in earnest, since August. It's not time to rest on my laurels can, either. (I don't have laurels. I do, however, have a can. A can in desperate need of some treadmill time, too.) I am all too aware that I made a pledge in my last post to be finished with this manuscript by the end of the month. Of cours...