Day 334

Wayyyyyy late blogging, but better late than never. Sort of. I hate clichés, actually.

I’ve been really busy. In addition to teaching, my wife and I own a small health and wellness and green magazine, and at particular times of the month, editing needs to be done and it takes priority over most everything else, That, in turn, puts me behind grading papers, so that’s how it goes and why I am behind on most everything at the moment, including my writing.

I have had a couple of interesting things happen with the writing though, in the last few days. Three days ago, a character – a middle-aged Black woman – woke me u to make sure I wrote something very important down for inclusion in the book I am trying to get finished. I say trying, as I have written and re-written the first chapter many, many times, and re-done the ending most recently. What she had to say wasn’t earth shaking, but it adds to the primary character and helps with end-of-story understanding, so it was important. I hate to ignore such things because if I do, thinking I will remember the next morning – I don’t, and some of my best ideas are then lost forever.

I also had a young boy – also Black – do the same thing. He’s ten, and works with his father (who is blind) in the stables. I have a serious scene where a good old man is harassed by some riders and then hung because he doesn’t have answers to their questions, and while I like it as written, the boy had some ideas that will make the scene much better and alleviate a possible issue – good deal. It’s just that I tend to push hard and when I finally do go to bed, I am ready. Really ready. And I hate to get up to write a paragraph or a few notes. I tried the Seinfield pad-by-the-bed thing, but I had the same issue with it he did in one episode of his show.

The youngest daughter and her husband were due here last night to pick up a giant computer desk/armoire sort of thing that is sitting in our small living room, but money was short so they might have to wait a weekend or two to get it. They own a business that is dependent upon some conditions that are weather related, and it has been slow for them so they have some money that is slow coming in. There’s a possibility they might come today, and that would be great.

Food this week has been mostly home made, with one foray to PeiWei (a Chinese place). Yesterday, KL was tired and in town at the same time, so she picked up a single serving (which is what we always do) and we split it. My favorite Chinese place and for $10 it feds us both – such is the power of Americanized servings. Twice what one person really needs, so it feeds up both (and I ain’t a little guy!). That alone says a lot about how easy it is to fatten up by simply eating out – especially that generation of us who heard all about the “starving kids in China who would love to have what we have on our plates” so eat up. We did, we do, and we have weight issues.

We are both being careful about extras or unnecessary calories, but I need to up my movement. Most of the exercise I get at the moment is from parking as far back in the school parking lots as I can and walking, which hasn’t been fun with the cold and the rain. We have some pretty steep hills here and I need to walk them with KL, who is doing much better with her walking. I’m planning or removing some cedar trees here, so that will work as “exercise” I am sure.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, so there is a “Chocolate Walk” in one of the local towns and KL wants to go. We have two sets of friends due here in a couple of hours. So I have to start getting ready soon. Still have a ton of papers to grade, but that will just have to wait. KL comes first today (and most days –okay, all of them).
One person in each couple works with us on the magazine (Citlalli on ad design, Olivia on some sales), so we bought their tickets for this event.

Didn’t write much but at least no character got me up in the night to get this done, and that in and of itself, is a good thing. I’ll try to do better with it. I promise.

-Average Joe
Somewhere, USA