Today is the day you can avoid making decisions. If you think something, it’s wrong.
Today is the day to acknowledge you are not always right. You are imperfect.
People who accept their mistakes are usually treated with more respect than those who hesitate to take responsibility for their actions. Admitting one’s mistakes then attempting to fix things is the mark of a creative and successful person.
This is your day.
I have recently taken to wearing plastic bags inside my snow boots. They make the boots easier to get on and they add a layer of insulation. Someone, when they saw me doing this, cracked: “You need Wonderbread bags, not grocery bags, like we used when we were kids.”
Except in my family, we didn’t eat Wonderbread. We were a Millbrook family. There was a Millbrook bread bakery on the north side of the city. One could smell the bread baking when whizzing by on the interstate. My Girl Scout troop took a tour of the factory, where we learned that at least part of their advertising campaign was true: Millbrook Bread was baked to music.
When I first joined RWA, there was a column at the end of every issue of the Romance Writers’ Report called “The Last Word.” The one I remember most vividly is the transcript of the speech Anne Stuart delivered at the RWA National Conference Awards Luncheon on Saturday, August 1, 1998. While the industry has changed in ways we could not imagine back then, her advice is still relevant today:
…spotless houses take too much time out of life. Love your children, feed them, and teach them to do their own laundry. And then get back to work on your book.
Comedienne Phyllis Diller once quipped: “Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.”
Choreographer Twyla Tharp said: “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.”
In order make the time to write, compose, paint, dance, or in other ways create, something else has to go. One person can’t do everything. I recommend losing the housework. If the people who share your living space disagree, they are free to clean. ( And yes, you must make the time as opposed to finding it.)
Teaching your children how to do laundry, cook, and clean isn’t a bad thing. They will have life skills when they are launched into the world, and you will have the time and space to do your thing.
That’s balance.
Today is National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day.
This is something my Day Job does about every other month. TV Stevie and I try to do it weekly, on Sundays (because garbage day is Monday). Unfortunately, a lot of produce ends up in the trash.
About once a year, I go through the bottles of salad dressings and mustards to see what can be tossed.
How often do you clean your fridge?
I honestly thought I’d have half of my Book Bingo Challenge 2017 card filled out by now. Nope.
I think my problem is that I tend to re-read favorites (only one square allows a re-read) or I tend to read in the same categories. An author can be used only once. I tend to read my favorite author’s new releases, which eliminates them from the pool. The point of the challenge is to expand our knowledge of the romance genre by exploring sub-genres.
So far, the squares I have filled in are:
It’s time to see what else is on my Kindle.