Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let it Snow.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Despite the day of green we're covered in white (another snow storm) here in Virginia. In nearly late March. The Federal government is shut down again. Blogger is fighting me and won't let me add photos to this post. Grr.

Today I thought I'd take Jennifer Boykin's advice from "Life After Tampons"  and "quit (my) bitching. Change (my) life."

So, instead of the post I'd planned or a rant about the snow, I thought I'd list the top 10 things I like about having yet another snow day.
1. I get to work in my sweats.

2. I don't have to drive three or more hours today.

3. I get to have a snowball fight with my boys and even up the score from last snow day!

4. My husband isn't running off to court and I get to see him while there's still daylight.

5. My husband made me an omlet for breakfast.

6. The animals:  Pips (our youngest horse) did not colic and has fully recovered from his upset tummy, Blue (our arthritic black lab) loves the snow and she was jumping around like a puppy in the snow drifts and  Chewie (our dumber than a post Boxer-mix) got to wear his puppy jacket and played in the snow.

7. I "don't have to" and everyone accepts that answer since they "don't have to" (get to the office , go shopping, or anything else we usually label as a "should" item) because no one is going anywhere today.

8. The Price is Right is on.

9.  There's a fire in the fire place.

10. I get to roast marshmallows and watch a movie with my sons.

Okay, so maybe the snow's not all that bad. Even in Virginia. In mid-March. Without photos in this post.

"I Get Knocked Down...

…but I get up again. You’re never gonna keep me down.” – Tubthumping by Chumbawamba.

 

Tubthumping has become my theme song for the last six months or so. Why? Well, that doesn’t really matter. I’ll not engage in a pity party here other than to say that I’ve been off balance since October and every time I think I’m getting my feet other me again another blow falls.  Amidst this chaos have also been amazing moments of light and joy. Welcome to the roller coaster that is my world.

What have I learned from my own trials over the last six months and watching friends and family struggle through depression, illness and death?

Chumbawamba had it right. You gotta get up again.  Even when part of your brain is calculating how fast you need to drive to hit that tree hard enough to overcome the car’s safety devices. Death is the only finish line. The later you cross it, the better.

Even if you didn’t watch the Olympics you probably saw news coverage or heard someone talking last month about Jeremy Abbott's fall.  On his very first jump his plans all went horribly wrong and he fell to the ice. Despite hitting the wall, hard, despite lying immobile for several seconds, despite his coach seeking to bring him back to the sidelines to get medical attention and despite rising with clearly injured ribs – Jeremy Abbott got up and skated on. He nailed the rest of his performance and ended up in the number one position for that point in the competition. Unfortunately, the lead didn’t last. But he got up again.

He’s a champion and a role model I’m proud to point out to my kids and believe in myself. He got up again.

Sometimes that’s all we can do.

We stumble and land wrong. If we are really lucky there are people who love us and won’t let us fall. Sometimes though we have to find it in ourselves to catch ourselves and get up when we fall.

Failure teaches what not to do. Learning what not to do leads to progress. Ultimately, progress leads to success. Falling doesn’t keep you from being successful. Giving up and not getting up does.

So, for now, I’m keeping Tubthumping cranked.

I get knocked, down but I get up again

You're never gonna keep me down

I get knocked, down but I get up again

You're never gonna keep me down

I get knocked, down but I get up again

You're never gonna keep me down

I get knocked, down but I get up again

You're never gonna keep me down

Then again maybe I'll just defy gravity.

To see Jeremy’s performance and interview about the fall, please check out:

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/jeremy-abbott-perseveres-after-hard-fall-mens-short-program?ctx=olympic-journey

Always get up when you fall.

Fun with Children and Electronics

 

Okay, I'm not advocating that we combine children and electronics. It seems to me that a child cyborg is the way to Armageddon, but that's another blog post. No, I'm talking about ways that technology  and its limitations can make for a hysterical car ride.

I work about 60 miles from my house. The distant isn't too terrible until you factor in two things. Some days I have "kid duty" meaning I need to pickup or drop off my sons that their schools. Then there's the "usual" D.C. Metro Area traffic.

Rush hour in DC is anything buy usual. At my first job as a lawyer, my boss use to complain that he never knew when I would be there was an hour swing in my start time. Now, I left the house within a fifteen minute window every day, and back then I had to drop both boys off at daycare on the way to the office. If it rained, if the sun shone, if there was an accident, if there were three accidents, f it was Friday or Monday, my travel time varied widely. And don't even talk to me about what happens around here when it snows. One day I called in saying couldn't get to the office because after two hours of commuting I still had at least two more hours to go. If I add a kid pickup or drop off into the mix my commute goes up at least an hour and a half one way.

Now, lots of people have worse commutes. I'm not seeking sympathy. Well, not a lot. But what an hour and a half to two hours of commuting each way with children in the car means is a lot of time with bored children.

We plan for long commutes. The boys are encouraged to bring their electronic game systems with

them because talking about our days only takes up about 15 minutes of the ride. The other day my husband and I divided and conquered to take advantage of the HOV lanes. Mikey and I headed into an hour and a half commute.  On this particular trip, Mikey's game system ran out of power. Ah, the joy of ADD kids who forget to charge electronics. But there's also a backup plan for this. My smart phone has many many game apps. Rather than play one of those, Mikey decided to play with the voice search function. You know, the function when you say "I am hungry" into the phone and it pops up a web search of nearby restaurants. Hilarity can ensue when the voice recognition algorithm misunderstands what you've asked.

Mike wanted to know how many turtles there were in the world. After much rephrasing of the question we learned that the population of pet turtles in the United States was 1,991 million. Singing "la la la la lala la" confused the search request. At one point it appeared that we'd so "frustrated" the search function that it gave up. The last 45 minutes of the drive flew by.

We arrived home with tears in our eyes from laughing so hard, and more than a few story ideas in my head from search requests that went horribly and hysterically wrong. I'm almost looking forward to today's commute.

Cookng wiith family

Mikey, my 12-year old son, wants to be a chef. We watch Master Chef together. He has his favorite contestant and I have mine. We'll see which want-to-be Master Chef wins. This weekend he asked to learn how to make a gravy. I'm Sicilian so the thing in the picture above isn't tomato sauce, it's gravy. Okay, now that we have that squared away, I can continue.

The recipe for gravy is a loosely guarded secret. I learned from my Mom, who learned from her Mom, and so on and so on. I say the secret is "loosely guarded" because there aren't any real measurements that go with it. It's a pinch of this, a palm full of that. You know. One of those good old fashioned recipes.

Mikey and I spent the early part of the afternoon chopping garlic, and putting together the gravy. The trick about a good gravy (that all those commercial companies forget) is that it has to simmer for hours to get the best blend of flavors. We did all the prep work, and then I had to leave to grocery shop.

We live on a horse farm. The closest grocery story is a 20 minute drive. Needless to say, a trip to the grocery story approaches an "event" and takes at least 2 hours. Since I was going to be gone during the simmer time, I told Mikey that he had to stir the gravy every 15 minutes (about once after each show ended), and to add water if the liquid level went down. To hedge my bet, I told my husband the same thing.

Imagine my surprise on my way hone when my husband called and asked if there was any premade sauce I would eat.

They had had several issues in my absence. They moved the sauce to a smaller burner on the stove so that it didn't boil quite so much. That was one issue well handled. The next one . .. not so much. Both of them failed to notice that the water had boiled off and what they had in the pot was really tomato paste and not gravy. Somehow when Matt went out to walk the dogs and feed the horses, the stove was turned up. When he came back the tomato paste was burnt. Hence the call to me.

Now, keep in mind that Matt has actually made gravy before. I taught him how when we were dating. When I asked him how he hadn't noticed that the gravy had turned to paste, he said (and I quote) "Have we met?" and blinked his baby blues at me.

Sigh.

The gravy couldn't be salvaged. We ordered pizza. Take 2 - next weekend.

Integrity

Integrity has been on my mind lately. In the continuum of human actions there's a whole lot of grey between black and white. Some people wallow in gray. Most companies do. So, when Maker's Mark announced in early February that it was going to lower its alcohol content from 45% to 42%, I took notice.

Why?

Most companies hide when they are going to give us less. Take for example my 5 pound bag of sugar. Oh wait. You can't.  Across the board, all the sugar producers very quietly, and at the same time, went from 5 pound bags to 4 pound bags. Oh yes, and the price stayed the same. So consumers were tricked into a 20% price increase. This sneaky change didn't endear the sugar companies to me.

But Maker's Mark let us know that it was changing its product because it wanted people to be able to buy more than one glass when they were out. It was honest. A trait rarely seen on our playgrounds anymore, much less corporate America. Anyway, after lots of hue and cry, Maker's Mark decided not to change its product.

Some (like Forbes) have speculated that the whole debacle was a publicity stunt to increase brand awareness. And, I'm not naive enough to discount the idea. It might have been. But I suspect that if people hadn't complained, Maker's Mark would have gone ahead with its plans and diluted its alcohol content to sell more liquor.

Here's where Maker's Mark won me over, even if this was a PR stunt, it came right out and told consumers what it was going to do and why. It didn't engage in a sneaky price hike by reducing what I get for my money and not telling me.As a result, Maker's Mark will remain a brand I trust.

To me integrity in writing means having integrity means keeping your promise to your readers. There are writers who I know will give me a good story, and great world building for each novel I pick up no matter how different this series is from what's come before. Those writers have earned my trust because of their integrity. I could name drop, but I won't unless you ask which writers I trust in the comments.

Not surprisingly, I'm leery of picking up stories by other writers because they don't have story integrity for me. These are the writers whose plot twists only existed because that writer withheld information a POV character knew.

We make thousands of choices every day. Most of them don't have long term implications in our lives. Some that seem immediate - like what to have for lunch - can have longer term effects. Every once and a while, though, we face a choice that can change our life.

We work all our lives to build our reputations, both personal and professional. One bad choice can destroy a reputation.

I'm going to suggest that when you're standing at one of those crossroads, whether as a writer or some other part of your life, choose the path that shows your integrity. People will keep coming back if you do.