Christmas Apologies

I hear the song “Christmas Time is Here” several times a week—almost daily—during the month of December. My special needs son is a Peanuts head. He has perfect pitch and a great talent for mimicking voices. Next time you want to hear Charlie Brown music, just ask. He serenaded my friend thing morning…
No, the singing isn’t what I want to apologize for. (Unless, uh… it really hurts your ears.)
I would like to confess a prior judgmental attitude. I’ve freed myself of it and wish to publicly say I’m sorry. I came to the realization of the errors of my thinking a couple years ago, but still held on to that “it won’t be me” attitude.
I’M SORRY TO ALL THOSE PEOPLE OVER THE COURSE OF MY LIFETIME THAT I THOUGHT REALLY DIDN’T CARE BECAUSE THEY ONLY GAVE ME A CHRISTMAS CARD WITH THEIR NAMED SIGNED IN IT!
There.
It’s out.
I judged.
And now I am guilty of the same offense—even worse!
This year I handed out/mailed a pre-printed Kodak Christmas card (with my kidlets picture on it, of course) to 98% of the people on my list. I didn’t even have to sign my name on it—I only addressed the envelopes! And I didn’t do a year-in-review family letter to go with it.
Yes, it’s been sneaking up on me. Here’s my sad tale:
Once upon a time, I mulled over a personalized paragraph for each recipient of a Christmas card.
After one child, the cards just had a couple lines—and a wallet-sized photo of the darling kidlet.
Two kids = bigger photo and maybe a sentence in greeting/closing.
Three kids = a half-way decent picture of the three of them or all separate on a collage picture card if they weren’t cooperative… and about half the people on the list got an actual paper card as well. Here’s a sample from 2009, doctored to protect the innocent:

This year is the year of the photo card, with few exceptions.
Maybe it’s the wordsmith in me, but I used to think that if someone didn’t care enough to at least write me a little note, why bother to give me the card. I showed them love and appreciation by writing them a few words of reflection or hope—wasn’t I worth that effort on their part?
So, yeah…
Life happens.
My daily list of tasks to accomplish swells.
As I mature, my ability to love grows and my circle of family and friends expands with that love.
AND I DO CARE, EVEN IF I DIDN’T SIGN MY NAME!
In closing I want your thoughts. Is it better to keep a circle small in order to pad a Christmas card with words or share a short greeting (or three smiling faces) with a wider group of people?

Pass-A-Long Tag

I was tagged (FIRST) yesterday by the fantabulous Lėna Roy for a “bloggy game”. You have to answered these questions, after being tagged by someone else, and then pass the tag on to eight more bloggers.
This will be the first blog attempt at embedding a link under someone's name, so bear with me if it doesn't go as planned.


What do you think of when you the hear the word tag?
A gaggle of jeering kids laughing at me for being slow.

Do you think you're hot?
It's summer in the south, so yeah, I'm hot!

Upload a picture or wallpaper that you're using at the moment.

When was the last time you ate chicken?
Sometime this past week...

The song(s) you listened to recently.
I actually heard a new(?) song on the radio Saturday that made me think of Corroded's main character. Now I need to track it down and add it to my iTunes wish list. Death Cab for Cutie “You're a Tourist”. (At least I think that's what the DJ said.) It almost fits my WIP perfectly, except the character is not in her hometown--but she's lived there a couple years.


What were you thinking as you were doing this?
Seriously, she tagged me first?! And she remembers me as being one of the first responders to her blog many moons ago. Wow—can't wait to meet her in March.


Do you have nicknames? What are they?
The most widely used is Care/Care Bear. My self-labeled name is Wonderwegian, obviously.


Tag 8 blogger friends:
Stephanie Lawton
Joyce Sterling Scarborough
Dee
Abbi Glines
Jessica
Laura
Auntie M
Beautiful Wreck



Who's listed as No. 1?
Stephanie. Local writer buddy and hook-up for all things YA. Me thinks she needs a fluffy blog to soften her recent angst.

Say something about No. 5
My brilliantly funny cousin, who will probably curse me for tagging her. Want blogs with $5 words and deep questions while you laugh—go read her!

How did you get to know No. 3?
Mobile Writer's Guild and QuillMasters critique group. Dee is the real deal—she doesn't hold back and lays her life bare.

How about No. 4.
Abbi found me on Twitter—never heard how. She's a local (across Mobile Bay) YA writer and does oodles of blogging and Twitter and Facebook. We are suppose to meet soon... Write Club?

Leave a message for No. 6.
Laura, your blogs are LOL funny. I follow yours and read them, so please do the same for me. :) Do you even remember me? You were only about ten when I moved away, but your house was like a second home to me. I mean, did any of Staci's other friends stick it out through Super Saturdays (with all those chores) more than once?

Leave a lovey dovey message for No. 2.
Joyce, you are the heart and soul of zombie chicks. The world needs you to blog more often. You do creeps the best so finish that book, please!

Do No. 7 and No. 8 have any similarities?
Actually, they do! Though one lives the California dream, and the other is living life in the natural wonders of South Alabama, both do blogs that have "content warnings". They are each smart, sassy, and not afraid to speak their minds. When either are in a room, they are most likely entertaining others--through conversation or talents.
Auntie M hasn't blogged in months and Beautiful Wreck is on hiatus, so I'm not sure if either will get around to this.

R&R

It's been a week of healing and transitions.

I was elected president of the local writer's guild this week so I'm busy networking with the new board members. I'm excited to try to give back some of what I've been given in the past two years I've been member of the group.

While recovering from surgery, I've had the pleasure to lay around and read so my list of books is larger than normal for this short of a time period.

I actually got an ARC for this—rare that I get one for a book/author I REALLY want to read. A fun tale that I'll be passing on to a couple daughters of a friend of mine. Gail Carson Levine is a fantastic storyteller.

What drew me to this book at the store was the price—bargain bin at Books-A-Million—but also the slim size of it, 153 pages. I'll be surprised if my WIP breaks 200 pages when it's done. Jan M. Czech does a great job of painting the characters well in so few words.

This was a loner from a local friend. It was fascinating to see how Ann Turner wove fact and fiction into the Salem witch trials. Totally believable, and the ending was surprising.

Another slim bargain book choice. Brenda Woods shares a fabulous, emotional journey of a group of students reacting to tragedy in this contemporary YA novel. Enjoyed the mental trip back to California, even if it was L.A.

I Did It!

I survived Blog Free February, with the bonus of not using social networking sites. But to be fair, I must list my infractions.

I cheated day one, February first, only to check Laurie Halse Anderson's Live Journal site to see if she posted about Blog Free February since she didn't over the weekend. She'd posted, calling for her readers everywhere to decrease their internet time to increase their creative productivity. I was geared up and wrote two and a half pages that day—more than twice my regular amount.

February tenth I received a message from from our dear old Facebook stating that my BFF from elementary school was requesting friendship. I went to that acceptance page only. Then, I sent an e-mail to tell her I wouldn't be on FB until next month.

On February eleventh a cousin tagged me in a photo on pesky FB and one of my sisters and another cousin commented on the photo. I gave in to the curiosity and looked at the photo page and was rewarded by a black and white group shot of more than a dozen cousins from a family reunion circa 1982. And yes, I did leave a comment that it looked like I was pulling out a wedgie.

February nineteenth a BFF from middle school requested my FB friendship so, once again, I logged on to the friendship request page only. (Blog Free February didn't mean I had to ignore my BFFs.) And while I was there I went ahead and friended all the other people who had requested I add them over the last few weeks. Yes, I had ignored many other FB requests.


And the results of my month long effort. Drum roll, please...

I doubled the productivity of my most successful writing month (since I've kept track of my page counts last fall.) More than tripled my average writing page count per month. I actually wrote while the kids were all awake during the day and after they were all asleep several times. I'd been limiting myself to nap-time only writing for some silly reason.

I've listened to more music than I have in the last few years, partly due to my new iPod and iTunes account. With my complete music collection on my computer it's easy to listen and find inspiration while working. Long live Mitch Malloy!

Plus, I increased my mileage for exercising. Since I wasn't checking several sites first thing in the morning (and didn't have half a dozen or more e-mails about follow-up comments on FB) I had more time to devote to my workout before the kids woke up.

I've decided what I can live without: TMI and information over-load.

Aside from hiding the apps on FB (which I've been doing for months) I'll be hiding some people from my news feed to cut down on the time I spend catching up with family scattered across the states and close-to-my-heart-but-far-way friends. I think I concurred the need to scroll through every posting since last visit. But in case my OCD flares and I get the urge to do so, having less people on the news feed page will shorten the time doing so.

Twitter I was only checking once a day, but I could easily go a day or more without it. It's diffidently a good networking tool so I want to keep it around.

As for blogging... I won't try to post weekly but I'm sure I'll blog at least once or twice a month. I'll probably drop a couple of the blogs I've been following, too.

On a side note, I've been awake for several hours and haven't checked FB or Twitter of any blogs. But I will as soon as I post this. :)