Don't you hate breaking in those new shoes???

Getting the groove back...

After getting the wind knocked out of your sails, when nothing seems quite so important as it did before, how do you get your groove back?
I've been taking my WIP to work with me and editing on my lunch our and any down time I may have. I work in a cubical now (love it!) and I'm pretty much out of sight from the powers that be so when I have nothing to do I pull out the old WIP and go at it. (or sometimes I go blogging)
But it's been a bad week and now when I look at my WIP -- I don't like any of it. I fight not to throw the whole thing in the trash because I'm guessing this might be a carry over of feelings from the bad week.
I think I need a good romance novel. Something with nice thoughts and happy endings. Something to lift my overall mood.
I had it.
But I lost it.
Take a break?
Or keep plugging along feeling like someone stuck pins under your finger nails?
What do you do when life throws you down?

Lokie

Lokie has renal failure. I brought her home so my daughter can come home from college tonight and say goodbye. Tomorrow we go back to the vet so she can be put to sleep.
:(
Very sad day in the Aimless house.

This is Lokie...

Lokie is 13 years old. She's a Shetland Sheepdog. When we take her to the dog park Lokie herds the rest of the dogs, running in circles and yapping.
When she was younger she did tricks like Hi Five, Bang(we point our gun finger at her and she keels over dead), Speak, and the normal sit, stay, lay down, and roll over. She's the easiest dog I've ever trained.
Now Lokie is 13 and for a while now she's been having trouble with her back legs. She struggles to stand and it takes her a while to get anywhere. In the past week she hasn't been able get up the two steps on the deck so I carry her up. In the rain on Sunday dh went out and built her a ramp to get up on the deck. Which she was afraid to use. So dd went out and got a rubber mat and I nailed it on the ramp. This morning she still wouldn't use it so I went out and carried her in the house.
She's eaten very little in the past few days and this morning she turned her nose up at breakfast. When I got home from work tonight and went to find her, she couldn't stand at all.
I carried her out to the living room and offered her food and water. She took a little water.
:(
I sat on the floor and brushed her, cuddled her for a bit and tomorrow we have to take her to vet.
It doesn't look good....
Please pray for Lokie. She's the best dog in the world.

Those Christmas book people...

I'm always amazed and uplifted by the Christmas novels that are out this time of year. I spotted this one in the store today by the wonderful Debbie Macomber. I go to her books when Stephen King scared the bejesus out of me.

I generally see Christmas as an extremely stressful time of year where there is never enough time or money. The spirit of Christmas has turned into a can-you-top this game. One that tires and stresses us.

The Christmas after 9-11 was different. Both my children were on top of those towers 11 days before. Living across the bay from NYC with a good view of the Trade Centers (a place where half our relatives, friends and neighbors worked) we were struck very hard. We waited days to find out who survived, the stench in the air lasted for weeks and now we constantly run into people who worked the clean up. They all have breathing disorders. If you ventured back into the city you were met with National Guardsmen with guns checking out your cars. They were at the entrances to the bridges and tunnels, the police were out in force all around you. The walls of Port Authority was lined with pictures of the missing. We went to a play and after the final curtain Valerie Bertinelli came out and thanked us all for coming back to Broadway and encouraging us to take back our city.

That Christmas was different. We walked the stores searching for those perfect gifts and just felt grateful. We had our family. We came so close to losing everything that really mattered that gifts were just stuff, useless stuff. None of it mattered.

Debbie Macomber's books tell us this too. Most of her stories are about what's really important and how its the people around us who make the difference in every way that counts.

So, what's your take on the Christmas season? Love it or hate it? Or something else?

Discipline...

Discipline; that scary place between want and acquire. If you want to reach the stars you have to cut through the crap and find your way. It should be a four letter word this Discipline. If you are in front of the Discipline process you look forward with hope and inspiration. When you reach the other side you look back with pride and accomplishment. But that scary place inbetween can be a real problem. Especially when hope has such a tendency to fluxuate. It rises and falls with the tide. When up, discipline steps forward and pushes you along. When it wanes, hope falters, that star you're reaching for seems to move further our of reach.
Which is the challenge. How do you keep the hope alive so dicsipline can guide you?

When life reinvents.

When we hit high school we reinvent ourselves (sort of). It's a new enviornment, we meet new friends, and find different interests. When we choose how we react to these things --> Poof! We've become someone new. Left behind are the ideals and wants of childhood and we find different ideas and goals. After high school it happens again. College (or a job) brings new things into our lives and we change, finding our new selves. Then comes marriage and OMG! was that a change. I still miss having my own closet.

Babies? More change. Only now you're putting everyone but yourself first. Years later the kids grow up and there's no more chasing after little ones, going from play groups to music lessons to bball games and dance classes. It was all about them and suddenly they're on their own. It's called empty nest syndrome. I'm almost there...in that gray area between their college and when they're looking for the right job and place to live..either way they're very independent at this point.

My older and wiser brother says that: Empty nest is like being 20 again, only this time you have money. I think that's a good analogy. And I'm there.

Poof! I'm about to become another person. Only this time I have to think on it awhile. So many choices-I don't know what to do first.

Being a Virgo---I have a list:

Learn piano (I've always wanted to do this!)

Get my WIP finished and find a good agent.

Go back to school.

hmmmm, I'd like to jump out of an airplane but ....maybe I don't have enough courage to do that.

Buy a Mustang.

Get a tattoo.

Maybe sell some art.

So, if you were to reinvent yourself...what do you want to see in your new life?