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Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Life Lately, and Writer's Block







In case you can't tell...  I have a major case of writer's block. MAJOR. Part of it is just a lack of "free time" to write. I always think I'll have a chance to write after the kids are in bed at night. Then, dinner needs to be cleaned up, backpack and diaper bag need to be emptied and restocked for the next day, cat and dog need to be fed, dishwasher needs to be unloaded, and by the time I get that all done, Addison is awake and calling for me from her crib. After getting her settled in again, I'm ready for bed and end up either taking a bath or crawling into bed. I sometimes pull my computer out and then just let it sit in my lap while I get sucked into whatever Cliff is watching on TV... until I decide I'm just too tired and I turn off my computer and go to sleep.

I know that some of my fellow bloggers have one night a week when they write all of their posts. I love that idea, but haven't been able to make it happen. I'd like to think I have an excuse. My children seem to be particularly needy. They're both really good kids. Really. But if I leave Addison alone for a minute she empties all of the kleenex boxes in the house and rips the kleenexes into little shreds. She plays in the toilet when someone forgets to close the lid. She suddenly (as of this week) tries to climb up on top of everything. She plays in the dog water dish. She pulls and pushes on our baby safety gate at the top of the stairs and even though it is really very secure, I still have this fear that her brute strength will win one of these times and she and the gate will both go tumbling down the stairs. She empties out every cabinet and cupboard in the kitchen (I gave up on child safety latches as they just kept breaking!). She gets into Gavin's things and then he gets mad and isn't always as gentle as he could be. ...and that's JUST the one year old. Gavin is very self-sufficient and very responsible, but he wants someone to play with him...  all.  the.  time. He is great at finding fun things to do as long as you're willing to participate. He loves to create, invent, build, etc. but wants or needs help. He's into Legos, K'Nex, science experiments, baking & cooking (making up his own recipes), building machines, making inventions, etc. He is a great kid. A busy, great kid... who needs a lot of attention.  :)  That means I don't get much time to write, and when I do, my mind is elsewhere and I can't seem to get the words out. Hence, my writer's block.


I actually LIVE with blogging on my mind all the time. I write blog posts all day long in my head. Every time I experience something special or noteworthy, the kids do something heartwarming or hilarious, etc. I am writing a post in my head. It just very rarely makes it out of my brain, through my fingertips and on to the computer screen. That blinking cursor has become my nemesis!

I've been meaning to post about our Christmas, and our winter camping trip, and when I log in I see a Thanksgiving post... so. long. ago.  Even that post wasn't really blogging, it was a greeting, a Thanksgiving wish! The post before that was Halloween... Halloween is in October!!!!!!  So, I'm not going to try at this point to "catch up". I love to write, I really do. My brain just takes awhile to get into writing mode and these days it doesn't ever have "awhile" to do that!

Here's a LITTLE sneak peak at what we've been up to (via InstaGram)! (forgive me the duplicates - these are screenshots from instagram on my computer, and I have no control over how they're populated)



 

1. snowshoeing at Beaver Valley Camp the weekend before Christmas. it's my family's tradition to spend a weekend there around Christmas or New Year's. More to come
2. Addison admiring our Christmas Ornaments
3. Addison bundled up all cozy and warm in our red wagon as we chose and cut our Christmas Tree
4. Addison prancing and playing all around the house (this was a video on Instagram, but just a photo snippet here)
5. Cliff and Gavin hiking through the snowy woods to our one-room rustic winter camping cabin on the backwaters of the St. Croix River
6. My friend Stacy and I at the shooting range (with our husbands) before meeting some other friends for dinner
7. Gavin playing with the K'Nex he got for Christmas from my parents
8. A pot full of home made chicken soup simmering on the stove. This is just the thing to warm you up from the inside out in these frigid temps (-23) we've been experiencing. I just LOVE the aroma of the thyme and celery and carrots and onions all simmering with the chicken and all of it's goodness!
9. Our chicken soup used up all of the celery we had, and we were left with just the end of the celery bunch. We made the most of it and used the end to stamp rosettes on little note cards (pieces of his sketch paper). We couldn't find any stamp pads, so we just put a few dabs of food coloring on a wet paper towel (on a plate) and used that for a stamp pad.
  


10. The "Cabin" at Beaver Valley Camp the weekend before Christmas.
11. (Again) Addison admiring our Christmas Ornaments
12. Gavin playing with the K'Nex he got for Christmas from my parents
13. (Again) Addison prancing and playing all around the house (this was a video on Instagram, but just a photo snippet here)
14. Me on our long hike down to the cabin at Beaver Valley Camp. We can sled part of the way down if the snow is good for sledding (and it was!) but we still need to walk a good amount
15. Sweet Little Miss Addison. Need I say more?
16. Our Christmas Tree 

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