I am on an 18 day streak of writing at least 750 words per day at… 750words.com. As of today, that means I have churned out over 14,000 words. (!) The more days in a row I rack up, the more obsessed I become about not sabotaging it. Now, I’m not going to profess that these 14,000 words are anything more than junk most days. That’s rather the point – to just let the words flow in a completely private setting. The online aspect offers silly little rewards, like badges for your various accomplishments that are being tracked, that are surprisingly motivating, but the entries are not publishable; they are completely private (though you can export them to your harddrive a month at a time – nice).

The wonderful thing about this daily exercise, however, is I can feel myself loosening up, ideas flowing, maybe the end of an artistic block that I have been suffering for a few years now. I vent, whine, pour out all the anxieties I have piled up in my neurotic little heart onto the empty page. 750 words is a lot of daily detoxing!

I have also started compiling all my favorite writing resources as I find them. You’ll find them on my creative writing resources page.

Why writing scares the hell out of me

Not all of the entries are an agony purge. A couple days I have played with poetry. I’ve played with fiction prompts and character freewriting. Nothing that wants to become anything special at this point, but it’s all good for practice. I do have faith in the process, so long as I persist in it.

I’m also trying some of the exercises in the book, Writing Creative Nonfiction, which I picked up this past weekend at ASU’s Desert Nights, Rising Stars writers conference (an incredibly motivating/inspiring experience for me). Chapter 1 of the book is an essay about “Why I write.” The exercise at the end of the chapter is the rather obvious directive to explain why I write.

For most of my career, I have written to make a living! Since the odds of actually making a living writing fiction and poetry are pretty low, that answer doesn’t apply to me at the moment. I’m not saying I don’t want to make a living writing fiction, but I’m realistic, too. I have a lot of work to do (and no little luck to fall into) before that is a reasonable expectation.

And, even so, money and fame are not the motivation for this dream. Not at this particular time. I write because I love storytelling. I love reading stories, hearing stories and sharing stories of my own. But I have a love/hate relationship with writing.  I found this in the first paragraph of the third chapter of Writing Creative Nonfiction, and WOW can I relate:

Writing has always — and always will, I’m sure — scared the hell out of me. I’ll do just about anything to get out of it, and have been known to spend whole afternoons circling my desk like a dog, wary, unwilling to commit to writing a single word. What is so frightening about it? I still don’t know. Perhaps it’s the horrible knowledge that no matter how well you write, the resultant product will never correlate exactly to the truth, will never arrive with quite the melodious voice you hear in the acoustic cavity of your mind.

Why I write anyway

This past weekend I was chatting with one of the other writers in my Master Class workshopping session and we were talking about insecurities. One of mine is that I know I talk too much. It is one of my failings. I’ve been hearing it since my earliest report cards: “Betsy talks too much in class.” I bubble over with enthusiasm and excitement to share. To share, well, what I like, what I don’t like, what I know, what I wonder about, what I watch on TV, books I like, favorite things on the Web and so on and on and on. I seem to have not ever grown out of this excitable quality – it’s a key part of my nature, I daresay. I always swear I will do better – and sometimes I hope I do – but I often, in hindsight, have that sinking pit-of-my-stomach sensation that I failed to zip it up nearly enough.

So during this conversation about insecurities, I mentioned to this fellow conference participant that I am always anxious after practically any social gathering that I talked too much. “Well,” she said wryly, “You do have a lot to say.” (!!)

Aaaaiiiiiiiii. That did not help my neurosis. At ALL!

But, it did give me the most fundamental answer to the question. Why do I write? Because I have a lot to say. (Dammit.)

It really is just that simple. And precisely that not noble. It’s exactly the reason why I talk, too, but perhaps I can present myself as slightly less obnoxious in my writing than I can in person. Or not – and I almost don’t care if some or many people find me obnoxious. I’m gradually learning to not be paralyzed by insecurity if not everyone likes me and/or approves of me. My lovely (and brashly outspoken) husband has taught me a lot about that.

If you’re a writer, why do you write?

Uneven

by Betsy Bailey

I remember when my kids were little and we parents would ask each other: Would you ever let your kids have a TV or computer in their room? My answer was always an emphatic NO. But here we are in this crazy age, barely a decade later, and my kids are gadgeted to the hilt with wifi-enabled devices: Nintendo DSi, iPod Touch, netbook. For the purposes of entertainment, who needs an actual TV or wired computer anymore??

For awhile I had a policy of collecting all the devices at night and redistributing in the morning. But that was back in the day when the only gadget they owned was a Game Boy, and those were not wifi-enabled.

So this was Scott’s brilliant idea: Our household wifi access is controlled by MAC address (every wifi enabled device has one)…

1. Wifi is open to any device from 5 am – 6 pm

Hey, if the kids want to get up at 5 am, I do not have a problem with that!

2. Children’s devices lose wifi access at 9 pm.

Yes, they hate that. (And when their friends come to sleepovers here they are appalled. Ha!) But they have gotten used to it. I kind of wish we’d decided on an earlier time in the first place, but for now this suffices.

3. Scott/Betsy devices never go down.

My husband would love to take our net access down as early as 6 pm. But he realizes that would be cruel and unusual punishment. Maybe someday I will be strong enough! But for now I really look forward to a little Words With Friends each night before I turn out the light.

Motivation

Even if the kids turn up with a wifi-enabled device that they’ve borrowed or have been gifted with, they won’t have wifi on it after 6 pm unless they give Scott the MAC address.

Those extra three hours prove very motivational in their desire to make full disclosure about devices. From the parental point-of-view it’s a beautiful system. And so far none of my kids are quite geeky enough to cross cyberswords with Scott and subvert this system.

My thoughts: I don’t know if it should be a law, but I wish more parents did it. We not only buy a seat for our little guy, but we schlep the car seat on board, too, and strap him right in (as you can see in the photo below).

There is no debate that this is the safest, most conservative choice. But I’m not going to argue that it should be forced upon every parent – I don’t have enough data to make that kind of call.

Safety and cost factors aside, there’s also the consideration of… being considerate.

Every time we’ve flown with Jake (two times), we’ve had the three-seat row to ourselves. But I was just on a long flight last week (3.5 hours) where a mama and her VERY restless 18 month old shared a seat in the row in front of us. It turns out that – for once! – the flight wasn’t fully booked, so mother and child ended up in separate seats anyway. (There used to be a day many years ago when you could usually count on more spaciousness like this, but that is incredibly rare on flights these days.)

The toddler was adorable and the woman they shared the row with was the easily-infatuated grandmotherly type. I was glad it was comfortable for all of them, but it did cross my mind that if that pair had been sharing the middle seat on a more crowded flight it would have been perfectly, 100% miserable for all parties concerned!

Three people sardine-canned into a row is bad enough. Adding a squirmy, restless fourth sounds like a whole new circle of hell to me. Ugh!

So I’d advise parents to keep that in mind when making their decisions about whether to purchase an extra seat, especially on longer flights with older babies. How much worse is the flight going to be for you if you’re trying to keep your little one contained and not kicking or sprawling themselves across the perfect strangers you’re scrunched in with?

Universal Studios and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter

A week ago today, just ONE day after Bailey’s orthopedic surgery, HM and I were packing for our all-expenses-paid trip to Universal Studios Orlando. We were specifically excited to see the brand new Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park – and it did not disappoint. We had absolutely the best time. Universal really took care to ensure that we experienced some of the best they have to offer at the parks and resort.

Highlights for me included Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride in the Harry Potter park (Wow!!! We rode it twice! And when we dive-bombed the Quidditch field it took my breath away!) and the Blue Man Group performance. And butterbeer. Butterbeer is highly recommended. We tried it both frozen and unfrozen, and we tasted pumpkin juice, too.

But there was ever so much more – it was a fabulous trip and it increased my travel savvy, especially when it comes to theme parks, by several notches.

Miraculously my laptop (Dell Latitude) survived various travel misadventures (first, it was checked – long story; then I dropped it down an escalator). I was a terrible steward of its care. Of course, it could crap out any day now, too. Obviously I’m not feeling all that secure about its reliability. Scott will probably open it and tighten up the various components for me. ♥

I’m in the midst of writing up all the details of this adventure for the SheKnows travel channel. Stay tuned!

Bailey’s recovery progress

Bailey spent the first five days after her surgery doing a lot of digital drawing and resting. She was pretty doped up on painkillers. She did a little schoolwork here and there (she is enrolled in the Arizona Virtual Academy’s high school program, so all her school is at home), but she didn’t have a lot of focus. I want to feature her digital artwork here; she was very prolific during her downtime – hopefully she’ll give me permission.

By the time I returned home from Orlando Wednesday evening, she was feeling tremendously better and was mostly weaned off of the painkillers. Thursday morning she dived back into school, making a determined effort to start catching up.

At her follow-up x-ray on Thursday morning, we learned that her healing is progressing remarkably faster than the surgeon expected. He told us that you often see this when the fracture is on the growth plate and the child is in the midst of growing – those cells are extra-fast at repairing the damage. She is on track to have the pins removed a full week earlier than the surgeon had anticipated. He offered the option of removing the pins in-office or in the surgical center under anesthesia. When he said he wouldn’t know how much pain it would cause her until he tried to remove the pins (apparently they can be sticky) there was no question about how we would proceed! The procedure is scheduled at the surgical center this coming Wednesday.

I’m not sure how much longer her shoulder will be immobilized, but for now her mobility is pretty inhibited. For example, her shirt choices are currently limited to oversize button-downs. If she leaves one of the middle buttons undone, she can forgo the sling and rest her hand in the shirt opening. That has been much more comfortable for her.

Bad blog news

I started this blog on Vox in January 2007. For that entire year, I stored and accessed my blog photos on Vox – before I wised up and started storing/accessing from Flickr. Some of those 2007 entries are very photo-heavy, especially the ones from after Jake was born.

Yesterday, Vox announced they are going out of business and shutting the entire service down by September 30. They made it easy to transfer all my Vox-stored photos (498, precisely) over to my Flickr account (boy did that FUBAR my photostream chronology, but whatever) and I immediately took advantage of that.

A couple years ago, I set up this domain and WordPress installation and transferred all of my entries. Of course, all the image paths in the relevant entries still resolve to Vox, so I am now faced with the distasteful choice of letting the images disappear from those posts or undertaking the tedious chore of swapping out Vox image paths for Flickr in entries made during one of the most conscientious blogging periods of my life.

Noooooooooo.

Shoot me now, because you know what I have to do. Before September 30.

Today he tried to hook up his miniature red wagon. I was pretty sure that would not work and I told him so. Bailey wisely counseled me (she and her sisters do that a lot), “You should just let him try, Mom. Let him figure it out for himself.”

He DID figure it out – and proved me wrong. It totally worked. He also managed to get three trailers going simultaneously.

I should just stay out of these matters about which I know nothing. ;-D

In spite of the heavy anesthesia, she came out of it fairly quickly and with no ill effects. Not even a speck of nausea. On the contrary, she was RAVENOUS and wanted to eat immediately. I was thrilled to assist with that. She had an excruciatingly long pre-op fast yesterday and it was killing me to not feed my child! She was released to go home within an hour of the surgery.

I cannot even express how glad I am that they were able to do this procedure yesterday. Scheduling conflicts aside, after a full day of living with her living with this injury it really hit me how uncomfortable it would be for her to live with that un-set fracture for any length of time. Her recovery could not truly begin until after the surgery.

Last night she ate and ate and ate some more. She took a nice long nap and woke up around 9:30 to have another snack. She was very alert and chatty at this time. During the surgery, the doctor gave her a nice big dose of novocaine. So she was completely pain free all night. I gave her a vicodin at bedtime and she had a lovely sleep all through the night. Yay!

She woke up around 6 am and texted me from the couch downstairs that she was hurting. One vicodin seemed to be enough to make her comfortable, so I think we’ll easily keep on top of the pain. She’s sitting and playing around on her computer now, feeling much, much happier that her bone feels “normal” again and having the scary anxiety of surgery now behind her. (She WAS really scared, too – I was a little surprised to see how high her blood pressure was before the procedure yesterday!)

She keeps commenting how sorry she is that she can’t help like she usually does (with Jake, with dishes, etc) and that she sorry that she needs so much help. “I can’t wait until I’m self-sufficient again!” My goodness, she really is an exceptional teenager. I am certain I would have milked it for all it was worth at that age!

Bailey took a tumble from her horse today and broke her left shoulder (proximal humerus fracture).

Mercifully, she’s right handed.

Bailey in her element - where she intends to be again as soon as possible!

It’s a pretty major fracture – bones are broken and all out of kilter. The doctor said without surgery, she might regain 50% range of motion at best, so… surgery tomorrow. This is an internal fixation procedure she’ll be having at 1:30 pm tomorrow. For those unfamiliar with that (like I was, until today), the doctor will realign her shoulder bones with an x-ray machine set up as his guide. Once the bones are in place, he will anchor them with long pins that stick out of her body (eek). Once the bones are starting to knit back together, the pins are removed.

It’s a short procedure (the doctor anticipates it will take 15-20 minutes), but she’ll be under general anesthesia.

Bailey is being a real trooper. She has a lot of valid anxiety about surgery (“What if something goes wrong with the surgery? With the anesthesia?”) and also just in general (“What if my shoulder is never normal again??”). It’s surreal – no one ever thinks when they wake up in the morning that this will be the day they hurt themselves in such a way that they’ll never be the same again. She’s grappling with that a bit. But, generally, she’s being very brave about it. She’s also very sad that she can’t ride for a couple months.

She’s also taking responsibility for the accident. And it WAS an accident and it could happen anytime. There’s a reason, after all, they make you sign a waiver before you even breathe the same air as horses. But there were a couple choices she was telling me about that probably led to this. I’m so proud of her for understanding that. Her maturity and emotional intelligence amazes me sometimes.

She made a set of decisions that were less cautious about her own safety than they could have been. First, her horse is not liking the bit they’ve taken to using with him lately, which makes him harder to control. Then, she noticed he had a sore spot on his girth, so she chose to ride bareback. Even that would have been fine, but she didn’t want the bareback pad to rub that sore spot either, so she went bareback *without* the pad. When she lost her balance during a trot/canter, she slipped right off his slippery back. She told me she might have been able to regain her balance if she’d had the pad there for some traction.

But, ah well. I think she’s definitely learned something about her own mortality here and not taking it so much for granted. She told me today that she has always had this feeling that SHE will be one of the lucky ones who never gets injured from a fall. Today she learned she’s only human, and therefore breakable. And how fast and easily it can happen! The horse didn’t throw her, she just slid slowly and gracefully down, breaking her fall with her shoulder. Such a slow fall, I thought she must have simply dislocated it. But now she understands that if you hit at the right angle, you can be vulnerable to a break.

Juggling needs

This has been an exhausting day. Aside from the obvious, there was this juggling of different children’s needs. When I first called the surgeon for an appointment, they said they couldn’t get Bailey in until Monday. HM and I are supposed to be in FL on Monday! I explained and they managed to squeeze her in with a different surgeon today. Then he wanted to schedule her surgery for Monday! He’s leaving town on Thursday (I get back on Wednesday) and he said the surgery should be done within 10 days. And honestly the sooner the better since a growth plate is affected and she’s still got 2 years of growing.

I was a the point of just canceling the trip (poor HM!!), but he said, if we can get an OR tomorrow, I’ll do it tomorrow. That took awhile and we were on tenterhooks. Poor Bailey was in tears feeling SO guilty that the trip might be canceled. But it seems to have all worked out. Scott’s mom was already scheduled to come down on Saturday so she could watch Bailey/Mira/Jake while I was out of town. Bailey is thrilled to have grandma here to take care of her and (bonus?) Karen just had this exact same procedure performed on her hand (arthritis-related) earlier this year. So she’s completely up on the wound care, etc. I’m still feeling very conflicted about leaving town two days after Bailey’s surgery and I don’t know how I’m going to NOT fret about it the whole time. But hopefully I can compartmentalize my emotions somewhat for HM’s sake.

Please think of my baby Bailey tomorrow! I don’t know exactly what to expect from her recovery, but she has a vicodin prescription and they said she’ll probably be very uncomfortable with pain for a week or so.

Without further fanfare…

So speaking of habits I’ve fallen out of: Working out. This lack of working out has been stressing me out. My job and life is soooo sedentary, I really need to be making a more concentrated effort for the sake of my heart and longevity. Plus, I know I need to be setting a better example. Rather than endure this burden of guilt and obligation, it really would be less stressful to just get off my duff already.

Mira (now age 10) has really been pushing me to go on bike rides with her – she even took the initiative and pumped up my bicycle tires and washed down my bike! Sweetie. How could I procrastinate in the wake of that effort?

So last week we started regularly biking. Ouch, my butt. I knew I’d have to suffer through that a few times (right?) before it would get better. But it’s not been getting ANY better. We stopped by REI in Tempe last weekend for the express purpose of purchasing me a pair of padded bicycle shorts. Nope, no improvement.

Today I googled (<< it’s time for spellcheck to consider this a real word already – oh, and “spellcheck,” too) to see how long it would be before I’m, erm, toughed up. Two weeks, one person said – apparently it takes about two weeks to get used to it. Maybe.

But then I found some suggestions about angling the seat so it’s tilting slightly down in front. I thought about that and the physics make sense… that way more pressure is put on your actual BUTT (instead of the pointy sit-bones and other tender tissue I’m euphemistically calling “butt” in the title of this post but you know that’s not really what I mean).

Tonight Scott dug out his Allen wrench and adjusted the tilt on my bike seat. The difference? It felt like MAGIC on my little test run – no uncomfortable pressure at all! We’ll see how it holds up on my next real bike ride, hopefully tomorrow. No promises that this is the reversal of a trend, or anything. I’m just in the mood for bike riding right now.

We wondered: When you have the time to actually take care of YOU, what do you do to show yourself some love? Thousands of you responded, indicating an overwhelming need for more peace and quiet (and maybe sleep, too!). What else do you need to recharge your batteries? Read on for the full results.

You need peace and quiet

When you have a few moments of down time, 33% of those polled preferred a book or a magazine (or perhaps some social networking time) with a side of peace and quiet. Ohio mom Kelly Nasdeo explains that she is an introvert: “I really need that alone time… several times a day actually, especially if it’s a really active day. It doesn’t have to be long – 10-15 minutes if we have guests, but I get sensory overload if I don’t get it. Mostly I read, but sometimes I’ll play a puzzle game.”

And Manitoba resident Hadass Eviatar takes her peace with a quiet dose of socialization. “Lately I’ve been sleeping in instead of getting up and running. But when I have some time to myself, I do take time to go online and connect with dear friends.” The mom of three wonders: “Does that count?” (We think it does!)

Here are some other diverse quiet-time ideas…

>> Read more: How do you take care of yourself?