When will there ever be time for my collection?

I miss writing here. There was a time in my life when I felt there was never enough money. Somehow I just couldn't come up with the funds to do the things I thought I really wanted to do. Now I am finding money has no place in the equation. Now I am finding that I'm just not able to carve out the time to do all the things I think I really want to do. It's not that I make more or less money than before. It seems that the days fly by so much faster and I have collected far too many interests to be able to fully enjoy any of them. I love my collection of interests. I hoard them close to my heart and spend small moments each day saddened that I cannot spend any time with any particular one. These small moments of regret invariably occur as I am racing along to the next new and shiny interest. And the days fly by...

Concentration on Beethoven

It must have been five years ago now that I read a statistic stating listening to Beethoven while studying is conducive to concentration and retention of information. God knows, I have no idea where I came across this stuff. I suppose I could Google it now and find something similar. Of course, I believe everything I find when I am surfing the web. I tried it out back then and to tell the truth it seems to work. Lately, I've been having a hard time staying seated at my desk, getting bills paid, getting stories edited, getting things even written for that matter. I want to do these things. I feel better when the bills are paid and stories are churning out of me. I just have no patience to sit and DO those things. Until this weekend.

This weekend I put on Pandora Radio a Beethoven channel. About the time I feel I "should" be sitting down to get things done I pull up Pandora, click on the Beethoven channel and within a few minutes I feel myself drawn to sit down and start typing - typing all sorts of stuff, for god's sake. This has been going for now for three or four days and I'm having a hard time leaving the desk. This is insane!

Turn off the radio!! Turn off the radio!!

:D

Learning life and it's sychonicities

A thousand seasons ago, when the children were small, I read to my children eery night and I got the idea that I wanted to get involved at the local library to do a reading program in the children's section. I wanted to be a storyteller actually. I wanted to read stories to them. I mentioned it to my brother and for several years after I mentioned it to him he sent me books of fairy tales. I never got rid of those books. For some reason Iheld onto the Grimm's fairy tales, the Japanese fairy tales the Russian fairy tales, the Yiddish fairy tales. and my favorite Carl Sandburg's Rootabaga Stories. I read them sporadically. At the time I didn't know how to get involved and I was shy enough to never ask anyone at the library. Now I realize how much they may have appreciated my involvement. At the time I didn't "know how" and so I just didn't.

Things I've learned in my life have taught me that if I just ask one person, while they may not have an answer, it begins the path to getting where I think I want to be. When I make a statement other folks will offer options. I am amazed at all the things I could've done if I had just put them out there. Anymore, I am putting it out there. Maybe only in a small way, but I have gained so much satisfaction in just daily stuff by doing something about my dreams. Action is rewarded with satisfaction. There is a happiness in action, regardless of how overused the word happiness is.

I've been reading the Rootabaga Stories, and the Russian fairy tales and writing, writing, writing and it's fun. It's just fun. Of course, the stories are at www.notesfromthecastle.wordpress.com. I was able to find an illustrator that is having fun with this too. That one added element has been killer in my satisfaction. Get others involved. Life is so much more fun with others to share in it. Shared experiences are exponentially more satisfying.

I've settled in to living in a new town, in a new state, in a new home. I've settled in to the job and life as I've made it. There is a satisfaction in that too. It's nice to make life. I am no longer a boat without oars. I had oars all along, I ddin't know how to use them. One can only learn by doing. All the book work in the world will be useless if not used. duh. In so many ways...life is a verb, it requires action.

Notes from the Castle

I love being able to use the "royal we". As in, we have a new blog now. Or, we have opened the site to view - although I still have everything pretty much tucked away until the New Year unveiling.

With a blog name of Notes from the Castle I can be "royal" any time I wish. 'Cept it should be noted (and shouted from the rafters) that my illustrator is hard at work even as I type this. I will be as excited as any readers to see what she sends over. So, this truly is a "we" effort. And of course, yes, we are "royal".

I've included the link above and here for Notes from the Castle. Put it on your list of must-see's in the new year.

I am shamelessly promoting this one.

New directions - Steps 21-23

Step #21 (of 36,432 steps)
Blog launch is coming along. I have an illustrator now. She is excited and looking forward to the whole idea of being an illustrator. I've been putting finishing touches on some new posts for the new blog. Funny, as I re-read, re-view and generally polish up what I've written I'm not sure I would call these fariytales. It makes me wonder how my voice will change and grow this coming year. Three posts a week is quite a challenge. I'm feeling good about stretching myself this way.

Step #23
I'll be talking with some folks that are a little quicker in the CSS side of blog management than I. That's the side that adds style and formatting to a blog. I found a nice background that fits the tone of what I think I'm going for. Cross your fingers that I will have "the look" I had hoped for when I first envisioned this.

Blog launch is set for January 1st. I'm over at Wordpress for now. I'll give an actual address for RSS feed and Readers sometime between Christmas and New Years. This is a rather public challenge for me. Public in a different way than running the 1/2 marathon last year. It is still every bit the challenge the marathon was. It definitely has the same bit of excitement.

Cooking behind the scenes

I've been giving some thoughts to my new blog. I've been reading my favorite blogs and making mental notes on why they are favorites. Many of them are favorites to tens of thousands of people. Hey, how'd they do that? Today I clicked away from some of my favorites with a sense of how easily they wrote, or how easy it was to read. They make it look easy. Yes, there are a couple blogs that work at trying to be engaging or interactive. I generally don't take the bait, but when they are not working the crowd they are delightful.

I've been getting some writing done. I've been looking into themes and wondering how much of the CSS I want to mess with to get a nice page view with the flavor I want to create. I'm cooking, I guess. I'm still getting everything out on the counter - the sugar and flour and baking powder (hmm, must be pancakes). I'm writing and searching, bookmarking and downloading. I've been keeping a paper log of what I mean to accomplish here. One thing I want to accomplish is trusting myself that I can do this.

I don't know at what point I start mixing the ingredients. I don't have all I need yet to assemble this thing. The reveal will be at the end of the month. There...there's the deadline. Oh gawd, I better get moving on this!