NaBloPoMo 2012

So, it's that time of year again.  As you may remember, I participated in NaBloPoMo a couple years ago...posting on my blog everyday in the month of November. 

In an attempt to getting back to WRITING and actually DOCUMENTING my life for posterity, I decided (just now, actually) to participate again this year.  So, expect to hear (or at least see, through photos) a little more about our crazy life!!  Wish me luck!

My Mission...

...should I choose to accept it:  Write a post a day for 30 days throughout the month of November.  (otherwise known as:  NaBloPoMo)  You've seen it here before and I am giving it another go.

Only this year, I'm also trying to keep up with Heidi's Thanksgiving Thankfuls challenge and the photo challenge over at Ten on Ten to help me focus on the moments in my day where I find beauty in the ordinary things.  So things should get hectic interesting around here!  I'll try to keep things short as I post my myriad of things to be thankful for and to help me keep perspective on why I'm here.  Thanks for joining me!

Playing Catch-up

I'm playing catch-up over on my photo(s)-a-day blog tonight.  So I haven't really had a chance to put my "pen to paper" (as it were) here.

Regardless of that, today marks the start of a new month and a new NaBloPoMo goal.  Even though I missed a day of posting in March (due to my extended stay in NYC), making me a "miss" for my NaBloPoMo goal for last month, I still really enjoy the daily habit of writing and sharing here.  So, let's take another go, shall we?.  My Bloggoversary is coming up in a couple of weeks, so in honor of one whole year of blogging, I will keep up my daily posting!  Aren't you lucky?!?

Cheating

I just woke up from an evening snuggle (nap) with Nathaniel on the floor of the living room. We were "camping out" (which in tired Mommy language translates into "falling asleep")...at some point I'll either rejoin him or carry his (heavy) self into his bedroom. Though, honestly, I'm leaning towards rejoining him.

So in spirit of keeping with my NaBloPoMo this month, I wanted to post SOMETHING today, but my foggy brain is not composing anything profound so I will share this photo and beg your forgiveness for cheating out tonight:

"Pretty please?  With sugar on top?"

Debriefing

Here, on the last day of February I realize that I successfully made it through my NaBloPoMo challenge for  the month.  Ok, ok.  So it is the shortest month of the year...but I still did it!!

The best part about it?  The best part is that it wasn't hard, difficult, or even challenging.  It was fun.  Therapeutic.  Even refreshing.  I enjoyed having an excuse to sit down and write every night.  It was nice to have a "deadline" to share stories and journal my life's happenings before these little moments get away.  The "requirement" to blog every day kept me on task.  Held me accountable.  I like that.

I found as the month went on that I had more ideas than I could even get out.  I could have posted a few times every day with the ideas I was starting in my head, in saved text messages (where I type them up as I think of things), or in Blogger draft form.  My brain was constantly going (like it usually does) only this time I had somewhere to purge those rampant thoughts and a vehicle through which to steer them into coherent stories.

I received another invite to keep going in March.  A new badge, a new challenge.  I'm considering it.  At the very least I am going to aim to post every day, but March is proving to be a crazy month so if I fall off the wagon, I'll just get back on another time.  We'll see how it goes.  In the meantime, thanks for reading.  I do appreciate it!

NaBloPoMo?

I got an email from the NaBloPoMo website "inviting" me (if you will) to participate in another National Blog Posting Month.  Apparently November (my last NaBloPoMo month) and February are the most active months in which to participate.  

So, do I?  Or don't I? (Participate, that is.)

I feel like I have a lot to say lately but rarely have the mental fortitude and TIME to sit down and say it eloquently.  The thoughts are always bouncing around in my head, albeit at completely inopportune times (like when I'm driving, or preventing children from drowning, or wiping stinky butts).  Once I get a chance to sit down at the computer I can rarely remember my previous genius and any efforts to try and regurgitate those "brilliant" thoughts onto "paper" often fail.  

Well, I guess it can't hurt to try.  It might be just the discipline I need to sit down and write.  Afterall, writing is therapeutic to me.  It might be the perfect way to calm my overactive brain by spewing out the words that are clogging my head and sharing them all with you (oh, lucky ones!) :)

So, please join me!

92%

I did it! I passed this self-imposed "test" of participating in NaBloPoMo!  I'm so happy and proud (and a little relieved!) to have made it!

Today is the last day of the month and I successfully managed to post 29 out of 30 days in November, making me 92% successful in this NaBloPoMo endeavor I agreed to take on just one short month ago.  (I'm still kicking myself for forgetting day one, or for not even remembering that November had started, for that matter!)

So, now what?

Good question.

Should I keep up the good (?) work?  Should I take some time off?

I'll be honest.  I really enjoyed the challenge.  It was a LOT easier than I thought it would be.  If anything it forced me to complete and publish some thoughts that had remained unfinished and fragmented.  It gave me an opportunity (good or bad for you, the reader) to share some (more!) photos of my precious boys.  And it allowed me the chance to feel accomplished, having completed (ok, so almost completed...) something that I set out to do.

Finishing something feels good.  But that's not entirely like me, if you will.  For you see, I'm a putterer . I dabble.  I stick my toe in to test the waters, but rarely do I ever actually go in.  I get on random kicks but never see these projects through to completion before my fleeting interests and attentions move on.  I have a basement of half-finished interests to prove it - cross-stitch patterns started and forgotten, scrapbooks neglected half way through the year it was created to memorialize, even exercise equipment I vowed I would use that now holds up a pile of boxes in the basement.

So to have completed this task I set out to accomplish (ok, so ALMOST completed) feels good.  It makes me want to keep going.  It encourages me, even in the smallest way, that I can do it.  I can finish something if I set my mind to it.  It doesn't hurt that it was fun and I got to write about stuff I love (my kids) and things that come easily to mind (my random thoughts).

I thank you for coming a long with me while I participated on this journey.  And thank you for not judging me for only getting a 92%.  At least it's still an 'A'.  I'll take it.     

Overheard

Sometimes communicating with a 3-year-old can be a challenge.  And by "challenge" I mean "impossibly futile".  To demonstrate this, let me talk you through an actual conversation I had with MY 3-year-old recently.  A conversation that no doubt sounded ridiculous to a fly on the wall and left me feeling like a bumbling idiot when all was said and done.

N:  "Um, Mommy, where pain?"
Me: *Pausing*  "Where's the PEN?"
N: "No, where PAIN?"
Me: "Your what?"
N: "My PAIN!"
Me: "Paint?"
N: "No, Mommy, my pain...Where'd pain go?"
Me: "I don't know what you mean, honey...pain?  what does it look like?"
N: "My pain, Mommy...down there" *pointing at floor of car*  (like THAT helps in my car!)
Me: *Thinking quickly to what he had earlier that he could possibly be referring to - his shoe, his matchbox car, the magna doodle, and ultimately coming up blank with anything that sounds remotely like PAIN - so I try anything* "Paper?  Sippy?  Boo Bankie?  Alex?  Daddy?  Dinosaur?" (Don't ask - I was desperate at this point)
N:  *Looks at me like I have three heads and have completely lost it*
Me:  *Talking it out (out loud)*  "Your pain..."  "Pen?" (um, no...tried that) "You have a pain?" (huh?)..."You want to pray?" 
N:  *Looks at me sternly*  "Mommy.  Pain."  *Makes sound of an airplane and mimics flying motion as he points again, to the floor of the car*
Me: *Finally getting it*  "OH!  PLANE!"

Right.  Got it.  (Truth be told, I didn't know we even HAD a plane in the car.)  Now it makes perfect sense.  Of course.  Plane.  Silly me.

Similar conversations have been exchanged with "Dizzy" (which apparently means THIRSTY),  "Saynil" (which is Toddler for NATHANIEL),  "Purses" (which for the record means BUSHES - "as in BLUEBERRY Purses, Mom!"), and "Free" which is what the rest of us actually call a TREE.  It kills me, though.  This kid can say CORNUCOPIA, but for some reason I sound like a three-year-old myself trying to decipher the word PLANE.   Go figure.   

Reality Check...

There's a fun weekly photo challenge over at I Should Be Folding Laundry called You Capture that I have been following for some time.

I've been checking out other people's submissions regularly but decided this week I might like to participate.  I'm feeling a bit like sharing some good old fashioned honesty, (and of course, I'm always looking for inspirational ideas such as this to uphold my NaBloPoMo bargain of blogging every day in November!).

This week's theme is Real Life.

My life isn't glamorous but it's certainly never dull!
Here's some of my reality:

My son, more often than not, does NOT want me to take his photo *gasp* and often yells "Don't take my picture {...or sing, dance, hug, kiss, etc...} Mommy!"

My son (and my husband and I) have not yet mastered the art of cleaning up - especially when it comes to Nate's bedroom.  It's a disaster and I simply can't keep up with it...

Laundry in our house is never ending...it takes a whole week to wash it all and then even longer to fold it and put it all away.  By then it's time to start all over...

Dinner is rarely gourmet or all that particularly healthy (though I make the best choices I can under the circumstances - e.g. TURKEY hot dogs, no sugar added applesauce, fruit, veggies, yogurt, low-fat cheese sticks, etc.).  And I'll be honest...the vegetables are offered but RARELY eaten.  Nathaniel thinks anything green is poison and carrots (literally) make him gag and throw up.  I hope that's just a stage...

We yell/cry/throw temper tantrums a lot around here.

But at the end of the day, I love my boys more than anything!

And catching them sleeping like little angels always makes my day!

Regrets

We've all heard it:  "Live life with no regrets".  I'm not sure how that's even possible.  I, personally, have a laundry list of regrets.

Most of them are small -  I should have gone away to college.  Done the whole "college" thing.  Worked less, played more.  I wish I had worn a "real" wedding dress when Dave and I got married.  Stuff like that.

You get the picture.

But some of them are HUGE - People I've hurt.  Choices I've made.  Paths I've chosen.

Obviously there are a slew of things I DON'T regret.  Blessings in my life that I am forever grateful for.  Many of which would not BE if not for the path my life has taken.  But to live life without any regrets?!?  I'm still figuring that one out.  If anyone has a magic formula for that one, let me know.

I ♥ Faces...Balloons!

Posting twice in one day is unheard of for me, but when I saw what this week's challenge over at I {heart} Faces, I knew just the day to revisit to find one to share.  I was picturing a photo I took of my dear Abuelita on her 90th birthday a couple years ago.  As I was looking through the photos I found this one which instantly reminded me of the obsession my (then) 18-month-old son had with the bevy of balloons that were at his disposal that day.  He trailed them around with him for hours, bouncing them, tangling himself up in them, they were infatuating.  And watching him with them was equally entrancing.  I love watching excitement about "new" things through the eyes of my children.

Wandering thoughts...

As I lay down at night, drive to work in the morning, or sit at my desk at work waiting for inspiration of the wordsmith kind to strike....my mind wanders.  It never stops, actually.  My mind is like a puppy without a leash, a child with no boundaries, or an uncaged hamster.  It goes wherever it wants with no limits.  For this Tuesday's Random Thoughts, here is a collection of some of the more comprehensible thoughts I've had running through my head today:

New school buses have gotten very ugly.  I remember when it used to be cool, and even envy-producing if you had one of the new school buses.  I passed one on my way to work this morning and they are hideous. All boxy and square.   Ok, so that was redundant, but you get my point.  Ugly.

It doesn't matter how grey and miserable it gets around here in the Fall.  As long as there are leaves left on the trees and they are the gorgeous colors they have turned out to be this year, it's still beautiful around here and it makes me happy!

I get newsletters delivered to me via email from Babycenter.com and others that give me updates on what my children should be doing at their ages, provides information relevant to their interests and activities, etc.  I realized yesterday that I was getting a Toddler version and a Preschool version.  What?!?  For some reason this completely shocked me.  Just a few weeks ago it was sending me (what I thought were) Baby and Toddler versions but it seems my children have recently "graduated" to the next "tier".  Yet another reminder of how quickly time is passing me by...

Colossal FAIL

Apparently November is NaBloPoMo, or national blog posting month.  I heard about this a few weeks ago and had big intentions of participating with gusto.  Apparently I forgot about that, however, when November started, um, YESTERDAY!. So, since today is the 2nd already and I didn't post a thing yesterday I have already failed miserably. 

But I won't let that stop be from trying.  Afterall, 29 out of 30 days is still a 97% in my book and that's better than a big fat ZERO!

So, I promise to be creative in my posts so as not to bore you all to tears but am certainly NOT guaranteeing deep, riveting thought every day.  Bear with me, I have two small children and a sinus infection, after all!