October '16 ~ Daybook

Linking up with Bobbi of Revolution of Love for Weekly Writing this October

Thinking about:
    Upcoming family visits and Halloween, making sure we have everything we need for costumes, trick-or-treating and trying to not let the stress of it all overwhelm me.

Excited For:
   Parades which the kids love and the ongoing changing of the leaves which I do. And while definitely not rushing things; Thanksgiving which is one of my most favorite holidays.

Wearing:
   Mostly jeans and clogs or wedges; I know for most fall means breaking out the boots (and I have a pair that gets some wear) but for me fall means my favorite wedges and wearing clogs again.

Planting:
   Chrysanthemum and asters; and weeding the mint bed gone wild.   
    
My View: 

Reading:  Why Lie? my sister's newest release, and The Life You Save by Paul Elie.  I've read it before but did not finished. I'm enjoying the reread but finding it hard to keep everyone's story straight when I'm only reading a page or two at a time. 

Watching: This is Us which I really like, Timeless which I'm getting into, Blindspot which may be winning me back, and Designated Survivor which I'm about to give up on.  After falling into a habit of watching HGTV and the Food Channel all the time. We made an effort of trying to watch some of the new shows and I'm glad though my DVR is bit overwhelmed.  

Cooking: Pot Roast and Chili; and looking forward to Charlie's annual Stuffed Squash. 

The Kids:

Elisabeth is meeting the challenges of the increase workload 3rd grade brings with her usual intensity but actually is doing really well and improving by leaps and bounds at her gymnastics class (pun not intended).  She continues to have an amazing imagination and a real knack at making things come to life through clay or legos.  Reading for fun will likely find her in the Magic Treehouse with Jack and Annie.

Liam after a few minor bumps has settled well into the Kindergarten routine and is doing well with his sight words and starting to get the hang of sounding words out.  He is also in the same gymnastics class but mostly loves running.  Pokemon and all things ninja are still tops in his world

Caitlin is loving preschool and delights in making up games for us to play while the bigs are at school. Playing family is her favorite!  She has already informed me that she wants a Shimmer and Shine party for her birthday in January!

Please head over to Bobbi's for more Weekly Writing

October Weekly 2: Finnegan Begin Again

Linking up with Bobbi of Revolution of Love for weekly writing this October. I had a blast with Write31 last year and am enjoying reading along with those participating this year but knew I didn't have it in me but did want to challenge myself this month so weekly it is.

 Guess what is for breakfast today? French Toast!

 Guess what I meant to have for breakfast last Saturday in honor of the feast day of St Therese of Lisieux and forgot? French toast.

 Guess who planned to pray a rosary (or part of one) with her kids yesterday on the feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary? Me. Which as you are likely figuring out by now did not happen.  I did talk about it with the kids and about how in October we celebrate the wonderful gift of the rosary.  Elisabeth suggested Halloween as a way to finish the month. Liam suggested the 30th and asked if we call that day Halloween Eve; (which I found funny since Halloween means All Hallows Eve ~ does an Eve get it own Eve?).

Hopefully we will not wait till the very end of the month to try again for a family rosary.  And the lesson of the day I will focus on as I enjoy my French Toast, telling anyone who asks that Saint Therese was born in France, is that things don't always come together on the perfect day and what is important is that we finnegan Begin again!


Please head over to Bobbi for more weekly writings.

Guest Post: To Outline or Not

  In my quest to continue improving the writing around here when I was approached by Grammarly about a guest post I opened the door wide and said come on in. Hope you find the following as interesting as I did.

To Outline or Not to Outline

Through my research of how writers actually craft their work, I’ve noticed there is no trend when it comes to outlining. Some writers love outlining and believe they can’t start their work until they have a good solid idea of where they’re characters are going, what their motivations are, and what’s going to happen in the end. Other writers believe that outlining stops the creative process and doesn’t allow them to come to realizations naturally. Meaning they feel as if they are forcing the story and characters to perform rather than come to fruition through the circumstances of the story. Each writer has their own process and choosing to heavily outline, lightly outline, or fall somewhere in between, the only right way to create your story is the way that works best for your creative process. However, there are sites and sources that can aid in the writing and organizing of your story and help strengthen your own set of skills. Whether you’re fully committed to outlining or you hate it with a passion, there are tons of resources to help you create your story, outline, or streamline your ideas.

One of the best resources to use is Grammarly due to its comprehensive and adaptive tools, teaching elements, grammar check, plagiarism checker, and large customer service base. The grammar check in particular has over 250 points of grammar with which to check your work. Its adaptive tools cater to your style and pick up your most common mistakes while the teaching services can improve your skills and adapt to your needs. Many writers I’ve talked to like to use the context-optimized synonym generator when outlining. They use it come up with tons of words to use to describe their main characters, events, setting, weather, or other elements. It helps diversify their descriptions and bring fresh words into their word bank. If you’ve moved beyond just the outlining process, Grammarly’s tools can also read through your work and identify areas that need improvement instantly. If you’re one of those writers who loves to write on the go, in a coffee shop, or at your favorite inspiration park, Grammarly can follow you there. It can be accessed from any device, therefore making it easy to type your next paragraph on your tablet and check it for errors in a snap. Grammarly can help any writer from start to finish, even if you’re not the most graceful outliner.

Outlining is a heavily debated topic on many writing forums, in books, and even between famous authors. Some believe you can’t write a fleshed-out story without planning every single detail beforehand. Others think that outlining impedes the writing process and stops them from starting on their story. On the one hand, outlining provides a stable source to return to if writer’s block clogs your cogs. Outlines show a clear motivation for characters, a picture of the landscape, and why the events are taking place in the way they are. But are they too controlling? Do they make you feel as if you are forced to write whatever you wrote down three months ago? Do they take the fun completely out of writing? That’s for writers to decide for themselves. Both methods have their pluses and minuses, ups and downs, and opportunities for creative breakthroughs. But regardless of what your favorite writer suggested or what that article you read last week claimed about successful writing processes, you have to do what works best for your creative mind. For help along the way, though, there are tons of online resources for grammar checks, plagiarism detectors, synonym generators, and overall writing tools like Grammarly to guide you to a successful manuscript.

By Nikolas Baron

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Bio:

Nikolas discovered his love for the written word in Elementary School, where he started spending his afternoons sprawled across the living room floor devouring one Marc Brown childrens’ novel after the other and writing short stories about daring pirate adventures. After acquiring some experience in various marketing, business development, and hiring roles at internet startups in a few different countries, he decided to re-unite his professional life with his childhood passions by joining Grammarly’s marketing team in San Francisco. He has the pleasure of being tasked with talking to writers, bloggers, teachers, and others about how they use Grammarly’s online proofreading application to improve their writing. His free time is spent biking, travelling, and reading.

Day 5: Babies (31 days)

Day 5: Babies

   I don't know much about either of my parent's birth.  My paternal grandmother died before I was born and it somehow never came up with my dad that I can recall.  He too is gone now but his younger brother by about 18 months might have some details.  They (the older of four kids) were both born in the late 1920's so perhaps at home.  All I know about my mom's is that she was born in a hospital and was the biggest of my maternal grandmother's babies.  My mom was born in Belgium in April of 1945 and so somewhere there is a great picture of her at three weeks or so held by her older brother at a V-E celebration.

  I was also suppose to be born in April but for whatever reason labor did not start and even stranger my mother's doctor let her go a full month (never happen now) past.  So late on the 17th of May my mom was having irregular contractions at a prenatal appointment and licm ving a good distance away her doctor admitted her figuring she would be in good labor by the morning ~ luckily for me a nurse decided to put my mom on the monitor that night just to check how the baby (me) was doing with these early contractions (terribly) and even luckier a partner in the practice where my mom was going happened to be in the hospital ~ I was born by emergency c-section and was quite ill for awhile and was first in the hospital where I was born for a couple of weeks and then transferred to Boston Children's for another couple of weeks. So expected mid-April ~ came home mid-June.
Charlie's was on a Sunday morning and by report relatively low-stress and lovely.

I started this blog when Lisbeth was 9 months and have yet to write out her birth story (a goal for the month perhaps); the quick version is ~ a week overdue; 24-36 hours of prodromal earlier labor, appointment on Monday morning finds that I've dilated to 4 cm but there is essentially no fluid surrounding the baby so we augment my labor with Pitocin, a narcotic that makes me paranoid, an epidural that does not fully wear off for a day and a half but finally at 9:44 pm a sweet baby girl :).

Links to the other two:
Liam's
Caitlin's

Baby Elisabeth

Meeting Liam

Sisters together

Following Dara's lead for these 31 days

Day 3: What's in a name

Day 3: Let's talk names

 My maiden name is an English/Scottish version of the German meaning lion and my married name means the outer courtyard of a castle or someone who lives there.

My first name was chosen by my dad; my mom a) sure that I was a boy and b) having a favorite name she wanted to use let my dad take the lead in selecting the 'girl' name.  Joy had been a favorite of his since he knew someone by that name in college.  I was born in '73 and when my mom first heard his choice she thought it sounded too much like the names Hippies were using;  Sunshine & Peace-like ~ but stuck to the deal and quickly came to love the name.  My middle name Marie-Hazel are my grandmothers names.

My husband is a junior; his first name is his paternal grandmother's maiden name and his grandfather's first name is his middle.  As it happens both his grandfather's had versions of the same name as their first name.

Elisabeth (our oldest) is my favorite girl name since I'm a teenager and her middle names are family names from both our families.

My husband did not want our son to be 'a third' but did like the idea of him having the same initials as his dad and grandfather.  Liam was our favorite boy name starting with 'L'.

Finally Caitlin is my husband's favorite girl name (returning the favor from getting my favorite first time round) and again we used family names as her middle names.

Love 'name stories'; please share some of yours.

Linking up with Dara for 31 days of family writing fun.

5 minute friday ~ Voice

Voice:


Start
    
    I'm not sure when I started talking about the concept of her inside voice with my first but when her little brother came along it definitely became a concept often discussed.  Still a couple of years later a work in progress, she has discovered the great joy of finding herself outside and the freedom to let her voice fully demonstrate her energy and happiness of the moment and if there is an echo even better.
    And I'm learning along with her ~ when to let loose and shout, laugh and giggle so that the wind can pick it up and carry notes skyward like seeds to take root elsewhere.

Stop.

Day 24 ~ Because stories are more interesting...

     So much of why I decided to take Lisa Jo's challenge and spend these 31 days learning to write my story is that this blog and my belief in it had started to slowly die, my belief that I had anything to say that was worth putting down, worth being read by others.  But that is not really for me to say ~ all I need to do is put down best I can what I know and what I feel about this life I live.

   This life of loving children still receiving more than they can yet give but giving in their own way and  as I teach them about compassion and empathy teaching me again and again the great good in giving of yourself expecting nothing in return but to serve and to the gifts and opportunities given you by God for his glory.

  This life where my professional vocation seems in flux and I'm so unsure of what to do next and when my responsibilities at home will allow more focus outward in a way that grows us as a family and community.

  Having gained so much from reading posts on ideas such as success and mentoring I seek to find again the confidence to put down what I know and believe in the hope that someone will be helped and fed at this blog table.

31 day catch-up

     Wanted to take a quick moment and catch-up on all of  31 day posts of the gypsy mom Lisa Jo that I have not yet included here ~ either I already had a post planned or I couldn't figure out how her post translated into a prompt.  However they have all been wonderful and don't want any of you following along from here to miss them.

Day 15 ~ What to do with your broken pieces

Day 17 ~ Edit ruthlessly

Day 18 ~ Save the scraps for another day  (today's)

Day 16 ~ How to write yourself out of the dark

Writing myself out of the dark:

     My darkness sometimes looks like loneliness; no family nearby, few friends with young children, a husband who works very long hours, and missing the interactions and activities of a full-time work life ~ I write to connect with other moms, to see if there is an answering call that comes back as I record the moments of sweetness, the moments of hilarity, the moments of stress when I sure I'm doing it all wrong ~ Me too!

     My darkness sometimes looks like overstimulation: too much noise, too much mess, too many demands for hugs, or chocolate milk, or Caillou, or whatever is the essential thing of the moment ~ I write in stolen moments to find again the quiet that centers this introvert and leads me back to myself, back to gratitude for the blessings amidst the craziness, to quiet my mind and find the rest that brings the strength to do it all again with fresh eyes and strong arms.

How do you write yourself out of dark?

Day 13 ~ Encouragement to stay the course

    So the 'packed but doable day' of course morphs into the complicated by child up incredible early, work deadline, huge traffic jam and errands taking 3x as long to complete as you had guess day ~ and you are at that point in the challenge where the enthusiasm of starting out has passed and you're not yet at any big milestone of achievement (i.e halfway, or within view of the finish) and you are wondering why you started and if anyone would notice if you skipped a day or stopped all together.

   And then friends tell you they are reading and enjoying what you are writing and the host of the challenge post a favorite quote by a favorite author ~ and suddenly you can go on, will go on and want to keep writing your story, before you fall asleep at your keyboard.

Day 11 ~ Even when you don't feel like it ~ do it

   An important reminder not only about writing but also praying, growing in our understanding and practice of faith.

And so may I wish all of those to whom it may concern:

A happy and blessed Year of Faith!

Day 10 ~ Describe the details

Write with all five senses.

Slow down and remember. Then write – like you’re serving a five course meal. So that we can savor every delicious word of your story.

Want to give it a try? Describing any memory you have from the beach.

     It was early evening and the sky had picked up a pink tinge which complimented perfectly the grayish tint of the ocean.  The breeze picking up a bit as we headed down to sea's edge, their initial hesitancy gave me the moment I needed to feel confident about having them both by myself so close to the water, and so as their enthusiasm built so did mine.

     The surprise the first time the cold water ran over their toes and then rushed away leaving squishy wet sand behind, the giggly anticipation for when it would happen again was contagious and soon I found myself laughing too but also taking in the peace of an ocean as the tide goes out, quietly cresting and rolling leaving behind scents picked up miles out beyond what our eyes can see. 

     The grip on my hand once so tight loosens and soon the balance checks of their footing after a wave recedes pulling sand with it no longer requires my hand or help ~ and while staying close I allow them a bit of freedom to on their own face the ocean and leap and laugh as the water rushes in.

    The failing light and falling temperature soon called us back across the sand to the boardwalk and towards the park lot and waiting car with many glances back to settle into memory this day's visit while already anticipating the next time we would find ourselves at the water's edge.

Day 8 ~ Because someone else needs your story

Today's prompt that I should be brave in writing about my thoughts and experiences because someone needs my story has always been an interesting idea to me.  I've spent much of my adult life sure that I had something to offer world around me but afraid of being rude, wrong or an imposition.  I also value highly the notion that we are all in this world called to serve and to use the gifts given us by God to be of help to one another.


So on this blog and in comment boxes I share of my experiences, what I've learned over these nearly forty years, and what I believe about life and love, faith and family ~ hoping that something I say will resonate with a reader and that someday when my littles read these recordings they enjoying reading about their early adventures and antics and how much sharing in them meant to me.

Mostly I keep writing and sharing despite my fears and doubts because this is my little corner of the world; my thoughts and writing are honestly offered with the kindest of intentions and the best of hopes.

Day 7 ~ Words have the power of life in them

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

I'm going to indulge in a bit of cheat today and send you over to read Lisa Jo post/prompt because I think she speaks perfectly of the power of life that our words carry. 

Though I will add that this is one of the unexpected responsibilities of motherhood, having a little, sponge of person listening and taking in everything I say ~ even when I don't think they are listening.

~ How do I talk to the homeless person on the corner?

~ How do I talk to/about their dad?

~ How do I convey disappointment in a choice they made while still communicating unconditional love and support?

Our words indeed can carry great power in them.

Day 6 ~ When time for writing is short

5 minute friday: Welcome

 

Welcome:
    So there is food, fellowship and often a fire; but mostly there is welcome.  Welcome for the weary musician/singer, especially if this is the first time they are away for Easter, if this is the first time that they sang/played the Trid gauntlet.  Beginning with Holy Thursday and ending five Masses later on Easter Sunday.  We make welcome with food and warmth and hope that they eat well and listening to the stories of past Tridium and the recap of this one begin to truly feel part of this church family.
   And at the end of the evening while the faithful remnant help with unloading and reloading once again the dishwasher, we get to again marvel that the small feast shared among some graduate students has grown and endure to becoming Easter dinner for any and all who would like to come and join in.


For more 5 minute friday please head over to Lisa Jo Baker's

Day 4 ~ Just write and don't worry if it's just right

If there’s one thing that will rob you of your writing voice before you even get started it’s your teacher voice.

You know the one – the voice that complains about how that sentence structure is off, or that comma is in the wrong place or that metaphor is way off base.

The voice that wants you to edit every single sentence before you get through even a single paragraph.

Have you ever participated in Five Minute Friday? What’s your favorite part about it?

I haven't but will tomorrow, because I definitely know that voice.  For me the death nail for taking pride in writing was college.  Previously I had gotten enough reinforcement and decent enough grades to still take enjoyment in writing though no longer thinking that should be a career focus. However my freshman year English teacher was so critical, and 'concerned' about my ability to write at a college-level it made me doubt everything I had ever thought about my ability with the written word. Doubts that still follow me to this day.

See you tomorrow.

Day 3 ~ you do have a story to tell

So go ahead, take a deep breath and tell me: what is the story that you have to tell?

      What story do I have to tell?

    A story of wanting to care for women and young families and staying flexible when job titles and approaches had to change.  Of discovering a love for teaching and a mission to teach nursing students to treat women with compassion and dignity, to believe in the inherent power in their bodies, their ability to birth well and nourish their babies from their bodies if they desire.  Of discerning that your call and vocation may be primarily at home for awhile.

    A story of a great love found young and cared for and cherished through years of separation and discernment, finding its way to a marriage almost a decade old now.  A story of waiting and wishing for littles and the great blessing and craziness of mothering, of stretching and growing and learning as they learn & grow, testing the ground and you.  Of learning how to remain true to yourself as you die to self, of A-framing as spouses as you learn to parent together.

   A story of grace and love, of prayers and praises, of God's strengthening and sustaining love.

That is the story I have to tell.

31 days to write your story {day 2} If you didn’t grow up planning to be a writer

 {day 2} If you didn’t grow up planning to be a writer

How about you? Would you call yourself a writer? When did you know?

     I would not call myself a writer as I would say that writing (and maybe photography) is how I choose to tell my story, put down my history, and talk about issues that are important to me.  Plus major insecurities about how well I write ~ hence why I'm doing this series.

    I'm not very artistic, I don't feel I should paint, sculpt, or draw.  While I enjoy music and hope someday to learn to play the guitar, I don't sing well and am not drawn to composing.

      However I increasing believe that based on my experience as a nurse-midwife, teacher, wife, mother and Catholic Christian I have something to say and the written word is an important part of how I say it, how I reach out to others, share experiences and offer advice.

How about you?

31 day challenge ~ Writing my story

So when I opened my Google Reader yesterday this is what I found from Lisa Jo Baker;

Welcome to 31 days – the beautiful brainchild of the Nester who inspires us to spend the month of October writing every single day on a topic that might inspire a community.

Continue reading for my day 1 post. Or you can browse the other posts in my series as they pop up below each new day in October.

And I'm taking the challenge because part of my story is that I love reading and writing ~ as in as long as I can remember ~ but have never felt very confident about my writing abilities (feedback in school was always very mixed).  So I'm going to take the deep breath, follow Lisa Jo's prompts and see where the next 31 days takes me.