How long does Writer’s Block usually last?

Over a year? Is that normal?

Crayap.

I haven’t written, edited, or even looked at one of my manuscripts since last year’s JUNOWRIMO!

Is that horrible? Yes. This is why I’m not published. I stopped trying. I just up and stopped. To be honest, I have a lot of reasons / excuses / life-changing events that have put me off from writing, but I know if I made it a priority I’d have something more to show for it.

Well NO MORE! I’ve promised myself to complete NaNoWriMo this year. Even if whatever I write is utter garbage. I miss it. I miss the process of weaving a story. I miss feeling creative and challenged. So I have a speck of an idea that’s going to turn into 50,000 words if it kills me.

What about you? Anyone else out there planning on NaNo-ing? How long do you stay stuck when you get stuck? And most important, how do you get out of it?? Advice welcome!

Happy Thursday!

Danger Zone

I make it a point to never talk about Politics. Literally to the extent that if someone brings it up, I’ll zip my lips, wait until they’re done expressing their opinion, nod, and change the subject. I don’t know why, but it makes me very uncomfortable. Maybe because I’m not a full fledged member of either party, maybe because I don’t take the time to educate myself enough to feel like I’m entitled to an opinion. Or maybe just because it makes me uncomfortable.

But I was watching the debate last night (I missed the first half due to bedtime for the babies), but I couldn’t help feeling more and more unsure the more they said. I agree with some of BOTH of their ideas.

And then, as a daughter of my die-hard conspiracy theorist parents, I couldn’t help but think, how much of this is true? I was reminded of high school elections where the candidates make all these outrageous promises (think soda in the water fountains) which they’ll never deliver on.

(Then I remember that I was Vice President Junior and Senior year…ahem…moving on..)

But what I ended up thinking was, does it even matter? Does it matter what I think? I live in Utah. Our vote is decided regardless of what I do. Seriously. (Don’t get me started on the electoral college). So what difference does it make which man wins? What are THEY going to do to make MY life better?

Unless it’s a bigger tax return this year, (or student loan forgiveness… PLEASE????) the answer is, they’re not going to DIRECTLY impact my family life so much. And after all this contemplation, I had an epiphany of sorts. Which might seem obvious to some of you out there who are wiser than me, but to me it was a revelation.

I am the president that matters. I am president of my house. (Don’t worry, my husband would agree). I’m in charge of keeping my home a safe, prosperous environment. I have to manage our economy, and balance our budget. I’m in charge of educating my girls so they’re ready for a lifetime of success. I have to instill a moral compass in them that leads them to make the best decisions and provide them with every opportunity to succeed in the scary, scary world that is outside our sovereign territory.

Duh.

But still. It comforted me to an extent. I may not have power over who rules our country. I’ll never have any say in what America does to Iran, or how we look to the national community. But I CAN control my house. I CAN influence my children, my neighborhood, and my surrounding community. I can be an example of what’s right, and good, and fair. And hope and pray that America does the same.

So I still don’t know who I’m voting for. I’ll make a confession; I’m 28 and never voted. I suffer from a severe and unrelenting case of apathy. But I really want to vote this year. It’s not just about me anymore.  I just hope I can make up my mind before November.

(Now I know some of you will probably disagree with what I’ve said. And that’s fine. But I just thought I’d write this down. Mostly for my own sake. So if you feel the need to comment, I just ask that we keep it respectful. I know how politics make people. Hence the inherent need I have to avoid it. )

Happy Tuesday!

Where I’ve Been…

Is it bad to say “In the bathroom?” Well, not for the reason you’d think. We’ve gotten into remodeling again. It seems like it’ll never end. But we are one step closer to having gutted every room in the house. This one was a challenge. We weren’t planning on re-doing the bathroom. But then we discovered a leak from the bottom of the toilet. We thought, “okay, we’ll replace the wax ring and be done.”

I don’t think either of us really believed that.

Sure enough once we pulled up the toilet, we saw that not only was the wax ring disintegrating, the sub floor under the carpet (yes, carpet) was rotted to the touch.

Cue the stress. Suddenly this little job became HUGE. We could replace the floor and stop there, but if we’re going to take everything out, which we need to, why not fix the walls? If we’re going to fix the walls, we might as well get a new vanity, and chuck the old one. And so on, and so forth. Until at last, this:

 

turned into this:

and resulted in this:

Yes, I made the last picture bigger than the rest.

I’m kind of over the moon about it. I’ve never gone into designing a room without some sort of plan, or inspiration piece. Until this. I had to figure out SOMETHING to cover up those walls. I didn’t want tile again, and I couldn’t afford to re-drywall. So we went with beadboard. I absolutely love how it looks. We ended up running it vertically for the bottom 36” and horizontally for the top 16”. Why our bathroom was tiled up to 52 1/2” I will never know, But we found a way to fix it, and that’s what matters.

I won’t go into all the dirty details, but I’m so so happy to share the end results!

Those shadowboxes are the drawers from our old vanity. I painted them, cut down the glass shelf from our old medicine cabinet to fit inside, and backed it with the same fabric I used for the curtain. Which was, in fact a shower curtain that I cut down. I’m not a great seamstress, so I used the loops that were already done on the shower curtain for my rod. Then I just sewed weights into the bottom hem, and sewed up the side. The artwork are just some inexpensive frames from Wal-Mart and then scrapbook paper and letters I had.

I’m so glad it’s over. And now I won’t be embarrassed to let my guests use the restroom!

And one day, I will get on a regular blogging schedule again. Until then, thanks for hanging around and being patient with me. Congrats to all those writers out there who are getting good news too! Agents, and book deals, and cover reveals, oh my! You all are an inspiration.

I think I’m finally getting back to a place, mentally where I can write again. I’m even flirting with the idea of NaNo this year. I have another idea…

Hope all is well in the blogosphere! Happy Tuesday!

Check It Out!

This post is a little outside my normal realms of bloggage, but it’s concerning graphic design (kind of) so I figure I can count it under the design category (sorta). Whatever, I’m just excited about it.

So I just finished putting together a branding package for a friend of mine who’s starting up her photography business, and I have to say I’m pretty excited about it. We worked together to design her logo, letterhead, business card, and her website. She was great to work with and super patient with me, and she knew what she wanted. Which is always nice.

Anyway, here’s what we came up with for her branding package:

And to see her website you can check her out here. (see the follow button? I’m sure she’d love for you to click it!)  She’s just starting out, but she’s really amazing. She took pictures of my girls for me when my littlest was just 2 weeks old and she was FABULOUS. She’s going to do some family shots for us in the fall when Baby B is a little bigger and can, you know…sit up.

Anyway, here’s a sample of what she did for me:

Priceless right?

Anyway, if anyone in the Salt Lake area needs a photographer, I highly recommend her! And if anyone needs blogger design help or some branding of their own…email me in a couple months. lol. No really, I’d love to help. I love doing it.

That’s all for now! Happy Tuesday!

Heart Palpitations

So I saw this contest link on the lovely Chantele Sedgwick’s blog and within 20 minutes I had entered.

Am I the only one who gets incredibly nervous when sending other people my work? I was rejected over and over for book one, I haven’t even queried book two and it’s been a year since I even WROTE the thing.

But I thought, hey, what could it hurt? Maybe this is the jump-start I need to get back on the query wagon. Either way, I entered, with book 2, and you should too, cuz why not? Life is short right?

In other news, life is BUSY! My husband and I both got promotions this month, which is an AMAZING blessing, but also means a whole lot more work. I’m now the Design Director (aka ONLY designer) for Noah’s and we’re planning on, oh, like six buildings this year. How many did we do last year with two designers, you ask? Oh…one.

Yeah. This should be interesting. And super exciting.

And my husband just got promoted to a job where he’ll be the manager of a store called the Red Zone, which sells all things University of Utah. The greatest part is, it’s literally 15 minutes away from where we live. His commute will go from 20 hours a week (yes, it’s equivalent to a part-time job) to FIVE hours a week. I don’t even know what to do with all that extra time with him! I can’t even imagine! He doesn’t start till next month, but we’re so excited!

So that’s what’s going on in these parts. And why I’ve been so sporadic with my blogging. But I had to share this contest with you all and wish everyone luck. At least one other person will be reading my work.

And maybe one day, hundreds will. Right? Right?

Happy Monday!

Testing the Water

Remember when I said “see you in six weeks?” and my beautiful girl is three months old?

Oops.

The truth is, I’ve been scared of jumping back into this blogging thing. I don’t feel like it’s my forte. Part of it is my lack of confidence. Every time I start blog-surfing again, I feel this overwhelming sense of intimidation. Thoughts start to surface about  my inadequacy. Thoughts like “Her FOURTH book is coming out?” or “She has over 2000 followers?” or “She just had a baby and is STILL blogging?” And I know I’m not supposed to compare. But it’s hard.

Another reason is my lack of time. Life has been pulling me in so many directions lately, it’s hard to spend adequate amounts of time on my hobbies, let alone my obligations. Work is picking up dramatically, and is about to get even busier. With hopefully three new Noah’s buildings on the horizon, all at once, I’ve got a lot to do with my day job. Then there’s the beautiful baby girl. She’s so great, really. But she’s still an infant that needs to be fed every three hours (except at night. She’s so wonderful and sleeps about 12 hours every night. good girl). And then there’s potty training…

I won’t go into that.

But I keep having what I call “blog-thoughts.” Things that I ponder upon and think, “I should post that and see if anyone agrees with me.” So this is my test. My wary foray back into the blogging world. We’re all busy. We all have obligations and passions and hobbies. And that’s what makes this blogging thing so neat. We can share all those things with a massive amount of like-minded people who we’d never get to meet otherwise.

Which is why I can’t give it up. I hope some people are still here. I hope I didn’t scare you away with the massive remodel posts and subsequent silence.

And as always, Happy Wednesday!

Grand Finale and a Short Goodbye

This is my last remodel post (collective sigh of relief from the interwebs) and probably my last post at all for the next 6 weeks or so. I'm officially going in on Monday to be induced (inner sigh of relief from me). So I'll be busy with the occupant of this newly designed room, and I hope you all will be here when I get back! Anyway, onward and upward.

I hope you’re not tired of seeing remodel pictures yet, because this one’s probably my favorite from our latest round of renovating. I told myself that if we were having another girl, I’d leave the nursery alone. It was fine, it was girly, it didn’t need anything else. It was foolish to spend money on it. (For THOSE before and afters, go here).

Then I thought, well, maybe I’ll get some new bedding at least. What’s new bedding going to hurt?
Then I saw this:


And I fell head over heels. But wait. It’s plum. Like DARK plum. That doesn’t match a pink striped wall! Well, we can paint the wall easy enough, right? But what about the pillows? Those don’t match either. And the curtains are out of the question!

Suddenly, I was doing a new nursery in my head. And once its in my head, ladies and gentlemen, it must be realized. Or I get a little…cranky. So with this bedding set as the jumping off point, I plotted and planned and paint-matched and finally ended up with my new favorite room in the house. Which, really, nurseries are more for the mom’s than the babies right? I mean I’m the one who has to sit in there looking around for hours.

Anyway, I’ll shut up now. These pictures are also from Danielle Oakey, bless her soul.

Plum makes me happy. There’s so much in this room that makes me happy. The jewelry holder that I’m using for hair bows, The framed scrapbook paper above the changing area, the little ceramic owl peeking out from the bookcase, and the lampshade that was supposed to be a pendant light from IKEA (you can see a glimpse of it in the third-to-last picture).

So while the furniture stayed the same, and the layout stayed the same, this room feels completely different. And now, I have pictures to put in baby A’s baby book of her new room that aren’t identical to her big sister’s. And that makes me happy too. Now I just need her to get here so I can put into that amazing bedding. Not too much longer now…

Happy Friday!