the juggling act crashes and burns ....

don't you hate to admit defeat?!  i know i do.  i struggle along trying to balance everything even when i know i've scripted myself for failure.  in my last post i talked about all the online classes i had enrolled in suddenly coming together in a sort of cosmic convergence designed specifically to make me question my sanity.  which has been hanging by a thread of late, but that's another story for another day.   if i remember.  at my age, there's no guarantee.

so, here it is, two weeks after my last post and i finally have had to give up any pretense that i could actually do it all.  do YOU ever feel that way, like you CAN do it all, juggle all those balls in the air and manage your time so effectively that you get it all done and still have time at the end of the day to go out for drinks with your friends?  and then reality steps in and takes control and knocks you back to your senses?  kind of like life having a bit of a chuckle at your expense.

one of my classmates in my current blogging class recently wrote a post about spinning plates and multi-tasking.  she referred to that guy on the old Ed Sullivan show who would spin a bunch of plates and bowls on sticks. all at the same time.   he was a fan favorite, as i recall.  he was right up there with Topo Gigio for entertainment value on a Sunday night, right? 

her post struck a real chord with me, because i've been struggling with so many class commitments.  but i finally realized that i couldn't possibly do justice to them all, and so i narrowed my attention and energy to the two where i had actually kept up with the reading and some level of participation with the other members of the classes: blogging and journaling.  i feel good about this decision; it's created a more manageable project for me, and as a result i'm enjoying the classes more.

i'll pick up the photography class at a later date, probably in May when the other classes have completed.  the art projects workshop is one of those "work at your own pace" classes that will last through December, perfect for focusing on later.  and the research i did for this year's IFJM will be saved on my computer for April 2014 so that i can do justice to that project without all the other distractions.



i guess those words of wisdom from the White Rabbit were prophetic:  "You made it! Oh dear, it looks like you didn't make it after all, haha he-hoo!"

all together now ... haha he-hoo!!!!

i'm late / i'm late / for a very important date!

am i the only one that feels that way?!  never mind that i'm retired and have plenty of time on my hands.  but i always feel this time pressure when i go through a long spell of no activity and then suddenly find that i've over-committed myself.  it makes me want to grab clumps of my hair and run around like a crazed person, screaming "i can't do it, i can't do it, what have i done?!" ... at least i have the good sense to only do that in my head so that i at least maintain some semblance of normality to the untrained eye.

this sense of impending doom started this past weekend when i suddenly realized that all the fabulous online classes i signed up for back in February start this week.  yikes!  so the classes in journaling, blogging, photography, and art projects will all be competing for my time and energy. 

as everyone who knows me knows, i have a very limited supply of energy and stamina.  not to mention a short attention span when it comes to doing things i "should" be doing.  i'm easily distracted.  *grin*

add to the mix the fact that April is IFJM, which i've mentioned before.  i'm determined to participate this year, by hook or by crook.  i decided on a theme (more on that later) and have  already done most of the research, so i'm ready to make some journal pages, thank goodness.

when i take a deep breath, i actually realize that i can handle these online commitments.  but i do feel overwhelmed if i let myself dwell on what i'll need to do for each class.  i'll just have to remember these words of wisdom from the White Rabbit: "You made it! Oh dear, it looks like you didn't make it after all, haha he-hoo!" 

the alternative is to
go back to my bed
throw bedclothes over my head

--------------------------
apropos of nothing in particular: here's a little trivia gem i stumbled across when i was looking up the Alice in Wonderland quote i used for the title:

The English novelist Aldous Huxley worked with Walt Disney on early scripts for this project in late 1945. The original idea was for a cartoon version of Alice embedded in a flesh-and-blood episode from Lewis Carroll's life. Huxley's mother, Julia Arnold, was one of the little girls that Carroll used to enjoy photographing, and to whom he told the Alice stories. The project was close to Huxley's heart, but Disney found his work too intellectual, and it was not used. Huxley received no credit on the finished picture.

less is more ...

last august i concluded why have 1 when you can have 3. now i have 3 blogs sitting out in the blogosphere gathering dust instead of just 1. what's wrong with this picture? i'm rethinking this approach as a result of the blogging class i'm taking. well, ok, really i was already thinking about it and have been since i created the new blogs. you know, the old saw "do one thing and do it well", or "jack of all trades, master of none."

but Susannah's class has brought the idea back to the forefront of my lazy brain. i'm thinking to pull these other interests (artsy fartsy stuff and genealogy/memoir/family stuff) back to the mobytes home page, possibly as a link to another page, or maybe a tab. as i always say when i take too long to make a response bid in bridge, "thinking, thinking" ...

oh yeah, and i definitely to need to spruce up the "about me" bio ... the current version says next to nothing about who i am. i'll have to jazz it up, make me more interesting, lol ...

stay tuned for more exciting developments in the world of mo ;)

already in love ....

with the new blogging class, Blogging from the Heart, and we're only at day 3 of week 1!!! that says a LOT about how good Susannah is as an instructor, never mind all her other talents ;)

i'm glad to see i've at least got one of the cardinal rules well in hand: simplicity. simplicity of layout, of color, of content on the page (well, ok, that needs a spot of refinement, lol).

but just based on today's lesson alone, i have some minor changes ... tweaks as it were ... to implement that will make the page a bit more personal, a bit more reflective of me. by this weekend i hope to have them in place.

excitement abounds! at least for THIS blog geek.

new class .....

well, one of several online classes that i'm currently taking or that are about to start. but THIS one is "blogging from the heart" ... it's being offered by Susannah Conway, a wonderful photographer and instructor from the UK. can't wait to see what unfolds ;)

Susannah Conway

memoirs: fiction or non-fiction

this is a good piece by Michael Larson about writing memoirs. i love the concept of writing your own history with some fiction thrown in for good measure. at my age, i certainly can't remember "exactly" what happened and when, i can only estimate some of the events based on the context of approximate periods in my life. aside from specific events that had a big impact on me, like November 22, 1963 and September 11, 2001, most life events tend to blur together. about 3-4 years ago, i was writing a story about our family Christmas morning tradition for an OASIS writing class. my description of the events was a conglomeration of many Christmases rolled into one, with some fictionalized descriptive passages thrown in for good measure. you know, the kind of verbiage that gives you a better sense of the surroundings. early, early in the morning on Christmas day, when the air is still frigid and it's still dark, how does snow sound when you're trudging thru it to get to the car to go to Christmas mass? what does your breath look like in the frosty air? are your nostrils frozen together yet?

there, do you feel cold yet? go have a cup of tea to warm up. Earl Grey. Hot.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

yup, that's right, it's almost November again and time for another month of attempting to write a novel or some semblance therein. every year i aim for 50k words so i can "win" the event. so far i've managed to only win once, in 2008. and that's only because i did a massive word dump, lol.

this year my intention was to continue with a wee project i started early last year, a travel journal for a fake trip to Ireland. the concept for that started back in the spring of 2009 when i ran across International Fake Journal Month (IFJM) over on Roz Stendahl's blog. but i happened across it too late in the month (April) to fully participate. i decided then that i would flesh out the story in November for NaNo, stocking up on a plethora of Irish tour guides and miscellaneous travel books. and i did make a feeble attempt at writing the travel journal, mapping out the itinerary, making notes of places to see and things to do. i did dump a lot of words into the book but the project felt overwhelming, and i didn't get very far with it.

i did think, however, that i had enough to work with to participate in the 2010 IFJM project. well, April 2010 came and went without any activity related to Ireland. le sigh.

ramping up for this year's NaNo, i thought for sure i'd write my Irish travel journal. and that's been my intention for weeks. but creeping into the back of my mind was the idea of capturing family memories. i had started writing family stories for my OASIS writing class a few years ago, and continued in the same vein when i took an online memoir writing class through Writer's Digest. and what has really brought it to the forefront is the flurry of family emails in the last week surrounding the birth of my first great-nephew, Jack.

i finally realized late in the day yesterday that the urge to write family stories is too strong to ignore. trying to focus on the Irish project felt forced, while the memoir kept poking through my awareness, demanding my attention. and because the memoir feels more natural, i think it will help keep my focus and my enthusiasm for the month of writing. i may even reach 50k again!!

there will be many more posts on this subject, so it's fair to say "to be continued."