It is a lovely day today, warm enough to sit outside on my porch in a t-shirt and enjoy the sunshine. And pants. I am wearing pants, too, don't worry.
I've got my watered down fountain drink beside me (I'll quit tomorrow, Tracy.) as well as one or both of my animals as they lay out in the sunshine, get overheated and periodically go inside to get some water. I am grateful for this fabulous apartment and the big tree that filters the sunlight. I would make some comment about global warming, except that October was frickin' cold, and it will get cold again soon. For now, it's a lovely day.
Before the battery dies, I need to announce my win in the Reno News & Review's 95 Word Fiction Contest. Hooray!
http://www.newsreview.com/reno/dynamite-comes-in-small-packages/content?oid=11970988
I caught the announcement this year and decided that- come hell or high water- I was going to enter. I enlisted Tracy's help for editing and encouragement, and she was awesome with her timely feedback and shooting down my self-conscious defenses. I tried to follow a loose requirement of working on one daily, and ended up submitting four. They printed three of those, which blew me away. I am honestly most proud of entering the contest at all, and as far as I can remember, this is the first piece of writing I have submitted anywhere since high school, and I missed the deadline on that. Procrastination is my biggest problem. Stephen King wrote a book called On Writing, and most of what I remember about his advice (aside from writing in everyday language), is the discipline required. Perhaps I need to give myself a schedule or at least one day a week where that's my job. I do want to write, I enjoy writing, and this... this is such incredible encouragement.
In addition to such amazing ego-boosting from the contest's judges, I received a tremendous amount of love from my family and friends in response to this link on Facebook. My heart has been pounding ever since I hit the send button on my entries, and I feel so filled up with love, support, and encouragement that I can't possibly absorb it all right now, but I will be rolling around in the overflow for quite some time.
I do not currently feel a mania to rush around doing chores today. I have some errands to run and I am also rolling around in an overflow of laundry, but I feel happy and peaceful and unrushed- perhaps because my cushy government job is giving me a paid day off on Monday, so I get to go over to Squeeze In for my free breakfast for veterans, YUM.
It's so quiet in here- just the hum of the fridge and the cars outside. In apartment complexes, I always feel like the cars are like bees, flying in and out of the hive all day long. Solo is out on the porch, curled up in my chair, and I am inside attached to the power cord with Riley at my feet. She's losing some vision, and can no longer find me if the sound of my voice is bouncing off of anything, so on my list of errands today is Big Lots, so I can go find a retractable leash. I'm going to make a vet appointment to see if they can give me some kind of parameters for how bad it is or what to look for. I don't think they'll be able to tell me too much more than I already know, but maybe they can warn me of what I don't know or what I can't see.
I'm hungry and I need to get some groceries, but these lulling noises are putting me down for a nap. Mmmm. Happy nap.
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