Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Writing or Not

My writing group was canceled again this week.

That's right; the group of people I get together with one evening out of the week, the one time I can interact with other adults without a small child tugging on my sleeve or climbing into my lap between myself and the screen or sitting on my keyboard and typing who knows what, canceled on me.  Again.  This is, technically, the second week in a row.  Even more technically, the week before that one member was missing, and we really didn't get any work done anyway.

This displeases me.

 It is tough to find babysitting.  I mean, it is really tough.  Those with children understand.  Those with no children sometimes ask me why I can't just take my children--ages 5 and 2--with me to my writing group.  I want to shove a great big HA! in their faces.  I've actually tried that a few times, when I can't get any babysitting.  It generally means I get nothing useful done.  (I'm typing this at home, at the dining room table.  Just writing this much, with all the distractions I've had, has taken the better part of 40 minutes.)

Part of the trouble is, I am extremely picky about the people with whom I choose to leave my children.  The list is short--my in-laws, my parents, my sisters, two friends.  All of them have extremely busy lives and are available only infrequently.  Three of my sisters have their own children to care for.  

(To give you a picture of how busy and distracted I am, it is now nearly five hours later than when I finished the paragraph above.  The children are in bed, Matthew is home, and we are snuggled on the couch watching a documentary of China.)

I should mention that Savanna and her mother visited us this evening.  It was very pleasant, particularly since they had just gotten back from a week's travel.  They might not have ventured forth from their house except that apparently during their travels, the man of their house ate All The Food.  And didn't buy more.  Better luck for us, getting to have dinner guests!

My disgruntlies have turned into gruntlies, as I have now (yes, it's 2 hours later) found a website that makes me very, very happy.  http://thiskidreviewsbook.com.  The address alone should tell you why I am so pleased!  A 12-year-old boy who reads an unbelievable amount of books and writes reviews for some.  And he reads good stuff!  Tolkien!  Brian Jacques!  Fablehaven!  Jerry Spinelli!  Tintin!  I want to mail the contents of my book shelves to him!  Haha, my missionizing attititude is asserting itself!

But now I must go to bed.  I will try to write another blog Soon, and hopefully it will be more coherent than this one.  See, Neta, when you cancel our writers group it takes me 7 hours to write a simple blog post.  NO MORE CANCELIES!  NO NO NO!

2 comments:

  1. I tried to comment before, but it wouldn't let me. Anyway, I was going to say that I totally get the whole being picky about who babysits your kids thing. For me, being a mom is a big enough challenge, and I am always hesitant to leave that challenge to someone who doesn't know my kids' needs like I do. But...hopefully Fiona will be a little less needy soon and I can do some babysitting for you. :)

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    1. I'll be happy to reciprocate the babysitting! Your children are precious!

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