NaNoWriMo Day One – (Oct 18th, 2009)
Lying in bed with the words pouring through my head, I should have gotten, (is gotten a word?) up and put them down on paper, because there were so many of them and now they seem to be gone. It was a lovely stream of consciousness, a babbling brook of words and thoughts and memories. Maybe they’ll come back again tonight for another visit and maybe I’ll have the strength of character to leave the flannel comfort of my pillow top mattress and my warm, snoring husband, to let those words get out of my head and onto the page. Who, besides myself, will care remains to be seen. It is highly probable, in my opinion, that no one will find my story of any interest whatsoever, but I have long wanted to write it down, and so now, inspired by this autumn festival of writing, I shall do it, if only for my own satisfaction. Yes, I know I’m starting too early. It isn’t November yet, but the words and the desire are here now, so I will write for a month and when that thirty days are over, I’ll either have fifty thousand words, or I won’t. I am not afraid that the National November Writers Month Police will come and take my keyboard away if I don’t follow the rules to the letter. (I’m not quite so confident about what will happen to me in light of all the conservative petitions I’ve been signing, in what is probably a vain attempt to preserve the nation that I’ve known and loved for fifty three years.) Right now, though, while I’m drinking my coffee with milk out of a snowman mug, I need to start thinking about getting ready for church. What will I wear and what will I do with my tangle of naturally curly hair and what will we eat when we get home and will I have enough energy for cleaning out the shed this afternoon, as we had planned for this warm weekend in October. A favorite month, is October, with its’ cooler days and autumn leaves and frosts and pumpkins, which by the way the dratted, pesky, oh so cute squirrels have been feasting on, at my expense. Hello, we bought them to decorate the front porch, not for you guys to eat!! Get a job and stop stealing my stuff, you hooligans!!
1:30 pm - We’ve come home from church and had our fried egg sandwiches for lunch and have been busily cleaning out the shed in preparation for winter and the upcoming holidays. A certain Lutheran Church in Colorado is where we can often be found on a Sunday morning, although I don’t consider myself to be a Lutheran, because, for one thing, I don’t agree with infant baptism. Baptism in the scriptures is an outward sign of an inward work and requires repentance. At least that’s the way I read it. Jesus said, “Repent and be baptized,” (notice the repent thing coming first) and I can’t remember reading in the Bible anywhere about “baptize your babies so that I don’t have to send them to hell”. Okay, whatever. I love to quote from the scriptures because God doesn’t sue people for plagiarism. I don’t think anyone at the church is evil, just because they baptize babies, but I do think they are wrong. Not like I’ve never been wrong about anything and there are probably a lot of things I’m mistaken about right at this very moment. Come on, how many of us truly have God and all His ways all figured out, or ever will? Until we get home to the Author and Finisher of our faith. The Pastor is a sweet, Godly man and one of the main reasons why Doug and I (Doug is my husband) decided to keep attending. Especially Doug. I think I might prefer a Baptist church. But Doug wants to go to the Lutheran church, so that is where we will go. I can find good Christian stuff online. I enjoy reading John Piper's sermons over at Desiring God very much. Our pastor preached a good sermon this morning, about forgiveness. (Some weird Lutheran thing I never heard of before, called “the Office of the Keys”, from that binding and loosing scripture.) Made me think about people who say they have no regrets. It seems like that might be nice. On the other hand, how could you ever repent if you truly thought you’d never done anything wrong? And does anyone truly believe they’ve never done anything wrong? I mean, I know that what I’ve done is my history, the days lived and the choices made, and a lot of it was okay, some of it was really good, and there were a few moments of such joy... My life up until now has made me who I am now and all that. But I have lots of regrets. I’ve done things in my life, made many poor choices, and some truly dreadful, awful choices, I’ve hurt others, hurt myself… Nah, I’m glad I have my regrets, because they help me realize my need of a Savior. The title of Maya Angelou’s book, “Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now” takes on a very personal meaning, although I confess, I have never read the book. Anyway, for the moment, we’re taking a break and I’ve made a half pot of coffee, and it seemed like a good opportunity, while we’re waiting for the coffee to brew, to add a few more words to the first page of what will surely be, for me, an interesting project. At least, I am hoping that it will turn out to be an interesting project. It would be a shame if I found my own story to be boring and without interest and yet waste a whole month working on it every day. I just did the math and I will need to write 1666.66666. . . . words every day in order to make fifty thousand in thirty days. Good luck dear heart.
4:30 pm - The shed is finished for the year! Huzzah! And we’ve taken a trip around town trying to hunt down the best deal on caution tape and spider webbing for Halloween decorating. (My husband and son like to decorate for Halloween and hand out candy to the kids – I’m not sure I agree that it’s an okay thing for Christians to do, but I’m working on being a Christian WIFE and I’m not sure that this is the right battlefield for me to die on.) Finally found everything at Wal-Mart, no big surprise there. The real surprise is that we still try going anywhere else to find things, when we invariably end up finding what we want, for the best price at Wal-Mart. Evil, evil Wal-Mart. When you don’t have to watch your pennies I guess you can afford to shop locally and not at the big box stores, and you can feel all morally superior, but I’m not that lady. Rather I am a lowly pupil of the Zen Mistress of Frugality, Amy Dacyczyn and a student of Dollar Stretcher University. If being frugal, thrifty, penny pinching and dollar stretching means shopping at Wal-Mart, then I will shop at Wal-Mart. How did I get onto that subject?
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