What I should be doing is working on my story. But of course, it’s easier to blog. So I’m sitting here at the computer, trying to blog. I am having trouble of course, because my conscience is telling me to write my story.
When did it become so difficult to write fiction? I have been working on this story for about a year and a half; it was my oldest son who had the idea of a weekly meeting and though we can’t seem to keep up with the weekly thing while he is gone to college, it has become a regular family tradition. But my writer’s block causes me severe problems in this. With blogging, and with other kinds of writing, I can just. do. it. It doesn’t really matter if one entry isn’t very good. I can always do better next time. Visualizing and recounting a story though, seems quite a bit more stressful. No doubt this problem is partly in my head, but it’s made it difficult, and that is always a vicious cycle.
Other things going on:
Liam has been home a week and has two weeks left. This is one of the last times he is going to be home for a while, since Easter he is tentatively planning to stay at college and this summer he wants to go on a retreat to discern his future, and also try an internship at a computer game company. So he won’t be around for the whole time. Next year is his senior year, and after that he will probably mostly be gone for good (depending on what he ends up doing after he graduates). This is difficult. You can’t complain much when your kids go off into the world; this is what they are supposed to do. It’s a good thing. But you can’t make yourself not miss them, either. I am trying not to miss him too much in advance, though ;-).
We have been playing SET and Mystery of the Abbey. Aidan hates us playing the long games like Mystery of the Abbey (you’re supposed to eliminate all the possible murder suspects until you have the murderer, and then Reveal the answer). But he loves SET. He does not understand how it works, but he loves to grab up the cards and proclaim, SET! Tonight we plan to play Robo Rally and he will not like that, probably. But Paddy enjoys pretending to play .
Clare is finishing off the sewing on a Christmas dress she started a long time ago. She has been demoralized by a few problems in her most recent sewing projects, so the sewing machine has been inactive for some time. But now she is back at it, and I hope she succeeds.
Liam is setting up his new laptop. Kevin got it for him with work money. Liam works for Kevin’s computer game freelance business, doing some programming and design. It was supposed to be delivered on Friday, but a huge snowstorm intervened. The delivery guy brought it up a day late.
Kieron and Paddy have been playing Opening Night on the computer, but I am not sure what they are doing now; apparently quarrelling. Brendan and Sean are watching the Patriots game. The Patriots are Brendan’s team. Kevin is working on his model railroad. He got an airbrush which gives off this chemical smell which constantly alerts my subconscious, wrongly, that my laptop is frying.
Yesterday we went to Mass early. Clare had to get there early because she was practicing for the Christmas Eve mass; she is going to cantor and play the violin. Because the roads were still a bit icy and we thought it might be crowded in our ski-resort-area town, we decided to all go early. I was afraid it would be hard to keep the littlies happy for 2 hours in a confined setting but it turned out fine. It was nice and peaceful with the snow outside, watching everyone set up for our small chapel mass. Sean and Kieron got asked to serve as altar servers and they got little Target gift certificates, which was fun and unusual for them. Aidan cuddled with Kevin, and Paddy happily played on the Memo section of my Palm, “writing his story” called “Paddy’s 1st Story.” I don’t think I am describing this well, but there was a Christmas-card feeling to those couple of hours. It seemed like a corner out of time.
Tomorrow, we are going to clean the house, which needs it badly. Then we’ll probably go to the local store and library, and possibly I’ll do a tiny bit of last minute shopping. Then in the evening we will go to the vigil mass and that will usher in the expectancy of the Christmas Day.
