It's a good thing "stop procrastinating so much" wasn't one of my resolutions for 2008. Not that it makes me feel any better about taking so much time to post them, necessarily. Though I have taken some of the load off myself given that Avery's are apparently "not sleep" and "start crawling."



Once that kid gets going, it's not like I can sit at the computer and just let her at it. There are trash cans to topple, dog toys to suckle, cords to unplug. But honestly, it's good that things change with Avery, because this job was just starting to reach the point where I get complacent. (If you're familiar with my nine-month-multiples rule, the math works out. Not that I know anything about math.)

Just to clarify, I don't really make new year's resolutions. I set vague goals for things that I would like to accomplish but won't be terribly disappointed in myself if I don't. I try not to have more than three, because once you go over that they become very difficult to maintain and you use the pressure of having to do so much to justify not doing anything.

So here we go.


Apparently, some crazy bastard has taken the concept of NaBloPoMo and extended it out for all of 2008. Considering it's the fourth and I'm just now getting around to putting something here, I'm obviously not going to win any prizes for that. But among the four blogs to which I have posting access, I hope to make a cumulative total of a year's worth of posts.

Yes, I'm aware it's a leap year. Pretend I get Thanksgiving as a holiday.


I wrote this one last year -- it's been my lifelong dream to be published. I've written lots of stories, but been too scared to send them out. My fear of rejection is paralyzing, and the only way to get over it (which I have to do if I ever want to see a novel with my name on the cover) is to start getting hit with them.

Of course, just when I was getting ready to hunt down possible venues, Avery came along. She became my full-time job, and I didn't have the time or energy to look into what magazines might accept my work, or at least not reject it without opening the envelope. (What about when Mama's home, you ask? Well, the baby's not the only girl in this house with whom I enjoy spending time. Sed works 80-hour weeks, so I take advantage of the brief moments when we're all awake in the same building.)

The one-year-olds I know are all good at entertaining themselves, though. By the middle of this year, it should be possible to set Avery down with a toy while I write cover letters and submittals.


As a teenager, I spent a lot of time in the mountains with my Boy Scout troop. There was a period where we would find a new site every two weeks, backpack in, trek around the countryside, stay the night, and then schlep everything out. And I liked it -- to a point. We had a few scoutmasters who were absolute slavedrivers, who thought fifteen miles uphill in the rain was the pinnacle of good times. But once that rain went away and we found ourselves in a poetic aspen-bordered meadow, the trip back was rather peaceful.

When I first set this goal, Sed and I used to take the dogs to the Sandia mountains open space. But since we moved to Florida, I haven't bothered to find any hiking trails. Which is silly -- there's an arboretum just beyond my back fence, and a state park perhaps a mile away. Plus, since the highest hill in the Florida peninsula is 300 feet above sea level, you're looking at some easy terrain.

If I can figure out how to get Avery into her backpack carrier by myself, this one will be easy. Otherwise I might not be able to do it as often as I'd like. But that's OK. One day is not a lot of time to make a massive lifestyle change. If you're resistant to change yet stubborn in your determination (like I am), setting the bar too high will just frustrate you as you repeatedly fail to clear it.


Because oh my God you guys. I will go crazy.