August 20, 2008

Victorian yard sales

It’s summertime, and you know what that means – garage sales!

Maybe this is a redneck, lowbrow thing, and those with bigger paychecks sniff and turn their head, but I love cruising garage sales, yard sales, estate sales, whatever sales. Give me a handwritten cardboard sign tacked to a telephone pole on a street corner and I’m there. Trying to follow the signs reminds me of scavenger hunts. (But it really irks me when the signs are left up long after the sale, or they’re too faint/small print for me to read at 30 mph, or there’s one sign on the corner of the main street but none visible after that to lead me to the actual sale. I hate a tease.)

Maybe it’s my frugal nature, maybe it’s the treasure hunt aspect. You never know what you’ll find — it’s true about one man’s junk being another man’s treasure. And it certainly makes sense to buy shorts and tees for twenty-five cents each than to pay full retail price when they’re only going to fit my growing son for a few months. It’s a win/win — the mom I bought them from cleared out closets and got a little money back on her investment, and I was able to buy a few more toys with the money we saved. (Yes, it turns out I have a weakness for buying toys. Who knew?)

Maybe buying used isn’t so low-brow. I heard Terri Hatcher (of Desperate Housewives fame) describe her favorite way to spend time with her daughter on Saturday mornings was to get juice and muffins and then go garage sale-ing. Think the garage sales are a little different in Malibu?

Try to picture a yard sale being held in Grosevenor Square, London, during the Regency.

Boggles the mind, doesn’t it? When Lord and Lady Deep-Pockets no longer had need of household items, the knick-knacks and such were usually stored in the attic or cellar, or handed off to servants and poor relations. They could teach us a thing or two about reduce, reuse and recycle.

For example, when Lady Deep-Pockets ordered a new ball gown, the modiste’s assistants might be given the scraps of leftover fabric and trim for their own wardrobe creations. After Lady D-P deemed her fabulous new gown to have been worn too many times (sometimes it was only one wearing, depending on the depth of Lord D-P’s pockets) she might pass it on to her lady’s maid.

The maid would modify the gown as needed so that it wasn’t too fancy for someone in her place. Any lace or other trim she had to remove was used to spruce up other items in her wardrobe.

When the dress became too worn or stained for my lady’s maid or she simply tired of it, it was handed down to someone lower in the household — perhaps to the scullery maid to wear to church or at home on her half-day off.

When the garment could no longer be taken in or let out or patched or re-trimmed to hide stains, it would finally be sold to the rag and bone man — if it wasn’t used for making quilts, rag rugs, or otherwise dismantled. He would in turn sell it to a mill so it could be used for making paper, which might be purchased by Lord D-P’s secretary. Lady D-P could then take a sheet of that paper to write a letter to her younger sister who did not marry as well. If Lady D-P’s sister did not treasure every word of advice and gloating from big sis, she might use the paper for — um, let’s just say the chamber pot is involved — and then the paper would be burned for fuel or added to the composting pile in the garden.

Which all goes to explain why there are so few items of clothing from certain eras in museums and other collections for us to study – they were literally worn to pieces. So when my husband teases me about a favorite shirt I refuse to part with that has stains and tiny holes and is stretched out and literally coming apart at the seams to the point I’d be embarrassed to answer the door while wearing it … I’m saving it for posterity.

August 13, 2008

Cops and firemen

You never know where your inspiration will come from. I once heard a quote that really struck home; alas I can’t remember to whom it was attributed: “A writer is someone on whom nothing is lost.”

Three years ago the guest speaker at our RWA chapter meeting was a former Navy Seal. Since I write historical fiction, you might think there was nothing in his presentation that would be of use in my writing. You’d be wrong. When he was discussing Seal training techniques, he gave me a fabulous idea for how to almost kill my Regency hero and then save his life.

When I found out the guest speakers at this month’s chapter meeting were two firemen and a police officer, I arrived early so I wouldn’t miss a thing.

Corny but true: we laughed and we cried. It gave me chills listening to their stories, how they very matter-of-factly put their lives on the line for complete strangers. Roger is former Army, now with the state troopers. Marc is a volunteer firefighter. John, a firefighter originally from Manhattan, moved to the Portland area because of his wife’s job in late summer 2001. He lost a lot of friends on September 11th. As experienced firefighters, they recognized they were going into a bad situation. Before leading his men up the stairs, one captain hugged John’s former captain, kissed him on the cheek, and said “I probably won’t see you again.” John’s friend survived to tell the tale; the other captain was working on the 80th floor when the building collapsed.

These are tough guys — they can climb 80 flights of stairs wearing/carrying 60 pounds of gear and equipment, rescue passengers from a burning vehicle, face down career criminals who would rather die than go to jail — who are also unafraid to show emotion. Choked up with emotion, Marc had to pause several times telling one of his experiences; Roger laughed often but had to dab at his eyes more than once, too. They’re the kind of heroes we write about in romance novels — the tough guy you can trust to save your life, who’s a marshmallow inside.

I’m not sure yet what I’ll use in my writing but I did take away two facts that surprised me.

First: 77 percent of the firefighters in the US are volunteers. Having spent my teen years in a small rural town, I was familiar with the fire department’s siren calling volunteers to the station to respond to an emergency — I often prayed that we’d never need them, since there was a delay in actually getting the fire truck to a fire — but I had no idea that urban and suburban fire departments heavily rely on volunteers, too.

Second: for a firefighter, the most dangerous part of responding to a call is not when he’s up on the roof chopping a vent hole, nor is it conducting a room by room search of a burning building, nor is it fighting the blaze or climbing a ladder to rescue someone from an upper story. No, the most dangerous part of responding to a call is simply getting there.

Most motorists pull off to the side when they hear the siren and see the lights flashing. As soon as the fire truck goes by, they pull back into traffic. What most motorists don’t realize is that there are usually three or more emergency vehicles responding to each call. Far too often, drivers pull back into traffic too soon, smack into the path of another emergency vehicle. In Hillsboro, for example, there are a minimum of four vehicles that respond to each 911 fire call — a fire engine, rescue vehicle, an ambulance, and a police officer. They may come from different directions but at some point they will converge.

The meeting gave me a whole new perspective on those who protect and serve. We smile and wave at firefighters, and now after hearing Roger, I’ll try to remember to smile and wave at police officers, too … with all five fingers.

August 5, 2008

Ant or grasshopper?

My friend Norma is an ant. Remember the old story about how the grasshopper played all summer while the ant labored to fill his pantry for the coming lean months?

Norma and her husband have followed our church leaders’ advice to have a year’s worth of food and other necessities on hand to be prepared for adversity. You don’t need an earthquake or storm of biblical proportion to see where it would be handy to be self-sufficient – ask anyone who’s been laid off, or tucked at home during a three-day ice storm while “grasshoppers” in panic mode strip store shelves bare.

A few years ago when Norma’s husband was starting a business and all seven of their kids were still living at home, they needed to pinch pennies like crazy. They decided to live off their food storage. For two years all they bought at grocery stores was butter and eggs. They grew a garden, visited U-pick farms, ground their own wheat for bread, worked the wheat gluten into a protein substitute, made their own yogurt and yoga cheese… you get the idea. Norma was pretty savvy to start with in order to pull it off, and shared the additional knowledge and recipes gained from the experience by self-publishing a book titled Store Food!

I hope we never have to be that … dedicated … but I’m trying to learn from Norma. I’ve recently learned there’s nothing like having a baby to make you domestic. Why, just the other night I cooked dinner. Popped the fish sticks in the oven and fluffed the couscous all by myself. I may even cook supper from scratch someday.

We’re trying especially hard to be ants this year. We’re stocking up on essentials. Sometimes in bulk if we find a good deal, sometimes just an extra jar of peanut butter or whatever while it’s on sale. Later this month we’ll can peaches (last year we didn’t have the energy but Daniel has eaten most of the previous year’s stockpile), and this fall we’ll juice the grapes that grow along our back fence, as usual. A lot of people are rediscovering the old-fashioned joys of home canning, for the frugality and so they know for sure what’s in their food.

Why is it especially important now to be frugal and prepared? For one, we have an extra mouth to feed (he’s eating real food now, not just milk). For another, we live in seriously uncertain times. This year is the first in many where the previous year’s wheat crop is completely gone before the next crop is harvested. And remember the panic about rice a few months back? I think we’re also feeling the effects of this spring’s flooding in the Midwest– much of the corn and other crops that weren’t lost to the rains are going into alternative fuels instead of grocery stores. Have you noticed how quickly food prices are rising? Don’t even get me started on skyrocketing fuel prices. According to the Wall Street Journal last week, Exxon and Shell each posted profits in excess of $11.5 billion last quarter. Un-freakin’-believeable.

And for the cherry on top, there are some scary rumblings about the flu strain we might face this winter – a really bad strain, as in 1918 pandemic bad. Some scientists are saying quarantines might be necessary to stem the spread.

All excellent reasons to be prepared. Could you survive a month at home with what’s in your pantry? I’m not panicking but I am preparing.

While you’re slaving over the steaming canner this summer, basking in the sexy, sultry look (i.e., frizzy hair and sticky, sweaty shirt) you can thank Napoleon Bonaparte and a French chef named Nicolas Appert. In 1795, Napoleon’s plans for world domination were hindered by the fact his armies outpaced their supply wagons, and the farms they passed through couldn’t provide adequate supplies of food year-round. The army needed to carry food with them that wouldn’t spoil. A reward of 12,000 francs was offered to whoever could develop a reliable method of food preservation. After 14 years of experimenting, Monsieur Appert hit on the technique of bringing food to a boil in a glass bottle before sealing it. He used a champagne bottle because its wide neck allowed for man-sized bites of meat and potatoes in stew.

So … are you an ant or grasshopper?

July 23, 2008

Mommy-ADD

After an exhausting day of wrangling a one-year-old who just discovered he can stand up and now will try to pull himself up on almost anything (including a lightweight plant stand that used to be home to three houseplants) I was ready to shut everything down for the night and thought I’d check the calendar to see how many days were left to research a really cool idea for a blog post … and discovered the answer was zero. Oops. For some reason I was thinking my turn to blog was Thursday.

I’ll have to get back to you on what Napoleon, peach preserves and champagne bottles have in common. Until then, I present some deep thoughts and insights into the feline condition.

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I’m still trying to hit the trifecta of having the camera, fresh batteries, and good timing to catch Daniel cuddling with the cat. Our red tabby stays close though just out of his reach, but the Himalayan will come and lay right beside Daniel, knowing full well his fur will be pulled. Sometimes Daniel resists the siren call of grabbing fistfuls of fur and instead lays his head on Dakarai, his arms wrapped around the fluffy kitty … but only for a brief moment. You’ll have to take my word for it …

July 7, 2008

Oldest, youngest, or middle?

Last week several of us at church were discussing the needs of another member and how we can help her. She’s living with her parents, awaiting the birth of her first child, while her husband is stationed overseas and won’t be granted leave to come home until after the baby is born. They’re both young, barely a couple years out of high school.

One of the on-going challenges they’ll face, I pointed out, is that they’re both youngest children. That led to a discussion of how birth order affects personality. It was the first time I think I’ve ever discussed this topic with non-writers. Pretty cool.

All writers study psychology to some extent to help us create believable characters and bring them to life on the page. I had a huge “a-ha!” moment when I first read about birth order. It made so much sense!

Here’s the condensed version (and of course there are exceptions – this is a broad generalization): Oldest kids help take care of their younger siblings and may step up if something happens to Mom or Dad, so they learn responsibility from a young age. They tend to be mature for their age. A lot of CEOs and US presidents are oldest kids.

Youngest kids are the baby of the family, the darling. They’re often cute and charming and use this to their advantage. Sometimes they don’t mature as much as one would like because they don’t have to – someone else is always there to help them out of a jam.

Only kids — singletons — take on the traits of either youngest or oldest depending on a variety of factors, including their innate personality and how they’re treated. Vast amounts of research have been done on oldest, youngest, and onlies.

But hey, what about middle kids? Because they’re not the bossy one or the baby needing lots of attention, middle kids are often overlooked, even when it comes to research. The tiny amount of research on middle kids (oops, did I just reveal where I fall in my family’s birth order?) has shown that we tend to be easygoing, the peacemakers in the family. We had the privilege of being the baby for a while, become the oldest as elder siblings leave the nest, and never had the rude shock of some baby coming along and taking our place as the sole focus of Mom and Dad’s affections.

Paired in marriage, two oldest may butt heads and two youngest may flounder. Match an oldest with a youngest, though, and the odds seem more in their favor of having a long, happy marriage. And of course being the peacemaker, a middle matches well with any of the others, including other middles.

As a writer it’s important for me to know my characters’ birth order because it has so much bearing on why they do the things they do, and how they interact. In What An Earl Wants, Quincy is the eldest. As her father became ill and died, she took on more responsibility for her family and matured quickly. In the story she butts heads with Sinclair, her hero, who is the eldest in his family.

In Kiss From A Rogue, Tony is the baby of the family. The spare to his big brother the heir, Tony has to figure out where he fits into the world. At the start of the story he’s off for a carefree jaunt across the countryside, and by the end takes responsibility for the livelihood of an entire village.

So what do you think of birth order? Spot on or hogwash?

July 3, 2008

Skyrockets in sight

The art of making fireworks dates back to the 12th century, when the Chinese found a fun use for the gunpowder they’d invented. Fireworks have been used for special events and festivals pretty much ever since. Handel wrote Music for the Royal Fireworks in 1749 to celebrate a peace treaty, performed at Vauxhall Gardens. Many a Regency character has taken in the fireworks display at Vauxhall, even though its historical web site says fireworks “did not become a mainstay” there.

Tomorrow, I bet many of you will be venturing out into the heat and crowds to enjoy some festival or other followed by a fabulous fireworks display. Here in Portland it’s the Waterfront Blues Festival, held downtown on the banks of the Willamette River. Its fireworks are set off from barges in the middle of the river. Very cool because this way you get just as great a view if you’re on the grassy west bank near the stages and vendors, or on the industrial east side where you didn’t pay admission to the festival and are right beside the I-5 freeway.

If you don’t mind being among 65,000 or so people, there’s the display just on the other side of the Columbia River at Fort Vancouver, the first historical site west of the Mississippi. Some say it’s the largest fireworks display west of the Mississippi. We’ve never been to this one –the 11 o’clock news always reports on traffic conditions after the show and it looks worse than trying to drive out of town the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Often one of the local stations will broadcast the display with an appropriate sound track — gotta have the 1812 Overture at the finale. But watching it on TV is not the same as being so close you feel the rockets explode. Although this way your ears don’t ring for hours or days afterward…

Once in a while we go watch a display somewhere, but most years my husband is in bed before dark and it’s just me watching Keith Lockhart conduct the Boston Pops on TV.

The biggest display I’ve seen so far was in 1976 at the Yakima Rodeo. We weren’t really into rodeo but we’d just moved back to the states after four years in England, where we only saw fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day. The display started out as expected — one rocket followed by another after a slight pause for an appropriate ooh or aah. Then they suddenly went up in bunches and clusters, faster and louder until we were holding our hands over our ears, unwilling to blink for fear we’d miss the spectacular explosions, though it was over soon. Wow, we thought, must be a special display in honor of the Bicentennial. The next day we learned there had been an accident (no one was seriously hurt) and the whole thing had gone up at once.

This Fourth of July, my son is almost a year old so he’ll be asleep in his crib before the fireworks start. When he gets older I think it will be fun to make a big deal about watching fireworks in person as sort of a warm-up for his birthday, since the two dates are less than a week apart. And I’ll finally have someone to watch fireworks with me instead of snoring at the end of the hall. There’s something to be said for the shared experience — even if afterward it takes an hour to go the distance you usually travel in 15 minutes — that watching it on TV with only the cats for company just can’t compare.

So, are you more like me: let’s go to the fireworks show, the bigger the better and crowds and traffic are just part of the adventure; or more like my husband: seeking out a quiet place amidst the chaos?

June 26, 2008

Escapes

It’s been a real struggle to get time (not to mention mental energy!) to write since I had a baby last year. Lately it’s been even more of a struggle because of some family issues, my husband’s health, Mom’s three flat tires in two days … stuff just keeps happening and piling up.

Last week I realized time was running short to meet the goal I’d set in critique group. I usually work through lunch when I’m at the office, and just sneak enough time surfing the web to check this blog and maybe see where Johnny is filming, then get back to work. But last Friday it was quiet, I’d handled the latest crises (yes, plural) for my boss, and I decided I would take a bit of ‘me’ time. I grabbed my lunch, opened Word, and began working on my manuscript.

Heaven.

I spent an entire hour worrying about Harriet and Nick and their adventure, their romance, and not about purchase orders and P-card receipts and the Canadian currency exchange rate.

There are times when the story doesn’t work and I just want to bang my head on the keyboard and wonder why I ever thought I could write a book. But last Friday every word was perfect, every line of dialogue was witty, the description sparkled. When I needed it most, writing was there for me as a respite.

How about you? Is there something you escape to when you just want to yell “Calgon, take me away!”

June 18, 2008

Top Ten Romance Movies

Last night’s AFI special listed their Top Ten movies in ten categories. I only got to watch parts of it but I went to their web site and confirmed that one category they omitted was Top Movies for Romance Writers.

Yes, they did include the Top 10 Romantic Comedies: City Lights, Annie Hall, When Harry Met Sally (”I’ll have what she’s having.”), Adam’s Rib, Moonstruck (”Snap out of it!”), Harold & Maude, Sleepless In Seattle, Roman Holiday, It Happened One Night, and Philadelphia Story.

Romantic is not the same as romance, though. Roman Holiday is a romantic story to be sure, but a true romance, at least in my opinion, has a happily ever after for the two lead characters together. Audrey Hepburn’s character went on as the princess and Gregory Peck went back to being a reporter, separate. Sleepless in Seattle is romantic, too, but the lead characters get what, two minutes on screen together?

I heartily agree with their choice of It Happened One Night. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert have marvelous chemistry together. I first saw this years ago when I was heavily into reading traditional Regencies and it seemed like a Regency set in early 20th century. Loved it when the “wall of Jericho” came tumbling down at the end.

Philadelphia Story is a hoot, too – love the rapid, witty repartee between Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. They were also great together in Bringing Up Baby, but then I may be biased since I have a fondness for screwball comedies.

My Top Ten Movies for Romance Writers (and Readers):

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark – a primer for any writer, the opening sequence of this film is used in countless writing classes and workshops. Right out of the starting gate you get a feel for the hero, the villain, the quest, the conflict, and the hero’s strengths and weakness (”Snakes! I hate snakes!”) which will come into play later. And of course there’s the whole reunion romance with Marion. On the ship, when she’s kissing Indy’s owies better? Fun stuff. Yes, we love to beat up our heroes, sometimes even in the love scenes. (If you’ve seen Indy 4, please don’t spoil it for me — hubby and I plan to go but haven’t made it to the theater yet.)

2. Romancing the Stone – love the developing relationship between Michael Douglas’s rugged adventurer and Kathleen Turner’s wimpy city girl, and how both characters grow. Danny DeVito is hysterical in his supporting role. I sometimes explain to people that my writing style (at least what I’m aiming for) is Jane Austen meets Romancing the Stone. Since the movie is a quarter century old, maybe I should update the reference, but I can’t think of another one that fits as well.

3. Overboard – an amnesia story as well as a revenge story, set in my backyard, with the adorable real-life couple Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn. Roddy McDowell is a great supporting character. Actually there are a bunch of fantastic supporting characters in this flick. The last line (”What could I possibly give you that you don’t already have?” “A little girl.”) still makes me reach for a tissue. Sniff.

4. Sabrina – take your pick of the version with Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear or the original with Humphrey Bogart, but both remind me of a great Regency story, too. Can you see her as the coachman’s daughter? Love it when the crusty curmudgeon finally gives in to his romantic side.

5. The Princess Bride – over the top but so much fun, and so many memorable one-liners.

6. Cary Grant – okay, he’s an actor not a movie, but he sure knew how to do romance and comedy. Father Goose, Operation Petticoat, His Girl Friday, and the other two movies mentioned above are just the starting point for your Netflix queue.

7. Pretty Woman – one reviewer dismissed this as simply a hooker falling for her rich john, but he totally missed the point of the story arc and character growth. Near the end, Vivian is offered what she wanted at the beginning but she’s grown so much she passes up the heartless situation Edward offers her and goes off to make something of herself, and now has the strength to help her room mate do the same. Edward has grown enough to make major changes, too.

8. Benny & Joon – several types of love stories are going on here, between brother and sister (Benny and Joon), girl meets boy (Joon and Sam) and boy meets girl (Benny and Ruthie). One of the sweetest on-screen first kisses I’ve ever seen takes place between the two misfits falling in love, Joon and Sam. And there are some really interesting cooking tips, too.

9.

10.

The last two are blank. You get to fill them in. Which romance movies would you add to this list?

June 10, 2008

Just because

Have you ever done something just for the experience? You don’t intend to pursue it as a hobby or career, but you just want to experience it, at least once?

A few years ago a fellow member of my RWA chapter suggested we volunteer to answer phones during a pledge drive for Oregon Public Broadcasting. At the time my family wasn’t watching much OPB, especially during what my husband referred to as their “begathons” but I signed up for the shift anyway. Hubby couldn’t figure out why. I had no burning desire to be seen on TV – those pesky 10 lbs the camera adds, y’know – and I didn’t plan to pursue employment in the field.

We’re helping a good cause, I explained. And when I got home I was able to tell him about the totally awesome backstage tour we received while the real program was airing and the phones weren’t ringing. They showed us the editing bays and studios, explained how the cameras and TelePrompter work, all kinds of interesting things. Way cool. Yes, I write historical fiction but you never know what bits of knowledge are going to come in handy. And I just have always liked knowing behind-the-scenes stuff.

My dad lives in San Felipe, Mexico, a fishing village three hours south of the border with a large population of American retirees. When we first visited him five years ago, I went flying with a guy I met on the beach. Seriously.

Ralph landed his ultralight glider on the packed sand, and in exchange for fifty bucks he took me up and we flew south on the coast before heading back. He even shut off the engine so we could glide along with the gulls, no sound but the wind rushing past. I just wanted to know what it was like to fly that way. (Mind-blowing awesome experience, btw.) And Dad had told us all about Ralph and his struggle to get the proper licenses and insurance coverages to operate his flying business, so it wasn’t as harebrained an idea as it first sounds.

(No, Ralph’s legs aren’t in the shade — his are really that dark and mine are really that pale.) I would have flown again on our last visit but the winds were too strong and Ralph was grounded. My husband was disappointed that he didn’t get to go, but delighted that I didn’t since we later learned I was about a month pregnant at the time. He still shudders when he thinks how we went riding across sand dunes on quads. But Daniel turned out fine.

Through a convoluted chain of events, I ended up being the one behind the wheel when we crossed the border into Mexico. We got caught in rush hour traffic as darkness fell on a Friday just before Christmas, in a town with few road signs, which were in a language we understood only a few words, where the local custom frequently had three vehicles across two lanes. My husband needed a Valium but I kept thinking how I could use this experience. What if my heroine needs to drive a carriage in a foreign city? Now I know how she’d feel.

I’ve done other things just to see if I could, like volunteer to be foreperson when I was called for jury duty (it felt like being a referee, or herding cats). Even though I can’t cook, one summer as a teen I ran the french fryer at our church’s restaurant booth at the county fair instead of playing waitress, my usual role.

Sometimes when opportunities arise I hesitate at first because it calls for me to step outside my comfort zone. But I find the more I step outside it, the bigger my comfort zone gets.

Have you ever done something just for the experience?

May 29, 2008

Organization

Yesterday I realized I need to return two pairs of shoes. When they say having a baby changes everything that means your feet, too. But the receipt wasn’t in the shopping bag. I think it fell out onto the dining table when I removed other items from the bag. If you saw our table, you’d know what a daunting task it is to find a small slip of paper amidst the mounds of mail, pizza coupons and other important things waiting to be sorted and put away. Finding “away” for everything is a challenge we’re still working on.

With Daniel happily playing in the activity-thingy beside me, I get a sack for recycling and begin sorting paper. Daniel has a major spit-up which requires a wardrobe change, which reminds me I need to start another load of laundry. To keep up with a baby, we need to average one load per day. In transferring the previous load to the dryer, I notice we’re low on fabric softener, so I write that on the shopping list posted on the frig. Then I remember we’re also low on butter and bananas so I snoop through the cupboards and add more items to the list. Where was I? Right, looking for a receipt.

Now Daniel is fussing – it’s time for a diaper change, bottle and a nap. A half hour later I finally get him settled in his crib and return to the table, but something in the sink reeks. I load the dishwasher and head back to the table.

There’s a couple of bills in the stack, including a credit card bill for materials my husband used on a job (he’s a self-employed paint contractor) which reminds me the client still owes us for the now-past-due invoice. So I pull the job folder and make phone calls to track down someone at the property management company who will get the check in the mail for real.

Daniel awakens and we go through the whole diaper change/eat/clean up/diaper change routine. Husband has arrived home and showered so I hand off the baby and return to my office to put the folder away, and almost trip over a box of papers I found while cleaning in the baby’s room (our former guest/storage room) last week. Mixed in with other stuff are old magazines I promised to give to a critique partner tonight so she can make a collage. I sort papers for a few minutes but realize it’s time to go to Jazzercise class. I’ve given up trying to lose the 30 pounds I gained post-partum – three months now of thrice-weekly 60-minute workouts and still the scale refuses to budge – so instead am focusing on tightening up the 30 extra inches on my waist. Okay, it’s not really 30 inches, it just seems like it when I look in my closet at all the clothes that used to fit. And I am making progress, just very slow.

The store where I bought the shoes is only a short detour on the way home from class and this would be a perfect time to return them… except I still haven’t found the receipt. Sigh.

I recently told a co-worker about a similar day, when I did a bunch of things but not the one thing I set out to do, and she told me about a marvelous book: Organizing Solutions for People with Attention Deficit Disorder, by Susan C. Pinsky. Neither of us have ADD but she pointed out us creative types tend to have many traits in common with those who do. Hmm.

As I thumbed through the pages, I was amazed at how many of the tips I already use. For example, we don’t sort laundry. We have three baskets in our room – no hampers with lids because we won’t take the extra steps to walk over there and open a lid but we willshoot for two points – one for whites, one for my delicates-keep-your-paws-off-my-silks! and one for everything else. With added baby stuff, we’ve learned you can wash almost everything together – just use cold water, add a cup of baking soda, and don’t use bleach.

Some of Pinsky’s rules are too strict for those who don’t have ADD – I think we do need more than one wooden spoon – but there are some tips I hadn’t thought of and want to put into practice. Better organization = less time spent looking for things = more time to write.

Now, where did I leave the book…?