Like the Mighty Tortoise

Our internet connection at home is slow. Very slow. Like the mighty tortoise. Like watching grass grow. I'm talking wait 5 minutes for a page to load kind of slow. And forget uploading pictures. How frustrating!

This also reminds me how annoyed I get when things (or people, for that matter) don't do what they're supposed to do, when they're supposed to do it. Like the jerks who block the box at a particular intersection on my way to work so I can't cross when my light is green, for example. Why can't you just wait your turn? Can't you see that I have important things to do, such as being slightly less late to work than I am already running?

Anyway. So. Sorry. I wrote a lot this weekend, had pics to go with it, but couldn't get it to load. Clearly my internet connection has no sense of my busy busy schedule and my deep-seated sense of self-importance.

May 24, 2008

Yes, it really took this many days to have the bandwidth to post photos. So I present, a blast from the past: last weekend!

I'm so glad to have a long weekend to spend with my family. Today, Edythe and I made play dough for the first time. I didn't love any of the recipes I found, so I made up my own.

Play Dough
2 cups flour
1/3 cup salt
1 cup water
Food coloring (if you want)

Put flour and salt in a bowl and mix. In a measuring cup, add food coloring to water, then add the wet ingredients to the dry. Mix well with a spoon. Taa-daa! Play dough!

The recipes I saw all involved cooking on the stove, or adding the food coloring last, which made no sense to me. Of course this probably won't keep long, but that's okay. Edythe enjoyed eating it (I tried it; it was terrible), gooshing it in her fingers, and throwing it on the ground and stepping on it (I tried it; it was fun)!






While we were doing that, Christopher was enjoying some "free" time of fixing the washing machine and creating a new antenna for the TV. I don't pretend to know how he did it, but there was a blowtorch involved.

It works pretty well! And best of all, it's a decent replica of the giant ones he works with. I want to put tiny buildings around the bottom and pretend it's a cell tower in a subdivision.

Happy Friday

I am so thankful for this long weekend! Edythe and Christopher were out of town last weekend, and with our crazy work/school/daycare schedules, I feel like I've hardly seen them. We're looking forward to a weekend of good old-fashioned family fun!

I've been thinking about this blog, and how I've grown to dislike writing about writing, in the same way that I dislike people looking over my shoulder while I'm drawing. But I do enjoy when friends and family show an interest in what I'm doing, and when they get excited about projects they hear about on here.

So. I think I'm going to expand it and try to capture a wider swath of the creative work going on at home. Maybe play around with the look of the blog a bit. More on that later.

Also, for those who read it, our family website is experienceing some technical difficulties, but we hope to get a password-protected version up again soon.

Is This the End for Our Script?

I'm at 50 pages now. Halfway there. I have 9 days left. And I think I'm calling it quits.

I'm just not enjoying this particular screenplay, and I have too little time to work on it. I end up feeling resentful of work and my family, because I don't have time for creative pursuits. Like last night. Edythe's working on a molar and an incisor. She was up until 10 in pain and screaming. Christopher and I had to have a Big Talk about whether he's going to school full-time next year or working full-time next year, involving spreadsheets and budget analysis. I went to bed at midnight with an again-screaming baby, with no writing done.

Tonight, instead of finishing painting the bathroom, or cleaning up from dinner, or folding laundry, or actually spending time with my husband, I'm in front of the computer again trying to accrue pages on this project I really dislike. And why? I already know I can write something long, in a limited amount of time. If I'm going to dedicate the time now, I need to enjoy myself doing it (or at least feel like I'm working out some compelling artistic problem). This feels like torture, and pointless.

I hate giving up on things, but sometimes it's worse not to.

I guess I'll sleep on it, see how I feel tomorrow. If I quit, I'll take a break for a few weeks, and then start on a smaller, less ambitious project without the deadline.

Inch by Inch

I made a little progress today, while Edythe was napping. I'm at 42 pages now. I should be at 63, but since I started at 28 today, and made so much progress, I have hope that I might actually finish this thing by the end of April. Maybe.

I Hate Celtx and/or My Laptop

I had a long day of training. A really long day. I didn't sit down to write until 10:15. I wrote furiously for 30 minutes. I wrote 5 pages! I saved them twice.

When I shut down Celtx, it asked if I wanted to save my pages.

Yes! I said, although I'd already saved them twice.

And then my pages were gone.

I am mad. And I am much too tired to type them all again. I am so far behind already, this makes me furious. I don't have the time or the heart to retype them now, and by tomorrow they'll be lost from my brain for good.

Away

I'm out of town at training, with long days and no computer. So I'm trying to cram a lot of writing into a very short time late at night.

The good news is, I think I'm to the point of not caring how bad this project is. I just want to get to 100 pages and finish it.

Total so far: 28/100