Pure blog

Hi–

I’m feeling frustrated tonight–turned a piece in to a new editor and definitely did not hit the ball out of the park. It’s not that it needs revising–of course it needs revising, we’ve never worked together before–it’s that when I reread it, even I can see that it needs revising. I got so caught up in the word count that I seem to have taken out all of the content. Ugh. But I am a professional, and I will revise, and the piece will not get killed (at least not because I didn’t get it right). I pride myself on being easy to edit. And I like this editor, she’s blunt, which is easier–but blunt can also sound like, get it right this time or I won’t take the time to edit it again, even if that’s not necessarily the case. Which would just be bad. But there’s no reason to think that way, this is what I do, I can get it right. Really.

I really need to start holding onto a piece for at least a few days before I press send, and allowing time for my own revise. Which is a bummer, since I’d really hoped to impress a different editor by getting something in to her marvelously early–but if I plan to take that step back time, I’m not going to bring it off. Damn.

I messed around with my blog tonight and ended up pulling off, accidentally, all the code that creates the sidebar. My real goal was to remove a set of flashing pictures and put it in a different place, but instead I ended up with pure blog, no extraneous stuff. I don’t really think that’s a bad thing, except in that it’s a step back from the blog community, which I haven’t been much of a part of lately anyway.

Lily and i made cookies today, and I couldn’t remember the last time we’d done something like that just the two of us. Isn’t it funny–I make sure both Sam and Wyatt get mommy time, but not her. I think because my last attempt at it didn’t go well–we tried to do an art class together and she didn’t like it. Did I spend too much time talking to the other moms and not to her? Probably…she would prefer, I think, to be taken to the grocery store. I actually have time planned to do this–Monday afternoons–but I keep sucking it away to use for work time, using the excuse that I have to drive her or carpool her places on Tuesday and Weds afternoons. Can I give it to her? Even now, I’m thinking, oh, not this week, I have that revision and a deadline and another deadline next week…

But this is more important. It is more important. I could be working now, and saving that time for her. So, I will reform–Lily gets Monday afternoons, unless we do something on Sunday. That works–because I will know if we’ve done it, I can’t just promise it. Next semester, I think we cut out gymnastics, as much as she lies it–or reschedule it for a different time, when it’s not absorbing an hour of my work time. Oh, I haven’t told you–her gymnastics is up in the woods, and I’ve been going for these little runs during it, out a trail and back–until a couple of weeks ago, when I took my friend Suzi and we got hopelessly lost. With no phones. I knew somebody would take care of Lily–she’d carpooled up there with Steph, Kate’s mom–so it wasn’t that, but I knew they would see my car, and wonder, and worry. Turns out Steph, who knows those woods well, says it’s ridiculously easy to get lost in there and figured that was what had happened. It still took us two hours to get out. I told Suzi we would go 1 and a half miles and I think we went 6, what with finding a house, then hiking down to the main road to get picked up…

All of which would not be half so funny if, last Tuesday, I hadn’t doen it again. Gone in, been super careful, watched every trail switch–and still lost the turn back to the trailhead closest to gymnastics at exactly the same spot. This time, i got lost sensibly (is that possible?)…with the phone, stayed on the marked trail until I got to what I knew was a recognizable spot, then called Steph and described where I was. I was out in half an hour. So, I’ve gained new efficiency in getting lost…

Wednesday night Sam’s school had a hike, along their trail–a simple loop. Wyatt and I fell behind (it turned out to be more of a run than a hike, at least from his point of view). It was meant to be by moonlight and it was getting dark, and as we lost sight of everyone else I could tell he had no faith in me at all after all he’d heard in the last couple of weeks. There was a switchback, and he could hear kids voices, and we weren’t going in that direction, and he was very upset. “But they’re that way!” he kept yelling. I finally had to cut through some brush to catch up. I was the only sucker mom with two little kids on that hike, too. I keep getting fooled by this new school, and the way they describe activities–Family, in this case, meant schoolchild plus attending adult. And potluck meant “bring pizza”.

I can learn that!

Glad we talked tonight, talk to you soon.


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