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A journal for 30DBC and other feline musings. |
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"This...is my lab. And THIS...is my LABORATORY!" Seriously, though. This blog is gonna be where I throw paint at the wall just to see what sticks, and sometimes just to throw paint at the wall because it's friggin' relaxing to throw crap. Welcome aboard, and please keep arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. "In case of emergency, the exits are here-here-here-here-here-here-here... ANYWHERE!" P.S. If you recognize one or both of the above quotes...you are automatically my new best friend.  AlyCatAuthor
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| 30DBC January 10 Prompt: What's your favorite way of passing the time when your internet connection is interrupted for an extended period of time, especially when you had a lot you planned on taking care of online? Or, if you prefer- real talk- how addicted to the internet are you? I'm pretty addicted.  I start getting antsy if I haven't been on in a while. Though when I'm really in the throes of drafting/outlining, I can go pretty much all day without getting on. I've been trying to limit my internet time to only certain times of the day, but since I wake up with my phone right next to me...I can't say I don't sneak a peek through WDC or Facebook in the morning when I'm trying to wake my brain up. In the past, during power outages and such, I've colored in coloring books, played board games, and written with colorful gel pens by candlelight. It can be a great way to get back to basics and really play with tactile creativity. And to be honest, sometimes I really don't mind--it means I don't have to freelance that day and it keeps me from getting sucked into a time-wasting trap. AlyCatAuthor |
| 30DBC January 9 Prompt: Late actor Bob Denver (known for playing Gilligan on the tv show Gilligan's Island ), who would've celebrated his 82nd birthday today, once said "You know, I have no worst experiences." What do you think? When have you had to turn a potential "worst experience" into something positive? I think that's a great outlook to have on life. You either win or you learn. My potential "worst experience" was working with a lady at daycare. I was the assistant teacher in my Crawler room (age 7 months to 14 months). I'd been working there for a while, over a year, and when the lead teacher left around noon, it was essentially my room until the end of the day. We had to maintain a strict teacher-to-child ratio, so the lead teacher's replacement was one of the usual suspects, a member of a nanny service that the manager at the daycare typically called in when staff was really low (which it usually was). I was used to having these people come work with me, usually a different person every day, so I had to teach and reteach how the room's schedule worked and who each baby was and what they ate/drank, where their diaper changing supplies were, etc. Anyway. If that weren't annoying enough, this particular day I had to work with...the lady. I'd seen her around the daycare before a few times, and typically our brief exchanges were pleasant. But there's a feeling you get when you just know that the person you're forced to share a room with just ISN'T going to work out. There may be no obvious signs except that little prickly gut feeling. Well, this lady proved many times true on that gut feeling. She spoke very loudly during naptime, making me worried she'd wake the children. She commented on the teacher's hair next door in a very rude way. I had to stop myself from gaping at her, but found myself making much more sharp comments than I would normally dare to make (and they would all go right over her head, as if I hadn't spoken a word). "Did you ever notice that woman's hair? I think she might be wearing a wig." I sniffed. "I wouldn't know. I don't make it a point to criticize other people's hair." "But it looks like a wig, doesn't it?" This was just one of the many instances where I had to restrain myself from saying anything further. She was obviously an extrovert and so dragged me from my attempts at writing in my notebook several times to make comments or ask questions about the room. She would also go to pick up or comfort a baby if it happened to wake in its crib, which was not advised (as they would typically fuss for a moment and go right back to sleep, enabling us to keep working without interruption/not cause a ruckus/not wake the baby permanently so as to mess up their sleeping schedule). I had to stop her several times. When time came for snack time and diaper changes (right after nap time), many of the babies were awake and fussing in their cribs. She looked as if she wanted to bash her head against the wall and asked me if it was like this all the time. "With eight babies, it tends to get loud closer to snack time," I said as I filled sippy cups with milk. As usual, I had her change most of the diapers while I prepared snack, as some of the babies had specific foods or allergies that I knew about that would be too difficult to explain. I had music playing during all this, and I can't remember specifically what triggered it, but I just remember turning it up so that it would help calm me/the babies while they ate. I think I had several grumpy babies that afternoon, so they were shrieking and throwing fits in their high chairs. At one point I think she dared to touch my auxiliary cord/the volume switch and turned it down. Angered, I just yanked the cord out of the radio entirely. "Finally," she gasped. "That was too much noise." I didn't say a word. After snack was where I almost lost my cool. In fact, I did. I just waited until I was safely in the bathroom to let loose my angry tears (I'm an angry crier). The straw that broke the camel's back was that I specifically told this woman to place the babies back in their cribs after cleaning them off from snack so that we could finish cleaning the room and putting away the high chairs without worrying about them crawling all over the floor/eating crumbs/getting under our feet while we were trying to move furniture. It was a safety issue. Obviously, the kids were never thrilled about being back in their cribs, even just for a few moments. I was used to this. She decided to take matters into her own hands, though. As I tried to sweep the crumbs from the floor, I noticed a child crawling toward me. "Put him in his crib," I asked again, thinking maybe she hadn't heard me. I noticed other children, crawling every which where. "It's okay," she insisted. "No, it's not. I can't sweep and clean this floor when they're crawling all over it." "It's fine. I'll watch them." I looked at her like she was crazy. She refused to look at me and instead tried to chase down the 4 or 5 kids that were out on the floor and trying desperately to get to the crumbs on the tile I was sweeping. One slipped by her, sat down in the crumbs, and picked some up in her hands. "Look, this is why we put them in their cribs. They eat the crumbs and get dirty." She hurried to wipe the crumbs off the baby and pick her up, only to let two more kids onto the tile. I swept as much as I could and phoned the front desk. "I need a bathroom break." As soon as the assistant director was at the door, I slipped out to talk to her before she came in. "She is driving me crazy," I said, tears already burning my eyes. "She won't listen to me. She let all the kids crawl around on the floor after snack while I was trying to clean. I can't do anything with her. Is there any way you can move her somewhere else?" The assistant director frowned. "I can't guarantee anything, but as soon as you drop to five kids, I can move her probably." I nodded, knowing she could do little else, and went to the bathroom to try to calm myself down. While there, I recited a few Hail Mary's and tried to look at the situation with clearer eyes. This woman was obviously a test. She grated against me in just the right way to push all my buttons. It hurt. It was rough and hard for me to deal with (and dealing with 8 kids day in and day out is enough to train one's patience fairly well). But how else does God smooth down our rough edges than by pairing us with a situation, a person, a circumstance that matches our rough edges and forces them down? I realized before I went back in that room to deal with her for another 30 minutes. She was my "emery board." And without her, I wouldn't have had to tap as deeply into my already deep well of patience to dig out another layer and not go completely ballistic on her like I wanted to. She made me realize how much I had already grown--and how much I had yet to grow. To this day, I still look back on this incident and get a little heated, but I also laugh. It was highly unpleasant, trying, and grated on every nerve I had. But without emery boards every once in a while, we'd always be rough around the edges. AlyCatAuthor |
| 30DBC January 8 Prompt: CES 2017 (Consumer Electronics Show) opened this week in Las Vegas, Nevada, and here are some of the weirder items on display and potentially coming to a store or online shop near you. Any thoughts or opinions on any of the items? Anything you might be interested in? A lot of them seem really impractical, although interesting. I might be interested in the Catspad (but I don't have a cat yet). I also like the LoveBox. I could swap notes with my bestie across the country in a silly wooden box with a spinny heart. AlyCatAuthor |
| 30DBC January 7 Prompt: Develop a new New Year's Eve tradition. It can be serious or humorous; possible or impossible. Here's a list of 14 weird ones if you need some inspiration. Hmmm. Well, I thought of going to the moon and taking a picture of the Earth each year on January 1. It would be a neat way to see how the earth changes each year and how different it looks due to cloud cover and weather. Other than that, in real life, we try to go to Mass each year, as New Year's Day coincides with the Feast of the Circumcision for Catholics. A great thing to do is make an intention to give the whole year to God and offer the Mass for that intention. AlyCatAuthor |
| 30DBC January 6 Prompt: On this day in 1994, figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the right leg by an assailant at Cobo Arena in Detroit, MI. Four men were later sentenced to prison for the attack, including rival skater Tonya Harding's ex-husband. If you had to resort to some kind of evil shenanigans or trickery in order to increase your chances of winning this blogging challenge, what would be your plan of attack? Have some fun with this! That's some story. Especially because one of the attackers was her rival's ex. I mean, how did Tonya bribe him? "Club this girl, and I'll let you off a couple months' child support?" Hmmm. As for my plan of attack, I'd just sprinkle everyone with baby dust and win everyone's attention by announcing my positive pregnancy test.  Because that always works, right?Other than that, my plan would be simple. "It's brilliant, brilliant, BRILLIANT I tell you!" First, I'd turn everyone into fleas. Then I'd put those fleas in a box. Then I'd put that box in a box, and then I'd mail that box to myself, and when it arrived--AHAHAHAHA--I'd smash it with a HAMMER! I couldn't resist. Yzma is basically a wrinklier me. Plus, she wears my fave color.   On a slightly different note, maybe I qualify to play Pacha's pregnant wife in a live-action version of "The Emperor's New Groove"?I had fun with it. So sue me. AlyCatAuthor |
| 30DBC January 5 Prompt: Are you on the road, or are you safely at home? Think about it... Well, technically, we ARE traveling at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour through space as the Earth spins and follows its orbit around the sun. But, that's not "on the road." On the road of life, always. We never get to hop out of the "car of life" until it's our time to go to the Great Rest Stop of Eternity. But in the most common sense of the question, I am safely at home, typing on my laptop in my second bedroom/office, with my husband digging through piles of addresses in the file cabinet. Dinner is in the oven and almost ready. Banana bread is cooling on top of the stove. The table is set. We're just waiting on the pork tenderloin and then we're going to throw in some garlic bread while the pork is resting. When I think about being "safely" at home, I imagine that both myself and my husband are home. He's not out on the road in the snow/rain/wind delivering pizzas. We're not on the road to Mass, which is a nearly two-hour, out-of-state road trip. We're enjoying our time together, praying, eating, laughing, watching silly videos or drinking hot chocolate or arguing over how to season the mashed potatoes. I worry a lot, so there's quite a few conditions to being safely at home. Before I go to bed, before I consider myself safe, I have to double check that the burners are off, the Christmas tree and lights are unplugged, the door is locked, and the computer is off in the office. If I forget and suddenly remember as I'm drifting off to sleep...off I go, crawling over my husband's legs to go run down the hall and check everything. But there you have it. I've "thought about it." Probably a little too much, but if I didn't, I wouldn't have quite as long an entry. AlyCatAuthor |
| 30DBC January 4 Prompt: What's one place in the world you have yet to visit, and have absolutely no intention of ever, ever going? Why are you so adamant about never visiting? Hmmm. That's a tough one, as there are very few places in the world I wouldn't give a chance. Probably any place that's currently war-torn or antagonistic to the Christian religion. Unless I needed to go there, or was sent there for some reason to offer aid, I would never go of my own volition. I think my reasons are fairly obvious. AlyCatAuthor |
| 30DBC January 3 Prompt: Does any government have a right to say what you can or cannot do with your body? I have to keep my response short and sweet as right now is the only time I've had to sit down all day and I only have a couple minutes. However, I know I could go on and on about this topic. I will say this--no government can tell you what to do with your body. However, when it comes to another person's body...that is another matter entirely. And yes, I do view an unborn child as a person with rights, most notably the right to life. An unborn child is not simply another part of a woman's body as a nose or a foot are. It is its own unique person and soul, separate from, although dependent upon, the woman's body during gestation. Therefore, I do believe a government should protect the right to life of an unborn child just as vehemently as they protect the right to life of a grown person. I am certainly open to hearing other viewpoints on this, though they will not change my stance. And I know this question was certainly very open-ended, but this angle was the first I saw and had a strong opinion on. AlyCatAuthor |
| 30DBC January 2 Prompt: Isaac Asimov, born on this day in 1920, once said "Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers." What are your thoughts on this quote? Is writing simply a brain-to-hand exercise, or is there more involved? I can very much relate to this quote. For me, I write to process my own thoughts, to solve problems, to think through plans, and to organize basically my entire existence. I think that a very great part of writing is exactly as Asimov describes: "thinking through my fingers." However, there is also an art to writing, even if it's writing something that no one else will ever see. Especially with handwriting, there's a certain way that you put together a string of words that's unique to you and your style. The way you form each 'c' or cross each 't' is also an aesthetic thing, deeply physical and psychological. It combines the left brain (which I think of as more of the 'brain-to-hand exercise' described above) and right brain, which takes the raw data of your thoughts and puts it into a form that's pleasing to the eye and the mental ear when read either aloud or mentally. That process takes some creativity and careful crafting, even if you're simply scribbling in your journal or testing some new story ideas in the raw. AlyCatAuthor |
| 30DBC January 1 Prompt: What is the most fun you've had breaking a NY's resolution? Hmmm. This is a really thought provoking question. Like most people, I tend to make a few resolutions around the new year. I have the best intentions of keeping them…until it's not so easy to keep them. Like not having dessert every single day, or organizing something that I've been putting off (ahem...all my winter clothes are still in a box and not in my closet like they're supposed to be). But typically when I do break them, I don't intend to break them. I always INTEND to keep them perfectly--until I don't, and then I sit there and get mad because doggone it, I did so well for the first two weeks (or two days). I can't seem to think of a particular time that I had fun breaking one. I get too mad at myself to even enjoy "breaking the rules." However, if there was a resolution I'd enjoy breaking, it would be because it was a stupid resolution in the first place--one that I shouldn't have made. Like a resolution that was too detail-oriented ("organize clothes by color", or "Write down every dream you can remember in one particular journal" or "Read books in alphabetical order"). I'd have fun scribbling down dreams on sticky notes or random loose-leaf paper, or just hanging my clothes next to what I normally wear together, or picking up whatever book I'm most excited about and reading it first. Speaking of resolutions, since we're on the topic, I'd like to scribble down some of the ones that have been floating around in my brain for a while.  Read more books in 2017.By read more, I mean taking out a big chunk of my TBR pile. I think I want to take on 50 this year. They can be fiction, devotional, non-fiction, whatever. I just need to start and finish them, and they must be NEW. No re-reads can count toward the 50.  Write 300 words a day.It can be for blog posts, outlining, journaling, whatever. No emails or SM words. But 300 words. Every. Day. (That's one reason I'm drafting this response in gel pen in the backseat of my car on the way to Holy Mass). Ride in the backseat more.This is something more personal, and it relates to my travel anxiety. My husband wants us to start going to Holy Mass more often. Trouble is, the nearest Traditional Latin Mass is two hours from home and in another state. Back in November of '15, I had my first wreck which really shook me up. I wrecked because I was speeding and didn't know it (very subtle hill). Because my husband has a lead foot, I often get super anxious when he's behind the wheel. But I found riding in the backseat to be a good way to block out most of the road and focus on other things (like writing ). So to save his poor ears from a lot of my nagging, I'd like to sit in the backseat whenever I'm not behind the wheel. I also have a lot more project-specific goals related to my writing (which I might talk about on my site/WDC in a separate post). I know I want to finish another book this year and get more organized with my book-keeping (as I'm self-employed). There's a lot I am going to have to come up with an action plan for. But at least I'm not planning a wedding, moving twice, and publishing a book like I was in 2016 (at least I hope not). I hope everyone has a great NYD! Start on those resolutions (or break a few!) Here's to a great year! AlyCatAuthor |
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