All Dressed Up And…

 

Boodle at Borders

The Universe keeps leaving me messages lately.  Not great message either.

Frankly, I think I need to change my number, or at least find a way off its speed dial.

For the moment though, I’d really like to know why the Universe seems so opposed to us going camping.  I mean, it’s not as if we’re higher (or sadly much lower) impact than most people who spend time up on Lower Saranac Lake.  We use a rowboat equipped with a little 2-cycle motor to zip between the ranger station and our camp site instead of a canoe (though I’d be content enough to canoe most of the time, it’s nice to have that motor for the initial setup and break down periods); we tend to do most of our cooking via a campstove instead of the fire pit; and I do use dish detergent to wash the dishes in the lake.

Old Litter in Bright Green

I have even been guilty of bringing soap bubbles for my son to play with at the camp site.

However, the few plastics we bring always get brought home and either recycled or disposed off in a more conscientious manner.  We do not leave broken glass or litter in the wood as some have done.   Our choice has always been to leave the campsite a little nicer for the next people than we ourselves had found it.

Which, btw, means we like to leave it as close to pristine as possible on a State Camp Ground.

So why has everything interfered in our camping this year?

• The first disaster was a minor one–my husband somehow booked the wrong campsite.  This would normally not be a horrible issue, save that we have a child who is still learning about the outdoors, what is safe, what is not and there are several sites on the lake that have huge rocks that just drop off into the lake without warning.    We know very little about the section of the lake we’re going to be at this time.  Could be good, could be bad…  The mystery is enough to make me cautious, but not enough to cancel the trip.
• The second “disaster” has been the timing of the head cold of the year.  I’m just starting to get over it, but the Boodle is getting sick now and there are odd hints that the Leader of the Opposition Party (that is, my husband–now known as the LOP) is working on getting it too.  Being sick where the quickest route to a hospital is seaplane doesn’t really appeal to me.
• The major disasters however happened last night when the LOP started doing an inventory of all our camping gear…

ANTS!

Need I say more?  Well, I probably do, since it might now seem that drastic, but these guys were both huge and everywhere.  And they’d eaten their way through our $400 tent, our air mattress and our rubber raft. 

This isn’t stopping us since the LOP has “connections” nearby (his father was already loaning us the boat and just threw in a tent for us to use), but sometimes one really does have to wonder why the Universe is so adverse to us camping.

ROW80 Check-in

This hasn’t (as the above might show) been the best week.  I was completely down and out on Sunday and Monday with the cold.  My word count was stifled, but it’s back on track now, and I’m even back to getting my 750 done on 750words.  It’s all part of a process I guess.

The biggest killer at the moment is the brain drain.  Too many other things have been taking their toll and leaving my mind to scattered to actually work on my story ideas.  Today was the first day that I didn’t have to force feed words to the paper, and because I had too many things that needed to be done “right now” I could only jot down notes for writing out in detail later.

I’m both dreading and looking forward to that camping trip just for the end of the “right now” period.  I do know that this was the absolutely wrong month to take up a WriMo challenge.  But I’m here now, and I will do what I can.  I guess it’s much like my karate experiences.  Even in losing, I will win something.

Speaking of which…  Must leave you now so I can do that part.  Hai!

———-

This will be my last post for almost two weeks, if things go well.  If things keep going the way they have been going though….  Well, stay tuned for further developments and enjoy these images I took during our camping trip last year:

Bees Knees

Refelections

Ending Day

 

A Pause of Sorts But Not Really

I’m here, but I’m not…

I’m writing, but I’m not writing blog posts.

Blogging, while it is a wonderful way to share events and discussions, has taken a backseat to many other things in my life.  Yes, I have challenges and check-ins to make.  Mostly they are occurring on Facebook lately.  I actually made one there five minutes before I realized I should at least write a “this is why I’m not posting much” post.

So I’m making two check-ins for the day…just so I can say I won’t be posting on either of my blogs (not that I’ve posted at a Garden of Delights for months) for the rest of August.  Whee!

Here’s what I am doing so everyone is as up to date as I’ve been (which isn’t much, btw):

• I’ve increased my “test mile” back up from 500 words a day to 750.  Oddly, I found that with the smaller test mile I was actually writing less and less each day.  When I reached this Monday and I had missed two days, I decided to try pushing myself instead of codling.  We’ll see how it works long-term, but by today I’m back to three days in a row and making my 750 for two of them.
• I’ve added a physical activity to make my body suffer–Budokai karate...  The actual technique is comforting and reassuring.  The calisthenics before and during the classes (which are over an hour each) are proof of just how out of shape I am.
• Included in the above comes another “monthly challenge”…  50 sit-ups a day.   I’m not up to even that, not with doing smaller sets throughout the day.  Partly it’s this cold I’ve had that has kept me from sleeping at night; mostly it’s my lack of conditioning.  I managed 38 of them yesterday and made up the missing 12 as curls.  Today, I’ve managed 2 curls total so far.
• I’ve started the August CampNaNoWriMo.  It may or may not work for me this time, given that I will be offline for a good portion of the month, but there is something about the challenge that makes me write.  And write, and write…
• Writing, I have decided, may NOT be a good thing.  I love to write and to create stories, but I also have a mess in my desk and computer and I have stories that need to be fixed.  A LOT of stories that need to be fixed.  I also need some beta readers…  I’ll wait until the end of the month for those however.

This list, of course, is hardly inclusive.

• I have to finish some paperwork for my college application so I can go back to school (I’ve decided to head back part-time, not full-time as I’d planned before).
• I am still working on books for the Bookmark Break Challenge and the Telling Tales Challenge (though both I have been abysmal at updating my progress on).  And for the Literary Classics reading challenge, I am slowly working my way through Great Expectations….mostly because I find myself so very annoyed at Pip and his self-importance.
• And of course, I cannot forget the ROW80 for which this whole check-in was truly written for…  Yes, I am writing, and I am adjusting so that I can keep writing and keep making progress.

That’s about it.  It’s enough, don’t you think?