🆒 10 Things Grateful, plus meager efforts to write again

Just a stormtrooper trying to steal Tim Tebow’s thunder.

I’m in a spot with not enough time to finish this, but also not so little time I can’t start.

And that’s sort of been the calling card in my life lately. Again, were this blog a goldfish in a bowl, it’d be floating belly-up. Interestingly, I feel better equipped to handle a hectic life than ever. And life is still keeping me away from this space.

Not entirely.

I’ve kept up (mostly) every day with the gratitude journal, so there’s plenty of material. Hopefully, that’ll get finished tonight after my boys’ soccer training and Camdyn’s teams’, when that Monster Energy drink kicks in somewhere between here and the Lowe’s Y.

📅 Calendar convergences and driving Ms. Hayden (and Mr. Allistair)

Even when you ain’t writing, you’re writing.

Kinda like the Rockies’ bats lately, my words have ground to a crawl. When this happens, you churn on. There are no timeouts in soccer or life. Your life GPS won’t direct you around it. No, the only way is through.

So when the calendar ambles along for an intersection for your kid to move to college and it’s also the 19th anniversary of the day your dad died, well, there are stories.

Even if you don’t have time right away to write them. Or maybe you try and get seven graphs in and realize you’re so not doing the feelings justice. It’s like getting Frosted Flakes but pouring them into skim milk. WHO DOES THAT?

🧿 #IBelieve IX: On enchilada sauce, life, and timeless cravings

You gotta believe.

It’s an essential part of being a parent. Or a blogger. Especially a Colorado Rockies fan. There isn’t much in this world that doesn’t get a bit sweeter with belief. In fact, the lack of it is grotesque, like those Poptarts without frosting.

Blech.

In the course of my discourse and my writing, I say stuff. Sometimes, it’s about Ingrid Michaelson or enchiladas. Other times, it’s about beliefs. Not just in Jesus or Buddha or the power of the changeup pitch, but sometimes.

💛 A Father’s Day post written after Father’s Day (and posted way after Father’s Day)

I keep a foot in happy and sad each Father’s Day.

The happy is easy: I have three wonderful daughters who enrich my life beyond measure. I also miss my dad. He died of leukemia three months before Hayden was born. This Father’s Day I again considered visiting his grave.

It’s in a beautiful spot, just under a mimosa tree that since has grown incredibly.

But it’s not where he is. It’s not where I feel him. I felt him so much more in the years just after his death. I’ve written about things I can’t explain. I feel as if my dad had to expend a lot of cosmic energy after death just to keep me from self-destructing.

#AtoZChallenge | Z is for zigzag 📩

Some days zig when you think they’ll zag.

Tuesday was such a day. If you’d told me I’d cry some of my happiest and saddest tears in the same day – some in the same hour – I’d have, well, been eager to see how. I’d have never guessed. It began with a soccer match, on a senior day.

It ended with tears in silence as I learned all I could about a shooting at my alma mater.

In between, the day’s events intertwined and intersected. This is what I meant by my Y post yesterday. Time spent away from writing is time spent creating the writing through living. I can’t say it was a bad day and I can’t say it was a good one, either.

#AtoZChallenge | R is for Ruining our lives, but also rules for divine timing and happier parenting (Weekend Reads VI)

Two pervasive thoughts dominate my brain usually.

I don’t have time for all this! But also, I’ve been given 24 hours to figure out how to do it all – that’s a lot of time! (I also think about Michelle Gingras, Stonehenge, and Havarti cheese, but that’s for another post.)

What’s left in the middle is that time is time, there’s no time like the present, you can’t make new time, and it’s time to go. Also, I might not have time to finish this post until tonight, which is sorta like getting to the fair 10 minutes before it packs up and hits the road.

#AtoZChallenge: H is for Habit of Peace

This peace stuff ain’t easy.

Even though sometimes it feels that way. A friend in need recently asked if I could just put the Zen on a shelf and be pissed off with her. Yes, I can. My girls’ team said, coach, you know, you can be pissed at us sometimes. We need that.

Oh, I’ve been pissed at them.

I’ve been mad at my team not for bad results, but subpar effort. I’ve been ticked at dudes who are crap puddles to female friends of mine. I’m angry about the Rockies’ rocky start and that if Kobe Bryant farts, it gets the headline over any Denver Nuggets victory.

#AtoZChallenge: Weekend Reads IV – F is for Fieri, Falling in Love, and Focus

F is for Flying, too.

One of the best parts of writing is reading.

I haven’t done these in a while, so I’m glad the A to Z Challenge is providing that chance. When I find a read that makes me want to tell a story, I stash it on a spreadsheet. All I had to do for this one was grab a few that had F words in them.

(Luckily, I didn’t have any that had THAT F word in them.)

I’ve had a good smattering of fresh new bloggage to read this week.

10 Things Thankful, and a bit of self-forgiveness

Hayden snapped this photo at Bennett’s Real Smoke Barbecue Pit in Gatlinburg. We celebrated a season with a rack of ribs and a pint of homebrew. (This class mysteriously disappeared from our table, however.)

The toughest person to forgive is often ourselves.

I’ve two Go Ask Daddy posts unpublished. Crazy, huh? If I can’t finish on my self-imposed deadline, I won’t publish. I’ll save them. I’m holding my blog hostage. I force myself to finish freelance work (veggies) before I get to blogging (snickerdoodle cookies.)

Heard of the Pomodoro timer?

I’m using that too. I’m rewarding myself for hours of distraction-free work with writing for fun. It keeps me hungry (not for snickerdoodles, although …) to put in the work to get to what feeds my soul most.

10 things grateful, plus a college signing

One week in.

I made it this far. Not gracefully. It’s 1:14 and I promised myself 1 hour, 14 minutes ago to get to bed at midnight like a normal person. Wait. Don’t normal people get to sleep at even decenter hours than that?

Blogging again has been better than any of the high school reunions I never went to.

I’m seeing friends again and spending less time in aimless pursuits. I’m also falling asleep at inopportune times and really need to work on that. I have a fantastic guest post live just before this one that deserves a load of promotion as big as the donuts I dream of.