Writing to Share - Final Thoughts

Over the past couple of years, I've written more and more in my private journals and shared less and less here on my blog. At the end of March, I decided to post ten times in the month of April instead of just once or twice. I didn't know what would happen, but I knew I felt inspired and excited by it.

I enjoyed the challenge, but I also found that I have to let my words compost. I dump the apple cores, carrot peels, hacked off vines of my words into the compost pile of my journals. Turn them over. Wait. Let the sun heat them and the rain wet them and the insects crawl and eat and defecate all over them.

Then, when the organic matter has morphed into rich, rich soil, I finally share those words. And, by grace, I get to watch shoots spring out of those words. And to see already established trees and plants enjoy the nourishment of rich soil.

I cannot produce "content" quickly or it is just silty dust hastily shoveled up and scattered out to plants with little nourishing power.

My words must be chewed, mulled over, sifted, played with, enjoyed. Then, shared.

So, over the next few months, I'll be going back to posting as ready. And when that little baby comes in October, who knows what will happen! All I know is that everything will change.

Here are my ten posts written (mostly) in April:

Writing to Share - An intro to my writing challenge

Kids One Year Ago and Today - Some thoughts on my kids' adjustment process from moving from California to Bangkok, Thailand

I've Never Read the Whole Bible and That's OK

Conversation Between a Toddler and a Preschooler

How to Wash Your Clothes When You're New to Thailand - Remembering those nutty first weeks of our international move.

14 Thoughts at 14 Weeks - A few lighthearted thoughts on my third pregnancy.

Tropical Birds - A homage to the birds outside my bathroom window.

A Monday in My Life - No two days and no two weeks are the same, but here's one recent Monday in my life.

Currently Loving - Four things I'm enjoying from a fun app to my kids' school pictures to a couple of great books.

And this post makes 10!

Thanks for following along! I don't think I'd do this without readers... you!

Writing to Share

Over the past couple of years, I've written more and more, but shared less and less of it here, on my blog. I'm not sure why that is.

I write in my journal on my laptop when my fingers need to fly to keep up with my thoughts. I write in cursive with an inky pen, stream-of-consciousness style in my large black "morning pages" notebook. I write out slower, more meditative thoughts, prayers, and lists in my moleskine journal. I brainstorm, calendar, plan, and vision for my life in my big blue bullet journal. And, occasionally, some of it ends up here but the vast majority of my writing stays tucked away. I'm mostly satisfied with this.

My laptop, morning pages journal, moleskine journal, bullet journal, and the crowning glory, my "keep clam" bag filled with inky, colorful pens.

But, I do miss sharing my writing frequently here, more than once or twice a month. I find satisfaction in refining something I wrote, sharing it with you, and sometimes hearing how it caused you to laugh or to think or to try something new. Art of all types is meant to be shared.

So, during the month of April, I’m going to post about ten times. Most of it will be old writings I've dug up. Some of it might be new. Some of it might just be pictures or quotes. Who knows!

I will count this as post #1.

Inspiration Fairy

There is a term in Turkish that translates to "inspiration fairy." My very close, American friend who is studying Turkish while living in Turkey explained what this means. Often, when an artist sits down to create, nothing comes. There is no inspiration. But, sometimes while staring off into space, listening to a boring presentation, sweeping the floor, or doing really anything, *POOF* the inspiration fairy comes to visit. Creativity flows naturally through and from the creator.

Although you cannot force this inspiration to come, you can create space for inspiration to visit more readily. Recently, I've been trying to intentionally open up this space in my life. As a mom and a part time lawyer, I have to be very choosy about my free time. If a book just isn't doing it for me, I'll abandon it halfway through. My garden is a tangle of large weeds and plants that have gone to seed. I rarely sit at the piano anymore and my camera often lays still for days or weeks.

One creative endeavor that I have chosen to pursue in this very full season is writing. I usually write my deepest thoughts in my journal and my exterior life on this blog. I recently also began reading and doing the creative writing exercises in a book about writing more descriptively called "Word Painting." Although it takes lots of energy and intentionality to make space to write in my days, even for just ten minutes, it has been worth it every time -- and the inspiration fairy has visited.

More With Less: Part Two

A couple of weeks into my first semester of college, my roommate asked me if I had heard of a new thing called "Facebook." Within about ten minutes, she had opened my account. I had trouble finding many of my friends from high school in Colorado because Facebook was only at a dozen or so east and west coast universities at the time. My, how things change!

Now, nine years in, I am totally addicted.

I often find myself in the middle of a little life happening, and rather than enjoying whatever is going on, I try to figure out a clever status update. When I post something new, I wait with anticipation to see if anyone will comment and how many likes it will garner as if that will satisfy me. It doesn't. When someone takes a good picture of me, I immediately think, "profile picture!" During the first few weeks of Grace's life, I remember waking up at ungodly hours to breastfeed her and scrolling through my newsfeed to help keep me awake.

This summer, I got so sick of it all that I told myself, "Self, you may only go on Facebook twice a week!" I threw an inner temper tantrum, but stuck to my guns and discovered that 

• Not that much happens on Facebook anyway. Even after several days of being off, I'd only have about ten minutes of catching up to do.
• I felt happier. Perhaps this was because I was more present to my life rather than always looking at others' lives.
• I wrote more blog posts during that period than I did before I had a baby. Again, I was caring for a little baby and starting a law firm and, because I wasn't going on Facebook, I had enough time to write more than I ever had before! (I thought a lot about the concept of creating over ingesting when I read this short, inexpensive ebook.)

After several weeks of following my little rule, I decided I had enough self control to ditch it. I soon found myself well on my way to living and breathing Facebook again. So, I recently re-instituted a rule: I only go on Facebook on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and my friend, Ingrid, is holding me accountable.

I am committed to living a life where entertainment isn't my knee jerk reaction to quiet spaces in my day. For me, Facebook is my achilles' heel, but I've also trimmed down a couple of other areas over the past months and years. I read just one or two books at a time so that I can really soak them in. I rarely go on Pinterest, mostly using it as a tool for organizing interesting things so that it's not another website to browse through. I also don't watch TV unless there is a show that Michael and I are especially excited to follow. (Most recently: MasterChef Junior. So fun!)

I still enjoy reading, Facebooking, Pinteresting, etc., but I enjoy them so much more now that they are not central in my life.

~

I wrote a post last week about how much richer my life feels when I do fewer things, take in less information, and own less stuff. This is part two of that post.

Why I Blog

This month marks the completion of my third year of blogging!

Three years ago, the thought of starting a blog entered my mind. A few days later, I came up with the title, Scattered Snippets. My first post (of now almost 200 posts!) has become the bane of my blog's existence. It's gotten more hits than any other post from people finding it via Google searches of the phrase "heirloom pumpkin carving."

I began blogging to keep a record of happenings in my life primarily for the close friends and family who were scattered across the world. After blogging for three years, I've realized that I do it for so much more than that. Here's why I blog.

I love the creative challenge of taking an experience and transferring the attendant concepts, thoughts, and feelings into words. Like the incredible nausea and joy of my first trimester. Or the story of how we got our crooked Christmas tree.

I love trying to capture the essence of the subject in a photo, or a few photos, and placing them in just the right spot alongside the words. Like the challenge of making applesauce look tasty. 

I love looking back on the memories that I've chronicled that I would otherwise forget. Like what Grace was like at two months old. Or all the ways God guided me after law school. Or our first gardening attempts.

I love knowing that people read it. I love knowing that certain people, especially my grandparents, get to see a little bit of my life. And it's satisfying to know that my little "scattered snippets" occasionally provoke thought or action in someone else, even if it's just a few people trying out my mom's enchilada recipe.

A Makeover and a Quote

My blog looks prettier! This weekend, I was venting all of my frustrations with blogger to Michael. I had ideas of what I wanted my blog to look like but felt like my hands were tied by the limited editing options within the finite set of templates. He opened the code (or HTML? or CSS? or something like that), listened to me voice my complaints (i.e. "I don't like the shadow thingy behind the pictures."), and fixed them. And boy does it look snazzy now! It's clean, simple, the font is more legible, and the pictures really fill the space.

Allow me to take advantage of this pretty space by leaving you with a photo I took a few weeks ago while on a walk and a beautiful quote on the art of writing that I stumbled upon this weekend.

"To keep an idea living, intact, tinged with all its original feeling, its original mood, preserving in it all the ecstasy which attended its birth, to keep it so all the way from the brain to the hand and transfer it on paper a living thing with color, odor, sound, life all in it, that is what art means..."      ~Willa Cather

Blog Hiatus

Hello faithful readers!


It turns out that studying for the California Bar Exam is about as time consuming and stressful as everyone says it is.


To give you a feel for it, I reviewed Criminal Procedure today. (Think Miranda Rights, Double Jeopardy, "I plead the 5th.") The four unit course was stripped to a three hour lecture. After watching the lecture, I spent the afternoon doing practice problems and cramming as much as I could into my already saturated brain.


And that was it for Crim Pro. According to my online course's syllabus, I will not be hitting this topic again all summer. And so it will go all summer, I'll hit a massive subject, like Crim Pro, for anywhere from one to three days before moving on to the next massive subject. Then, I'll have two weeks to review everything before I take the test. Yikes!


I really have enjoyed my little blogging hobby, but studying has made me realize just how many priorities I have that come before Scattered Snippets... sleeping, hanging out with friends, eating well, grocery shopping, exercising, spending time with my husband, calling my family, keeping my apartment clean, sitting and doing nothing, church, playing the piano, small group, to name just a few!


I may put up a couple posts over the next six weeks, but I very well may not. Either way, I'll be back in August.


I'll leave you with a picture. Studying makes me feel like this guy. But, slow and steady wins the race, right?

Kind of True

A Hallmark card that I received from my parents for my birthday.