The first thing I want to write about is this site. If you want insight into the vote coming up November 6, I recommend this site. You can type in your address and it will bring up the ballot that you will be voting on. It covers all of the candidates and their stands on the issues. It isn’t totally complete but it will give you a great place to start. I live in a small town so it didn’t give me a lot of information on the local candidates, but it gave me a lot of information on the state and national level candidates. Missouri also has three amendments and a proposition on the ballot. This goes into depth about what the proposition means and it also gives you the pro and con views. It is very helpful. Missouri has three marijuana issues on the ballot and this site did a good job of explaining the nuances of each issue. You can mark your choices and the site saves them for you. Once you finish, it will send you an email copy of the ballot.
I urge all of you to be informed about who and what you are voting for.
On to other news.
I am recuperating from having three wisdom teeth cut out. It’s been a week and I’m doing okay, but I haven’t fully recovered. When you are as old as I am, recovery is not as quick. I think everything is fine, but I just want to get back to my old self or a better self more quickly than I am. I did go back to my part-time teaching job today after being off a week. It went well for the most part, but I kept having to clear my throat. I wasn’t very exciting but I persevered.
I have gotten to my weight-loss goal finally. I am lighter than I have been in over 30 years. I need to do some kind of exercise to tone and firm, but I wanted to lose the weight first. Weight watchers worked fine for me. It is one diet that I believe I can follow for the rest of my life. I encourage you to check it out. Now, my attention will turn to maintenance.
I’ve thought about what I want to do with this blog, and I’ve not decided much other than that I need to make some changes in it. I have used it as an advertisement for my writing more than anything else, and I shouldn’t have. Occasionally might be okay, but I drove it into the ground. I’m in the midst of changing some things, but I’m not sure where it will wind up going. Bear with me as I find myself.
Now, hopefully, some words of wisdom to think about.
“You can’t understand the forest by looking at one leave.” #crossbytes
I know this is similar to the “can’t see the forest for the trees” saying, but I wanted to talk about it anyway, right now as it applies to people. So many times we judge folks by one thing that they do or just one aspect of their personality. Or maybe by one action.
Imagine, for instance, how you would feel if someone who didn’t know you saw you when you were in a bad mood and noticed that you did something out of your usual character. That person will more often than not judge all of you by that one action. I would just encourage you to see beyond one action or one personality trait.
You can apply this in another way. Why is it that when we accomplish nine wonderful things but fail on the tenth thing that we concentrate on the one failure and not the nine successes? That makes no sense. Whenever I get a rejection for something writing I’ve submitted, I dwell on it until I’m depressed. What about the successes that I’ve had?
And what about the successes I’ve had outside of writing. I taught for over 30 years, and I know that I influenced hundreds more with my teaching than I have with anything I’ve ever written. I should focus on that.
I guess the bottom line is, don’t make any judgments with just one piece of evidence. Also when you are thinking about yourself, realize that you can’t succeed all the time, but you should not focus on those failures. Always think about your successes.
I do want to talk about writing a little bit. (I don’t want to have withdrawal symptoms.)
I went to a writer’s conference recently. It was a good one. I entered several of the contests and placed in three. I actually won a first place in a romance contest. That was surprising. I wanted to go to this one to get some direction about the future of my writing. I got some, but I also got a few more questions. The next month or two will tell me a lot. Maybe by the end of the year, I will know where I’m going and what I am doing. Tess Gerritsen, the author of the Rizzoli and Isles series was our featured speaker. She did such a wonderful job.
Also, I pitched a couple of publishers and got an invitation to submit. We’ll see where it goes from there.
