today was just the right amount of fun and work, of anticipation, daydreaming and reality. Let’s try and keep it up all week!
2013, April 17
The biggest barrier
As part of her DIY Writing Spring Blog Hop, Dana Sitar, author of “A Writer’s Bucket List”, asked:
What is the biggest barrier you face to following your writing dreams? and encouraged to write our answers in a blog post to celebrate the Kindle release of her book.
I sat down full of half-formed ideas, notions and convictions about what my barriers are when it comes to following my writing dreams.
- One of them is, that living in Romania and writing in English, the possibilities aren’t as vast and varied as for a writer who is in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
- Freelance writing gigs don’t grow on trees… Not here, and not anywhere, really. I check out ads for freelance writing work filed under “anywhere”, but nothing stuck so far.
- Work, and its new, highly-stressful environment, leaves me drained, uninspired and with next to no writing time.
All of the above are valid, I think.
And yet, the biggest barrier I face at the moment – is the lack of finances. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not looking to get rich. And I’m not lazy. But working so much just to stay poor doesn’t help.
Salaries aren’t much here. I am left with less than half of mine after bills and that doesn’t include groceries.
It would be the best if there was a possibility to take a few months, put life on hold and not have to worry about finances.
To not have to worry about commute, about needing a bus pass for all lines, yet still having to walk a good part of the way.
To not have to worry about disappointing people who just don’t get that I really need some time to write or I’ll explode. Or worse, implode.
And, unfortunately, so far I haven’t been able to set aside money to making any of this happen.
Opportunity doesn’t knock on my door on its own. Even while searching, I don’t know when a better one will come along. But I’ll probably jump at it in an instant when it does!
2013, March 20
Dear Self, follow your own yellow brick road
A couple of weeks ago, after reading the March Love Letter Requests over and over, I felt at a loss for words. I couldn’t figure out what to write to each person. I nearly gave up on writing anything at all. So I sat down to watch an episode of “Pretty Little Liars.”
About halfway through, I paused it, grabbed a pen and started scribbling. I wrote a letter to the person I could identify with, to Connie. What I wrote will, I hope benefit her, as much as it helped me while I was writing out my thoughts.
I could as well have addressed it to myself. So in a way, I’ve done it, my own personal thought from February was accomplished. I’ve written myself, too, a love letter.
Letter transcript:
“Dear Self,
I know how acutely the sadness of life can be felt. I’ve felt it. I feel it myself. It has the ability to numb one’s mind, to keep one from moving along. It makes one cry themselves to sleep.
But we have to get out from there. Walk out and follow our own yellow brick road leading us to where we should be: in the present. I think that is where Dorothy was heading. From a place of sadness, through the world of her perceptions, imagination and dreams. Into the present.
Where wonderful things can happen if we allow them to unfold. We have to wake up to being right where we are supposed to be.
There truly is no place like home; the home that leaving worries of the past and future provides!
Love,
~K”
2013, March 13
Have you named your curtains?
We had some fabrics on sale at the shop in February. Since our curtains at home were old, I quickly took measures, summed things up, cut the fabrics, sent them off to our shop’s sewing station and paid for them in advance – before anyone in management figured out I’d added my 25% off to the newly discounted prices.
No one noticed. *relieved sigh* So now we have new curtains at home. They’re pretty (though I wouldn’t have bought them otherwise.) The ones in the kitchen are Sophie, in my mother’s room, ElGreco and in my room, Hillary. These are the fabrics’ names, but I see them fitting. Have you named your curtains?
Interesting how a seemingly small thing like changing curtains can revive entire rooms.
Next month, if finances permit, drapes! 
2013, March 11
One piece of technology I could live without
I’m not quite sure how I came to think about all of this really, but the thought just popped into my head the other day.
If there was ONE piece of technology I absolutely had to give up, and could live without, it’d be a phone.
While I do not debate its usefulness, and while I do know that the invention of it was the culmination of the work done by several individuals who might be turning in their graves right now as I type this — phone conversations just don’t do it for me.
I don’t like not seeing the person I’m talking to. I don’t like talking to my mother 20 times a day. I don’t like hearing the Chef’s voice with all the background noise that is more often than not way too loud. I don’t like walking on the street and having to turn the volume up so I can understand what the person on the other end of the line is saying.
And I don’t like listening to people’s conversations on buses; especially when two individuals are sitting next to one another shouting in their phones and only increasing the decibel levels cause they’re disturbing each others conversations.
So there you have it. I could easily live without my phone.
My little Samsung Galaxy Mini is safe from my giving up on it, but only because it’s smart enough to connect to Wi-Fi to allow me surfing the net, it sometimes takes okay enough pictures, and because it doubles as a very expensive watch and alarm clock. 
Now tell me, in this day and age of all kinds of gadgets: what is one piece of technology You could live without?
2013, March 8
More subtle signs
I’ve talked about them before. And they’re at it again. This time around however, I can’t just pack up and visit Paris. It’s off the destinations list. But, it was nice to entertain the thought.
2013, February 12
Dear Tuesday, 12.February.2013
Thank you, dear friends, for the love you showed in my comment section yesterday. You’ve made me teary several times. And my day went infinitely better after releasing those weighing thoughts into the ether. You are all so wonderful, I wish I could give you a great big hug in real life! *hugs you tight, virtually*
So, for today…
~~~
Dear Tuesday,
Replaced my to-do list for today, with this. All on a post-it note and in my weekly planner now. I have a feeling I’ll move note around from week to week.
