Ah, The Stories I Would Love to Tell If Only I Had My Blogging Mojo Back!

So I've decided that I need a secretary.

There has been so much going on lately and so many wonderful things that I want to write about but boy howdy, I just don't seem to have the energy to sit at the computer and put words and pictures together to share those things with you.  At least not today and maybe not even tomorrow.

Yesterday I managed to write a post about Gloucester, Massachusetts for Travels With Nathaniel but it took me over 12 hours to put it together and by the time I was done, I was pooped, and even though I wanted to write about my trip to the Mark Twain House last weekend and my trip up to the Canterbury Shaker Village and some other interesting places in New Hampshire last week for The Distracted Wanderer, I just didn't have the ambition to writer about any of those things.

And then there's the post that I want to write about meeting Gale Martin, a blogging friend from long ago who has recently published not just one but two books. I met Gale at the Shaker Village where her second book, Grace Unexpected,  begins - a book where I am not only mentioned twice on the Acknowledgments page but where there's also a character named after me which is about the coolest thing ever but do you see me writing about that?  Nope, you might see a post with a paid ad below this one that I felt obligated to write but you don't see a post about meeting Gale and finding that she is even funnier in person than she is in written word.  A post that once again says, "I had the privilege of meeting this person in real life and she's just as warm and wonderful as I always knew she would be!" like I've had the opportunity to write numerous times in the past.

Nope, you don't see those posts because I appear to have lost my writing mojo lately and instead of blogging and sharing all these great things with you, I spend a ridiculous amount of time playing Bejeweled on Facebook and looking to score that elusive X7 multiplier. And that's why I need a secretary ... so I can tell my stories to her (or him) and then he (or she) can write the posts and include the pictures and also go through my Google Reader so that I can once again feel like a productive member of the blogosphere.  However, being as how that's probably never going to happen, with any luck I'll wake up with more ambition  tomorrow, my blogging mojo will return, and maybe - just maybe - I'll get one or two of those stories told!

Trust me, they're good stories too! 

An 'Eh' Post

With just one week until Christmas Eve day it's sort of getting down to the wire for gift shopping and that sort of thing but alas, even though I have been out shopping twice with my mother and once with my cousin, I still don't really have much of anything to show for my efforts. Most of my time on these shopping expeditions has been spent watching my mother and cousin contribute to the economy while I look at things and think ... eh ...

It seems like every year it gets harder and harder to get past that 'eh' as I have grown to dislike the entire commercial aspect of the holidays. This isn't to say that I'm ready to sign up for Scrooges Anonymous or Grinches-R-Us but I have been finding my Christmas spirit being chipped away just a little bit more with each passing year.

If you had told me a few years ago that I would no longer be putting up a full-size tree and decking the halls with festive trappings, I would have said you were crazy. If you had told me that the simple act of writing out Christmas cards would be an arduous ordeal that I would rather avoid, I would surely have shouted 'nay'! If you had even hinted that I would not bake a single Christmas cookie the entire season, I would have laughed in your face. But, alas, had you told me all those things you would have been right.

The first year that I worked at American Ambulance I came in on my day off and decorated the entire dispatch center from top-to-bottom. I strung lights, hung stockings, and placed a tree in the window. It looked very festive, or so I thought. The next year when I did it, people complained that the tree was in their way, that the stockings weren't right, and that it made them feel "claustrophobic". I vowed that I wouldn't decorate at work for Christmas anymore after that and I haven't. What's the point if people are only going to complain?

The decline in decorating at home came sometime after that when I came to the conclusion that it was more trouble than it was worth. "More trouble than it was worth ..." I never ever thought I would say that about Christmas but there it is though I'm not sure where it came from. Maybe it comes from not having anyone special to share Christmas with; maybe it comes from the retailers screaming "buy! buy! buy!"; maybe it comes from the expectations that I can't afford to fulfill; or maybe it just comes from overall disappointment in what used to be "the most wonderful time of the year". I'm afraid that my beloved grandfather, who loved all things Christmas, would be disappointed in me but then again, maybe he would be disappointed in the ways that Christmas has changed, too.

I don't know if it's because I'm feeling run down and tired lately or if it's because my finances can never stand up to the Ghost of Christmas presents or that I'm just old and crotchety or that Christmas just isn't what it used to be but it's just become 'eh' for me. And to be perfectly honest with you guys, that 'eh' makes me very sad but I just don't seem to have the energy for more than that right now.

I don't know, maybe Scrooge and I have more in common than I thought ...