#365Gratitude Day 137: I'm writing again... read for yourself.

I've been off my game, writing wise, for a while.  Today, I am right back to it.  This morning I was talking to a good friend about age play, intimacy, submission, butt plugs, and other lovely things, and also stumbled across a VERY NSFW wonderful animated gif posted by my friend @itsImrielJay on his tumblr.  (Seriously, it's lovely and filthy - click at your own risk.)

Those two things crashed together on my mental highway in a glorious car accident of inspiration, and BANG - a story began bleeding its way into my mind.  It's about Adam & Christina, two of my favorite characters from my novel Concerning Littleton, and takes place after the end of that book.  

I'm using the story as a way of warming my writing muscles back up, as I'm working on my next novel.  I just spent the better part of my whole day working on the story so far. 

I decided to post it here at my site, and share it with you, because I'm so grateful to be writing again.

It's called Passenger Seat.  Let me know what you think!

#365Gratitude Day 136: Peanut Butter Banacakes

No, it's not a nickname, it's a food.  

I made these this morning. They contain no gluten, no flour, no sugar either. In fact, they only had these ingredients: 

• 1 banana
• 2 eggs
• a splash of vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp of pb2 dried peanut butter
• 2 tbsp of margarine to cook in

My whole breakfast, including the glass of whole milk, was 580 calories!  Missy gave me the idea from something she saw on Facebook.

Here's the original recipe: 

http://www.theskinnyconfidential.com/2012/09/25/ummm-seriously-dying-ingredient-pancakes-flourless-full-protein/

#365Gratitude Day 135: On track

After work yesterday I ran 5K on an indoor track at a gym. I ran 5 intervals of alternating 3 minutes and walking 2 minutes.  

It was not without incident.

Halfway through the third interval I had to stop to use the bathroom. (That's the great part about running at a gym - the locker room was right there!)

When I got back on the track I was determined to do five intervals, which is one more than I did when I ran on Saturday.   

It was amazing.  I pushed myself, and it felt great. I even snuck a selfie during my last quarter mile.  

The Caption Game: winner!

Here's a funny new thing I just started doing with Twitter.  

The other day a friend of mine tweeted a photo that caught my eye. It begged for a caption. So I put it out there.  

My friend @thatshyguy1 had the best response of the day. 

Funny! 

#365Gratitude Day 134: Ketchup Time

I've had a busy, out of sorts week.  As I'm sure you've noticed, I haven't even been writing my gratitude posts this whole time.  

It wasn't that I didn't experience those moments though.  I would snap a pic, or record an audio note.  I just wasn't ready to get back to it.  But I knew I'd get there eventually.

There is always time to catch up.

Sometimes I do forget that.  I can be really hard on myself.  I'm always doing a hundred different things, juggling many dishes, and it's never enough.  That's been my chronic pattern for years.

Lately though, I've been almost obstinately the opposite.  I go to work, and I work.  I come home, and I relax.  I haven't been writing, and we have some episodes of the podcast in the can, so I've been letting that go, too.  

It's not like me.  Or rather, it's not like the me I have wanted to be, and been, for a long while.  

But I think I get why, and I can feel myself pulling out of it.  I have had a lot on my plate.  

Missy's mom passed away in September, which rocked our world and is still rocking it, although the waves of that get smaller each day.  I changed jobs back in February, and hunting for a new job was a nerve wracking thing.  We've had various little pressures upon us as a couple, and as a family, and I see that I'm sensitive to them.  (As would anyone be, because I'm just a regular human being, like anyone else.)

It's not good and not bad that this is so, it's just so.

My friend William recently hooked me up with a Pema Chödrön book I hadn't heard of before, Coming Closer to Ourselves.  I'm in the midst of listening to it now, but it's already wonderful.  It's about compassion for the self, something I struggle with.  One of the things Pema talks about are the different yanas in Buddhism, and the lessons that they teach.  Funny enough, they all boil down to variations of one thing, one command, one idea:

"Stay."

Stay here, stay with yourself, stay with the moment.  Stay and be gentle, be kind, to yourself.  It's not "STAY!" like the way you shout it at a disobedient dog (although sometimes I do treat it that way), but more a gentle invitation.  

It's a great book, you should check it out.  

It's really okay that I've been out of sorts.  It's really okay that I'm coming back to it in my own time, at my own pace.  

Last night on my way home from work, I spent the commute listening to the book, and then made the decision that I'd spend this morning catching up my blog.  One thing I heard Pema say yesterday was that when you're tired, or angry, or have some negative feeling going on, that can be your wisdom.  

If you stay and listen to not just what you feel, but why you feel it, you can come closer to yourself.  The truth is that my day-to-day life has been overwhelming for a bit.  I don't have to be some superhero about it.

I'm so grateful that's true.