Have Garden, Will Travel

Best laid plans often go awry. That seems to be a recurring theme in my life, maybe one day I’ll figure out a way to plan without having it blow up in my face.

If you’ll recall a few months ago in the post about my survey  (https://dianalayne.com/2018/02/13/five-minute-speed-dating-i-need-your-help-please/) I was looking forward to the opportunity to write full time this year. It started out promising but by spring that hope was shattered. Turns out, I unexpectedly have to sell my house and move. I always knew I would have to move, thus why I had to divorce the husband who bolted the country, but I thought I had more time.

Still, ever the optimist I wanted to plant a garden. I chose to make it “Have garden, will travel”…and created a small container garden (the white stuff in the picture is diatomaceous earth, a non-toxic pest deterrent) . And some of these plants are still alive, even in this Texas heat, and they will be traveling with me next week to a new home.

Actually, we won’t really have a permanent home until my house sells. Instead we’ll be couch-surfing with friends and family who can use a few extra hands on deck to help with kids and pets and other things around their house, until my house sells. Which is only fair because they’ve pulled together in helping me get my house ready.

It’s been a time-consuming and painful process, not only having to take my cats to a friend who is sweet enough to foster them for me, but having to go through twenty years of stuff. During the time I’ve lived here, both my mother and grandmother died and I have a lot of their things as well. It’s been pretty tough deciding on what to keep and what to part with. I can’t keep it all, we’ll be drastically downsizing, my house now is a big, almost 100-year-old, 5 bedroom house (Think Fixer Upper before it’s been fixed, and there’s a story why it hasn’t been remodeled, as well…another one of those best laid plans gone awry kind of stories). The reality is the kids and I might be living in an RV or a tiny home once my house sells and the dust settles. We just don’t know right now, but with that in mind, I’m clearing out lots of stuff.

Anyway, given how crazy the next few months will be, I’ll be going back to writing by hand. I wrote my first five books completely by hand (I do have more books written that I haven’t published yet…they need some revisions and updating.) I started writing by hand when my oldest kids were little and were heavily involved in sports, scouting and church activities. I used to say about myself “Have Notebook Will Travel.”

And since I’m going to be putting a lot of miles on my van in the next few months (because of course, none of the couches we’ll be surfing on are in the same city) then I’ll definitely be traveling with my notebook. I truly find it easier to squeeze in a few minutes writing here and there with a spiral notebook than with a computer notebook.

To help keep my sanity, I have also gone back to writing my morning pages. This is an idea from the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron where you get up in the morning and first thing “throw up” on the page, writing by hand for 3 pages about anything that comes to mind. It’s always helped me during stressful times, and I guess if I was smart I’d just do the morning pages continuously. If you’re a creative person who is struggling though, as much as I hate writing my morning pages, they do really help.

And when things are a bit more settled, I do intend on blogging more regularly again. (See, ever the optimist with my plans.)

In the meantime, I want to give a shout out to the Kindle Book Review: to celebrate Independence Day here in the USA, here’s a chance to win a new Kindle Fire, Kindle E-Reader or Amazon gift cards.

Link to Giveaway:  https://www.thekindlebookreview.net/author-independence-giveaway/

If you enter, good luck!

And as the Terminator says: “I’ll be back” (as soon as I can.)