Clean Fish Dishes at Campsite

(Poll for this post has been removed)

My original title for this post was going to be "New and News." So before I explain the current title, here's what's new with us.

Amelia's "brain on toddlerhood" episode passed, leaving us with a sunnier, less tantrum-y almost-2-year-old, albeit one that talks ALL THE TIME. It's a pretty regular occasion for her to surprise someone with her long sentences. She is also apparently practicing for Jeopardy and has taken to stating her answers in the form a question. "Does Amia want a cookie?" "Does that girl want to share her toys with Amia?" Then, when you answer her ("Do you want a cookie?") she will agree, amicably and mildly, as though it was your idea ("Okay"). Not to say that she still doesn't have the occasional tantrum, but the period where I felt like I was walking on toddler-transition eggshells, thankfully, has passed. One thing that seemed to help was for me to talk a lot about how Amelia was saying things, telling her to use her "big girl voice" and not a yelling or a whiny voice. This must have gotten through because the other day I overheard her telling one of her animals "Momma doesn't like that whiny voice." Hmm.

Amelia is also asking us real questions. For example, when we are eating, she will say, "Is it good, Daddy?" "Is it good, Momma?" It is funny and cute. Overall, I like her age and hanging out with her at this age more and more every day. We have a lot of fun.

In other news, Amelia has a babysitter, a very sweet college student who has been sitting a few hours a week. I had thought about enrolling Amelia in a Parents' Day Out program, but I felt like neither of us was really ready for that. I decided to find a babysitter who could come fairly regularly, both so I could have a little time to write and so Amelia could get used to the idea of being away from me every now and then. After I interviewed sitters and hired one, she came over almost every other day for 3 weeks or so just to spend time with me and Amelia together, so that we could both get to know her. Gradually I spent less time actually in the same room with them, cleaning or writing nearby so I could still hear what was going on. I liked the babysitter, who I will call M in case she doesn't care to have her actual name on the Internet, a lot at first, and I like her more and more as time goes on. She is patient, funny, and loving, and she seems to like Amelia a lot (but who wouldn't?). For the last several visits, she has taken Amelia to the park for awhile while I write. The first time, it was hard, both for Amelia, who cried for the first 5 minutes she left me, and for me, who knows for a fact it was 5 minutes because I followed M and Amelia to the park after they left and watched them from behind a tree until Amelia stopped crying. (It's really nice to live so close to a park, for a lot of reasons). But now Amelia is actually excited when M comes, and I am enjoying having a bit more time to write, and am even spending most of that time writing, instead of spying.

Speaking of writing, a poem of mine got accepted by the online journal storySouth. I was going to say that it is not up yet, but it actually is! So you can go read it.

Finally, as you may have inferred from the post title and poll, we recently went camping. We went with Jim and Luli and Jes, Kim and Micah, and we all had a great time. Pictures:







However, a certain incident during the trip had me questioning my entire poetry-writing career.

I should say first that, since Amelia was born (and maybe before), Dean has joked about me not reading things carefully, mostly at the grocery store. I might, for example, come home with a can of black soybeans instead of black beans--the cans look remarkably similar, especially if you don't actually read the labels. I think these mistakes have to do with the feeling of always being behind on things, and so always being in a rush to get things done. To combat this feeling of being rushed, I have been repeating a little mantra to myself lately, "Do what you're doing." It helps me actually enjoy what I am doing instead of thinking about what else needs to get done. Also, I think it makes me a little more careful and mindful. Usually. But the day before the camping trip, two things happened.

The first was while I was driving. I was on a one way street, making a left turn. The two far left lanes were allowed to make the turn, and I was in the lane more toward the middle. As I began to turn, I saw someone crossing the street, so I stopped. Then, a car to my left, in the far left lane, sped past me going straight. As I drew in a breath to call them a crazy driver, I realized I was about to turn the wrong way onto another one way street. I had not yet reached the intersection where I needed to turn--it was just ahead of me--and I had almost turned left into the oncoming traffic to my left. I was reading the turning lanes signs for the next intersection, not the one I was at. If it hadn't been for the pedistrian, I probably would have caused a pretty bad crash, and likely been hurt.

I was pretty shaky about it, mad at myself for being so spacey. It was scary. Then, I sent an email with a pretty dumb and very obvious typo. It was kind of an important email--and the person I sent it pointed the mistake out to me when they wrote back. Again, I was upset at myself. Not very mindful. So--keep all this in the back of your head.

Back to camping. On our recent trip, we stayed at the same campsite Dean, Amelia and I stayed at earlier in the summer. During that trip, I noticed a sign at one of the water faucets, which is basically a pipe with a handle sticking out of the ground. "Wash Fish Dishes at Campsite," the sign advised. Back at our campsite, I asked Dean the same question the poll asks (vote now, if you haven't already!).

"Does it mean you are supposed to wash your the dishes you use to eat fish at your campsite, but other dishes are okay?" I asked.

Dean shrugged.

This was the 4th of July weekend, and there were a lot of people at the campground. Most of them seemed to be washing their dishes at the water faucets, so I did too. It seemed to make sense. Fish dishes would be especially yucky and stinky, right?

So the Saturday morning of out trip, I was hanging out with Amelia alone for awhile. She wanted to go for a ride in Micah's stroller, so I decided to take the few dishes from breakfast down to the faucets to wash them, mostly just to have somewhere to stroll. As I knelt down to fill the first cup with water, I heard someone running toward me. I looked up, and the campground manager yelled, "You can't wash dishes here!"

I got up and apologized. I said, "I saw the sign about the fish, but it seemed like everyone else was washing dishes here." He said again, still running, "You can't wash dishes here!" And ran right past me.

It turns out he was running toward someone using a chainsaw (which is something else you can't do at a campground). I was a little frazzled, but I just took the dishes back up to our campsite, thinking I would see him later and explain how I had read the sign. And perhaps point out that they should consider getting a clearer sign, maybe adding, oh, a comma or a conjunction.

So we washed our dishes at the campsite and played some more. Amelia wanted to go on another stroller ride, so we went down a different path. As we walked, we passed another water faucet, this one with a sign that read "Clean Fish and Dishes at Campsite."

My heart sunk. Remembering my recent lapses in careful reading, I realized I had been misreading the signs, overlooking the "and." Amelia and I strolled back to the campsite, where she happily collected rocks and I spent half an hour questioning my entire career as a poet. I don't read traffic signs carefully, I send emails with typos, and I can't even pay carefully attention to a sign about washing fish and dishes. I shouldn't be writing poems.

Finally, I heard the campground manager at the campsite down the hill from us. I decided to at least go explain my mistake. I did, and he was very kind. "We should make bigger signs," he said. I felt better. Amelia and I said good-bye, and walked back to our campsite. Past the faucet I had been at when the campground manager scolded me. And past its sign, which I read carefully:

"Clean Fish Dishes At Campsite."

I can still write poems. Whew.

This Is Your Brain on Toddlerhood

There have been a couple of times in Amelia's life that I have felt I could almost see her brain developing. The past week or two has been one of those times. From the moment she wakes up, she goes a mile a minute, talking, playing, reading, singing, moving toys and pens and buttons and who knows what all to the places they clearly need to be, and generally directing things around the house.

Her language development has been the most obvious--when she isn't cruise directing, she has been stating or describing what she is doing or what is happening around her in alarmingly complex sentences. I have been calling her "the narrator." When you go in her bedroom to get her when she wakes up, she will inform you "Mia sanding in her cib." In fact, now she might also say "I sanding in my cib"--she is getting more and more pronouns right. She says things like "Mia go with Daddy to pick tomatoes," or last night at dinner when she happened to glance up and out the window, "I'm looking out the window." Sometimes when she speaks she falls into a kind of "uh, uh, uh" noise and you can tell the wheels are turning in her mind as she looks for the right word or maybe the sentence structure, but more and more she just talks. She talks all day long. And she still prefers that you repeat back what she says. I don't miss not the quiet, exactly, but our days our... full.

Another reason our days are full, and this is perhaps related to the brain development spurt, is that Amelia's naps have suddenly and substantially shortened themselves. She was napping from around 12-2, and now she doesn't seem ready to go down for a nap till 1 or 1:30, if then. Then, she naps for about 45 minutes. She has a hard time settling down, and when she wakes up, after a period of initial fussiness, she is ready to go for the afternoon. She has been sleeping at night, though, for 11-12 hour stretches, from 7:30 or 8 to around 7 in the morning, so I am thinking since she is sleeping so long at night she just doesn't need a long nap. It's not the best news for me, break-wise, but it's not terrible. I am trying to take advantage of being able to have longer morning outings, and drastically decrease the number of things I try to do during her nap. (In fact, one of the things I have been doing during her nap is sitting down and watching "Friends," which conveniently reruns every day at 2:00.) Since I have less time during the day and more time during the mornings, I have been trying to get up a little earlier and enjoy the quiet. The early mornings have always been the best poem-writing times for me anyway, so maybe this is a good development for me, writing-wise.

Another note about toddlerhood--Amelia has had some real live tantrums lately. These are sometimes times when she is tired or maybe related to not feeling well, with the cold, for example, or last week she also tested positive for strep--one of the best tips I got about toddler behavior is that when they are acting SUPER terrible, they are probably sick. But there have been a couple of tantrums that seem mostly just about Amelia not getting what she wants, which I suppose is normal for almost two. Last week, we stopped by the "dinosaur bone museum" to play for awhile, and when we were leaving, not feeling well myself, I forgot to do my usual "in a few minutes, we have to say bye-bye to the museum" thing to prep Amelia for our departure (which usually works really well). We were walking toward the door, and Amelia seemed to realize we were leaving, and she just lost it. She was crouching and clenching her fists and screaming "dinosaur bones!" She was in fact standing directly underneath dinosaur bones, but no attempt of mine to point that out to her, or to calm her down in any way other way, worked, so I finally had to pick her up and carry her screaming to the car. She cried most of the 20-minute drive home, and what finally made her stop was a tip I read in The Happiest Toddler on the Block: "gossip." The author recommends that you "gossip" with your toddler's stuffed animals (or other family members, if they are around), both to discuss bad behavior and praise good behavior. The idea is that toddlers like to overhear stuff and sometimes you can get more across if they think you are not talking to them. So I talked to Elmo, who Amelia had carried around the museum all morning. "Hey Elmo! Listen! Amelia had a tantrum at the museum, and Amelia is so angry! Amelia wanted to stay at the dinosaur bones! But Momma doesn't understand tantrums. Momma understands big girl words! And Amelia is so good at big girl words!" And etc. Every time Amelia would start crying again I would say "Hey, Elmo! Listen!" And she would listen. By the time we got home, she was calm. I had asked Elmo if he thought Amelia would rather play with buttons or bracelets when she got home, and as we pulled into the garage, I heard a tiny, tired voice: "buttons."

We played with buttons, then had lunch. Toddlers are tiring. Lovable, but tiring.

The interesting thing is that Amelia still remembers this vividly. "Mia cied at the dinosaur bones. Elmo had to listen! Momma doesn't unersand tanums."

On a side note, with all these sicknesses and tantrums, sometimes I really miss breastfeeding. I just know it would calm her down so easily. I can pick Amelia up and snuggle her, and carry her around, and goodness knows I do, but it's not the same. Just saying, for the record: I don't regret weaning when we did, but I do miss the closeness, the calming nature of breastfeeding.

What else? We went to the zoo, and it was one of the first times Amelia was actually excited about the animals. She liked the elephants and hippos the best



and enjoyed peering over the wall at "Monkey Island."



She also fed some lorakeets



and rode the train with her friend Pigit,



and on another visit to the zoo with (L)u(l)i, she rode the merry-go-round.





We canceled a camping trip we had planned for this weekend because we all got colds, but we did go to a baseball game Sunday afternoon. The Rockies have a section called "The Rockpile" that features $4.50 bleacher seats, a good price for people who might only last a few innings. This was our view from our seats



and Amelia and Dean watching the game.



We had a good time--the day worked out well, since Amelia napped early and the sun went behind the clouds just time for the game. Amelia liked watching the people and even some of the game ("That man running!") She danced when music played and clapped when the other fans clapped, and the enjoyed her first experience with Dippin' Dots (which cost the same price as our seats). We lasted until about the 6th inning.

Our garden is thriving in the summer heat. We have piles of tomatoes, squash and zucchini, so much that I have just been planning our meals about what could include those things. We have a good amount of peppers, tomatillos, and cucumbers, too, and just picked some very pretty tri-color corn. This is our garden a couple of weeks ago; things are even taller and bushier now.





Finally, we are battling out an attempt to grow out Amelia's bangs. I really want to grow them out, since they grow fast and they are hard to trim, and our favorite hairdresser lives really far away. But Amelia is not a fan of hairclips ("Cips out!) so she looks pretty shaggy a lot of the time. Here is a picture of her with cips, just to prove she doesn't always look like a sheep dog.



We had some success with using a rubber band for a "ponytail" yesterday, and I made a big deal about how "now you can see!" So we'll see.

22 Months and counting

Whenever I have a birthday, Dean always tells me what I am divisible by. (This is someone who was "doing takeaways" when he was 3 years old, maybe earlier.) Today is Amelia's 22-month "birthday." At 22 months, Amelia is divisible by 1, 2, 11, and 22.

So...

here is Amelia at one month



and two months,



at 11 months,



and today, 22 months old.



The 22 month picture is blurry because Amelia at 22 months is rarely still. And I only had a cell phone camera. She is holding a Rice Krispie Treat-covered spoon.

As an added bonus, even though it doesn't fit mathematically, here is Amelia almost exactly 2 years ago today:



And this is what she looked like a few weeks later when she wasn't hidden by shower presents. Yikes.



Happy 22 months, Amelia! It's hard to believe our month-counting days will soon be coming to an end.

Lists, lists, oh lists

If the title of this post seems oddly familiar to you, you may be, or may have been in the past, a high school English teacher.*

Time for the final update on my July list: I didn't get everything done.

But, here are the items on the list I did accomplish:
cleaned out and organized my closet
cleaned off my upstairs writing desk
started running 3 times a week (for the past 3 weeks only, but hey)
learned all about potty training (really--ask me anything)
redesigned, multiple times, this blog
went to yoga 2-3 times a week

And, I did a ton of stuff not on the list, such as:
research preschools and Parents Day Out programs
put up an ad for a babysitter
reorganize the pantry and kitchen cabinets
start a book club
brainstorm ideas for a cookbook

The main things I did not do, however, might be the most important ones for any sort of academic career I might eventually ever have (although that idea seems less plausible the longer I am away from the academic world). I did NOT do any kind of work for the two baby ideas I had for non-poetry writing projects, something having to do with Southern Lit and something having to do with what I am calling "Motherhood Lit." I just don't have the gumption, the energy, or the motivation for these projects. I know a lot of writing opportunities come out of simply having written something, but I have a hard time starting big projects without some kind of outside pressure for doing so. Like a job. Or being in school. Amelia is a tough boss, but she doesn't require much in the way of written material. So I am slacking there.

I have been feeling kind of bad about it. I didn't even want to blog about it, and I have in fact been sitting in front of the computer for an hour NOT blogging about it, but this seems to be one of Amelia's longer nap days. I keep arguing with myself about the situation--see below.


Kim 1: Of course I am not writing much or working on anything all that serious. I am a Stay At Home Mom. My job is to raise Amelia. By the end of a day of playing, coloring, singing, talking about colors, repeating things one million times, getting in and out of the car seat, running errands, preparing wholesome meals and snacks, cleaning up bits and pieces of said meals and snacks from all corners of the house, patiently waiting for a toddler to put on her shoes "self," strap herself into her carseat "self", go up and down stairs "self," and who knows what all else, how could I even expect myself to create serious and insightful work on a realm of the world (i.e. literature) that truly has nothing to do with my life right now.

Kim 2: But you are a writer. And you want to be a writer. And writers read stuff. And also write.

Kim 1: (asleep by 8:30 pm)

So I am really not getting anywhere.

On the one hand, I love Amelia and Amelia is wonderful, and I really do love spending the days with her now. Although I have been so grateful since I stopped working that I am able to be with her so much, "I really do love spending the days with her" is not something I would have written a year ago. I found the baby months--sleepless nights, unpredictable days-- really hard. And now, things are still challenging, and I am certainly tired at the end of the day, but overall I am having a lot of fun. That's why I stopped looking for teaching jobs for the fall, and chose to stay with Amelia for another year.

On the other hand, part of me feels very isolated. When I think about it, which isn't often, I miss school, both taking classes and teaching them, very much. Long term, I would like to be part of the larger writing world again, but I have a lot of fears and worries about ever getting there. I am afraid of being lazy now and missing my chance. I am afraid I can no longer write a good poem. I am afraid I will never have the discipline to read all the stuff I need to read to be a good poet. I am afraid I will never find a teaching job.

And I am afraid no one is all that interested in what I have to say. Awhile ago, I mentioned the fact that I wanted my blog to be more than a "mommy blog." I had come across a piece of academic writing on "mommy blogs" that really annoyed me, but I couldn't quite figure out why. It wasn't particularly insulting, just a kind of study and description of "mommy blogs," but it really not on my nerves. Then I came across this article on the words "mom" and "mommy", and two and two came together. As the Orlean article points out, "mommy" as an adjective comes across as infantile, silly, even trivial. It annoys me to have a whole segment of writing women, most if not all of whom provide each other (and the whole cyberworld) not only with a mothering community but also with invaluable insights on both parenting and writing, labeled as "mommy bloggers." And it both offends and scares me to have most of my writing labeled as such. Offends me because I don't think most of what I write is trivial, even if much of what I write is primarily about Amelia. And scares me because maybe, in the eyes of the larger writing world, it is.

Of course if I really believed that, I'd shut down the whole operation, and here we are. I know these feelings are not new to women or to mothers or to artists in general. And I know how lucky I am, how hugely lucky, that my challenge is balancing mothering and writing, and not working and spending time with my child, or trying to put food on my table, or dealing with war or poverty or fear for my family's physical safety or innumerable other terrible things. I try to remember to be grateful for my life daily, even hourly. And I am very grateful.

Still, I know that part of me is meant to write, wants to write, and it waiting to do so. In the ongoing brave new world of motherhood, a different world every day, I think my upcoming lists are going to look for ways to be more of a writer too.

*It's from Hamlet, a play I read too many times with a great deal of teenagers who were uninterested in, if not downright hostile toward, Shakespeare. The ghost says it (or rather, "list, list, o list!") to get Hamlet to listen. I'd say it to get my students to listen. I was such a cool teacher.

B-I-N-G-O

On a recent and very long car trip, Luli, Dean and I sang "Bingo" to Amelia approximately 10,000 times. Amelia loves to hear songs, and sometimes she will watch whoever is singing very carefully and try to mouth the words with the song. On Monday, I sang "Bingo" to Amelia while we were driving to the grocery store, and she said, "Mia sing it!" And she did.

These are my attempts to catch her on tape.

What's Amia doin'?

Amelia is talking. A lot. Amelia repeats almost everything we say, including, once, "Damn it, Suki!" as Suki escaped outside through a closing door. Amelia somehow got a southern accent, or at least a southern way of sayin' lots of words. She drops her g's. She called her (L)u(l)i and Guwu's cat Maude "Mawwwd." Could she have picked up this drawl from her mother? You be the judge.

Amelia also drops l's. Hence the (L)u(l)i and the "Amia." Or often she just calls herself "Mia." Mia was listed as a nickname for Amelia in the baby name book I used, and now I see why.

For yes, Amelia says "okay." For no, she says "no okay." All in one phrase. (Are you ready to take a rest? No okay. I am learning to tell, not ask, certain things.)

Amelia is asking a lot of questions, or rather, the same few questions over and over. What's Amia doin'? What's Daddy doin'? What's Momma doin'? What's Suki doin'? (I remember my mom telling me how many times I used to say "Ronna... What doin', huh?")

Amelia assigns dialogue. She likes me to talk for her dolls and stuffed animals. Usually they want to eat something or do whatever Amelia is doing. Then she will tell them, gravely, "Mia's turn." She also likes for me to ask to do what she is doing and then say no. This might worry me but I read in The Happiest Toddler on the Block (which I highly recommend, along with The Girlfriend's Guide to Toddlers) that it's actually good to let toddlers be the boss and deny you of things sometimes for play, because they have so little power in other things.

Amelia takes her time. I am tested many times a day on my resolve, so long ago, to be patient when Amelia became a toddler. Walking 50 feet can take half an hour. Going up or down the stairs can take half the morning. I try to remind myself that what feels like a sidetrack to me is a learning experience and a experiment in independence for Amelia, and save the times I ask her to hurry for when it really matters.

Amelia wants to do it "self." In other words, "Mia do it." Putting on her shoes, buckling into her carseat, putting on her pants: these are all thing Amelia really wants to do by herself and can't quite, yet. But she tries, sometimes calmly and sometimes with great frustrations. If only patience came in a bottle. For both of us. These have been moments when I have had to literally chant aloud to myself "Patience, patience!" (It helps.)

Amelia likes to collect. One of the things she is repeating is "A-nuh-nuh ____?" For example, she has these little plastic animal toys she calls hippos that have holes on one side and a point on the other end so they can snap into each other. They are all pulled apart and scattered everywhere because she likes to put them on her fingers. If we happen to see one she says, "A-nuh-nuh hippo?" (That's "another.") Basically, anything she finds or likes, she asks for another. A-nuh-nuh haircip? A-nuh-nuh bracet? A-nuh-nuh bear? And etc. Etc. All day long.

Amelia has been sleeping beautifully. 10-12 hours a night, 2 or so hours for naps. Did this coincide with weaning? Yes. Well, the night sleep did anyway. Could be a coincidence, but just for the record. The naps got easier when I started being consistent about a nap routine: home from morning outing around 11, lunch, playtime, stories, in the crib between 12 and 12:30 for 3 songs, the end. She usually cries for a few minutes before she falls asleep, but sometimes she just talks to her animals. Again for the record, her current bedtime is between 7 and 8, depending on how tired she is.

And finally, Amelia is wonderful. She is fun, funny, and fascinating. She changes so quickly and is becoming her own little self with alarming speed. Although I am sometimes tired and impatient, I am truly and deeply thankful that I get to spend so much time with her.

Mid-July (And poop!)

Since July is quickly slipping by, I got out my big summer checklist today to see how much I have accomplished. If I were grading myself, I'd get a B. I'm doing okay.

One thing I would get an A+ on is my goal to learn more about potty training and make a plan (or not) for potty training Amelia. When I made the list she was showing some interest in the potty so I wanted to see what the experts had to say about the matter, as well as people who often know more than experts, parents with kids older than Amelia. Based on what I learned, Amelia was showing many signs of potty training readiness: interest in the potty, ability to communicate reasonably well, ability to tell me when she was going to the bathroom, that sort of thing. There were some she wasn't showing, though, especially the desire to have her diaper changed when it was dirty. Still, because she was interested and having so many "naken minutes," we spent a lot of time siting on the potty and talking about what it was for. Pretty soon after we started, she peed in the potty. We worked on it a few days, and I sent out a call for parent advice on Facebook. After reading the responses, I decided to take my time on the potty issue. I have heard from a LOT of people how their kids trained early, then backtracked later. After reading the books, it seems like some backtracking is common for most kids, so common it is probably just part of the process. But since A was only 20 months and because I did not want to spend our entire summer in the bathroom, for the last couple of weeks I have just been encouraging A to sit on the potty when we are home and she is running around naked (which is pretty much most of the time we are at home).

It clicked for her, mostly--when she needed to pee, she would run to the bathroom, sit down, pee, and say, "Yay!" She loves the process of the whole thing, especially picking up the potty, pouring the pee in the big toilet, flushing, closing the lid, and rinsing the little potty. She also loves to stand on the little potty (lid closed) and use it as a stool to wash her hands. There was still a good deal of pee on the floor from when she would run in the bathroom without me realizing it, then bring the potty to me to see, but overall, smooth going. I was proud and happy but mostly trying not to push things and go with the flow, no pun intended.

Poop was a different story. When she needed to poop, she would ask for a diaper, then go hide behind a chair or something to squat and do her thing. Until--today! The last couple of days, Amelia has been telling me "poop in there" every time she poops, and being pretty agreeable when I try to change it right away. I could tell it was beginning to make her uncomfortable. So this morning while I was changing her diaper, I told her that just like she was been peeing in the potty, she could poop in the potty too. And after lunch today (during a naken minute, of course) she did! She was proud. Yays abounded. Exciting times! We'll see what happens next.

The potty training plan is the only section of my list with everything checked off. The "running" section has the least, but I revised my plan and got back on track this morning. I really want to do something to battle the leftover baby belly, which actually has gotten bigger since immediately post-baby. I am the last person the world to count calories or not eat the chocolate cake I want, so running seems to be my only option. Plus I read this NYT article in March.

Yoga-wise, I have mostly settled into a two-day-a-week pattern. Although I would love more, I feel good with twice a week. I have devoted more time to reading, although I need to find a good time to consistently read the news, but I have not worked at all on my two seeds for writing projects. In the next two weeks, I am going to see how much I can check off. I don't think I'll get it all done, but I might get close!