Making a Better Life

Why do we as a people all believe that the grass is greener somewhere else?

My job is a source of major stress right now. Without my salary we cannot afford our home.
I broached the fact that maybe we should not be fighting to save a home but a quality of life. Maybe we could have a better quality of life somewhere with a cheaper cost of living.

I have spent a few hours searching for alternative places with a lower cost of living. Southern CA is quite expensive. It is also so different from what I grew up with. I grew up in a small town, surrounded by family, with lots of open space.

My husband will never live anywhere with weather.  He wants temperate 70 degrees all the time. That rules out being near my family, it snows where they live.

Quality of life is something we keep saying we aspire to and yet it is a vague idea. Maybe it means I stay home, maybe it means we can see family more often, have more money to spend on trips and save for college, have the best school system for our children.

I did a search of the best places to live in the US and so many towns in California were high on the list. So if this is the case why am I so anxious to leave?

It is the strange, seemingly universal, unfounded belief that the grass is going to be greener if we move somewhere else.  I hear this constantly. My co-worker who finally moved out of her mother's house, my friends who keep talking about moving to Oregon and Washington state; one of whom moves in August.  Yet my co-worker who finally moved out of her mother's home has found some difficulties she did not expect and spends a lot of time helping her mother now which is not as convenient as when she lived at home.  Will the transition pains be worth it? Would we end up in a better place?  Would we make closer friends than we have here?

I think our best next step is for us to decide concretely what we want, what we think would make for a better quality of life and then see if we can make that happen here or if we really thinking moving is the only way to achieve those defined measurable goals.

As much as I want to assume, maybe irrationally, that things will be better if we move and start over I need to find a way to make a decision free of this irrational hope and temper the unreasonable belief that the grass will be greener somewhere else.

Time for a Laugh

My son introduced me to a Weird Al song that I readily agreed with and love.  Please enjoy the video of Word Crimes by Weird Al.

I like this post because it is so true.  I have received comments before that people really don't make these mistakes.  If only I could post my emails from work. Reef for wreath, do for due, grate for great, etc. I have to read emails aloud to sound out what they are trying to say because the English is so bad.  I have this posted on my office door. I wonder how many of the words my co-workers actually recognize as an acyrologia.

The final chuckle for the day from my favorite cartoonist Nick Seluk at The Awkward Yeti. Love him.


okay one more from him


I hope you enjoyed your visit.

Happy writing!

Writing exercise -making it part of your daily life

Writing- you get better the more you practice.  We all know this but finding the time is hard.
I don't always have time to practice traditionally because I spend a lot of my time sitting at the ball park for my son's games and practices. I cannot whip out my laptop or notebook there but there are plenty of times when my son is on the bench and I get a little bored cheering for the other parents' kids.  Nothing against the kids I just do not like baseball. I know, very un-American of me.  During these times I love to practice my writing.  How do I do this when I can't use my laptop or a notebook?  I observe the people around us, the location, listen in on conversations and write them in my head.  Bear with me here and you will be doing this soon yourself.

As I sit and cheer mindlessly with the other parents I image how I would describe the scene; the cool breeze chilling the metal seats as it wicks the heat from my body, the sounds of the younger siblings playing around the bleachers, the grandmother knitting juxtaposed next to the grandmother who is pretending she is too young to be a grandmother.

I don't limit myself to "writing" only at the ball park. Today at lunch I watched an employee walk by the open door and instantly started "writing" how I would describe his gait if he was a character in my book.  Here is what I came up with: ...his feet shuffled resistently along the carpet as his bulky hands worked like paddles moving him laboriously towards his destination  Or worked like paddles as he lumbered towards his destination.

I love some of the things I have come up with during these sessions and have quickly jotted them down or secreted off and recorded them into the voice recorder app on my phone.

I have heard some interesting conversations, observed some interesting behaviors and people and paid more attention to my surroundings.

Writing in my head, creating scenes, using bits of dialogues as prompts, creating character back story, and describing what I am seeing have all helped me exercise my writing muscle and I am a better writer for it and my time in line, at the baseball park, on long drives, etc. all go by more quickly.

I hope you find this technique helpful too.  I can't wait to hear how it has worked for you.

Happy Writing!