• I would wear jeans every day for the rest of my life.
• I would dye my hair pink. All of it.
• I would save for a tattoo around my wrist.

If I had a job where I didn’t have to wake up at six every morning…

• I would sleep until ten.
• I would stay up until two.

If I had a chance to remarry my husband…

• I would insist on eloping.
• I would buy a fancier dress.
• I wouldn’t worry so much about who could attend and who was trying to sneak in.

If I could rename my kids…

• I totally wouldn’t.

If I had superpowers…

• I would be able to fly.
• I would be able to type without any typos.
• I would be able to control time so I had more time to write.

Material may be a bit thin around here, but I’m still on track. What are some things you wish you could have/do that right now are just out of reach?

I’ll start with a story. My kids, almost-9 and 6, still believe in The Tooth Fairy. And right now, we are struggling with my daughter and a very, very loose tooth.

Last night, I decided that the thing had to come out. She’s not brushing it (because then it wiggles and bleeds), she’s not brushing the teeth around it because another one is loose (and then the original wiggles and bleeds), and she insists on showing everyone this giant mess which is really just a tooth hanging on by a thread or two until the adult tooth finally pushes it out. So I told her I was taking it out, and asked her to open her mouth.

For an hour.

And she refused, and we both went to bed upset. I don’t want her to think that she can just tell me she doesn’t want to do things and get away with it, because I’m the Mom and she needs to listen to me. But she really didn’t want me to take out that tooth, and of course this morning I apologized for making her so upset. (She still doesn’t trust me, she says. Loves me, but doesn’t trust me. *sigh* Guess I can’t blame her.)

But this whole thing made my son think, because in my attempts to get the tooth out, I told my daughter that The Tooth Fairy was going to stop visiting because she was tired of waiting. He heard, and was upset, because in our house, The Tooth Fairy brings birthday presents as well as money for baby teeth.

It’s a long story.

So he asked me last night if I think she (the Tooth Fairy) is ever going to come back? And I was still upset about the tooth thing with my daughter, so I say, “I don’t know, D.” And he gets upset. Well, he reasons, if he writes her a note, will she come and see it? I don’t know, I say. Give it a shot.

So he did. And before he went to bed, he asked me to get her cell phone number so we could call her.

O.M.G. Sweetest thing ever.

Of course he sticks the note so far under his pillow that I couldn’t get it out last night without waking him, so I wait until the morning. I thought maybe he’d forgotten about it, and didn’t check for a response when he woke up, so I take the “Answer sheet” he left for The Tooth Fairy and write a note. No, she doesn’t have “pain free tooth band-aids” for his sister so she can sneak the tooth out in the middle of the night. Remember Mom and Dad just want whats best for you. And by the way, good job on keeping up good behavior at school, and we’ll see about that new DS game you want if the good behavior keeps up.

P.S., The Tooth Fairy lost her cell phone at Billy Bob’s last month, and hasn’t got it replaced yet.

So to wrap up, he asks me if I saw her last night because she didn’t answer his note, and I say I saw her this morning. (Which wound up being a whole ‘nother conversation tonight – why didn’t they see her? The Tooth Fairy is apparently afraid of kids. She likes kids, just is afraid of how loud they are.) He runs upstairs, and shouts, “I knew she was real!”

I’m in sooo much trouble when he finds out the truth. Probably more than with Santa Claus.

But the idea that hit me as I drove alone to do my laundry was…heck. I have a whole narrative going on with this Fairy. She’s got rules and a story that’s just begging to be told. BEGGING. And maybe when my son is in fourth grade and turning ten, he’ll read it and forgive me for making her so real that he believed way past anyone else in his class.

Am I good enough?

Especially when you put yourself out in front of the public in any form, whether it’s acting, writing, singing, comedy, radio, whatever, there’s that concern that maybe you need to be someone else to be “good enough”. To meet someone else’s standards, to conform to someone else’s desires, to not be yourself.

I am having that problem. I find in my writing a lot of the time I may start out as me, but I end up as…something else. Not exactly that I write with a different voice, but I start worrying about consistency, perfection, and making mistakes.

This is like a death knell. Really, there’s nothing else guaranteed to bring your (or at the very least, my) writing to a halt faster than when I start worrying about what other people will think. “Is this story going to interest people? Will they like it? Is it ‘normal’ enough?”

That’s when I know I’m in trouble.

Just do it

It’s the Nike slogan, but it also needs to be Nicki’s motto, and Jane’s motto, and Brian’s motto. Everyone – stop worrying so much about what you think everyone else’s thinking, and start worrying about what you think.

Just write. Put that sex scene in there if you want. Plug in a little boozing around. Need to take a break and write an interlude that has nothing to do with the rest of your story, but really, really want it in there? Just do it.

But, um…how?

Right now, my problem is this: getting past the demons. I know I made them all up in my head, and I recognize them as what they are – stupid fears that really need to be stomped on and ignored like a mosquito in August. I can remove temptation and sit and stare at the computer, but how do I made the words come?

Last November for NaNoWriMo in gave myself a loose premise and permission to write whatever, as long as I kept the word count up. And I tell you what, even though I need to flush out the story a little more, it’s the best damn thing I’ve ever written, hands down. Having a starting line and the path through the forest, even if I couldn’t see the whole route was all I needed. And I wrote, every day, because I had to do to get the story done on time.

You know, for me, it apparently all comes down to crazy, public deadlines. Funny, isn’t it?

Now, not so much a fan. (Although I do like a little mashed potatoes with my butter now and again.)

There are, in fact, quite a few recipes that I love that my family…just does not. However, that doesn’t stop me from cooking for myself once in a while! Right now, what I’m craving is chili. And not just any chili…

Black Bean Chicken Chili

So I got this recipe from Cooks.com when I was attempting the very effective, yet very hard for a non-cooker to stick to, 4 Hour Body plan. It is amazing. Spicy, easy to freeze and reheat, yummy…I could easily eat four cups in a sitting. My only problem is the prep time. For someone like me, who doesn’t like to spend more time preparing the food (or cleaning up after preparation) than it takes to cook it, I don’t make this soup nearly as often as I would like to eat it.

My biggest issues? The onion, garlic, and chicken breasts. I’m not a chopper. I have a little machine that does it for me, but it’s a pain to clean. Also, cold chicken breast is so slimy and disgusting! Ever noticed?

The best part? Everything else you can just measure and toss in. And if you live in Pennsylvania, you need to buy at least six beers to make this, 24 if you haven’t got a restaurant nearby, so there’s a little something to sip on while it’s cooking.

**happy**

You can grab the recipe over at Cooks.com, and even get a word-search version which I must say, has to be the coolest thing if you’re cooking with your kids. Unless your kid is like my kid, and hates word searches as much as he hates my chili.

Why? Well, I like the idea of scheduled posts. Some people have a topic for each day of the week, rather like a radio show that has certain regular elements with their features tossed in as the meat of the show. So Thursdays are days to blog about what you’re thankful for (Thankful Thursdays), Tuesdays you post about your twins (Twofer Tuesdays), Sundays are for posting about what’s restful in your life…things like that.

Needless to say, you may have notices that I have no such schedule here. Not that I haven’t thought about it. Posting bi-daily is enough for me now, and you may notice that occasionally I am a little late. Oops.

But then, the A to Z Challenge…a ready-made schedule that bunches of other folks are also participating in. I’ll be part of a group! You can hop from me to the next guy in line by clicking that little box over there to the right. There’s interesting new things to read from interesting new people…

I’m looking forward to it.

There’s just one thing I’m not ready for, however, and that is that my A to Z Challenge has not yet got a theme. My Night of Writing Dangerously Table Buddy Chris has a theme. My friend Erin, previously mentioned, did her last A to Z Challenge on women science fiction and fantasy authors.

I don’t believe having a theme is a requirement, however it would make things easier, in theory, to come up with posts if I had a theme. Then I wouldn’t be rambling all over, daily posts with nothing in common…we just can’t have that.

If you have any ideas for me and my theme, let me know! Otherwise, I’ll see you on April 1st with a very big letter A surprise!