Baby boys!

It's been a busy few months for my friends--six of them had baby boys since summer started and it's awesome. Welcome to the world James Laurence, Oliver Alexander, Lucas Q, Royce Gregory, Alexander Daniel & Robert Kimball :) I have no idea where are all the girl babies are!

I'm loving all of the classic names coming back these days--if you've known me long you know I've always been a name freak, er, onomastic enthusiast so I tend to notice things like naming trends. I never thought I'd choose names that were considered classic for my kids, but I married a man who likes a good, solid name so the compromising happened. I am happy with my children's names, but I spent a lot of years with other ideas in mind and while my fantasy naming preferences are still along the lines of Galileo & Horatio or Kelena and Khrysanthya I tend to think more conservatively overall. Have your tastes in names changed from those teenage lists with your high school sweetheart's last name tacked on the end of each combination? Do you still harbor secret favorites you'll never have the guts to use?

Quotes

I love quotes. I love concise pieces of wisdom that pack a punch. I've collected them for years now without having a good way to categorize, store, sort and search. I finally decided there must be somebody out there who needed a quote organizing system like me... someone who'd already created one, hopefully. After much searching I found this - the only issue being that I don't really want to spend $75 for it!
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I was feeling really frustrated and then I remembered that years ago my husband had created a database for the names that I collect (yes, another strange hobby). It was a fairly simple process using a ready-made database product, so I asked him to do it again! It's not done yet, but it should allow me to add the entire text of the quote, filtering categories and the ability to do full text searches! I am so excited!
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Today I need to finish putting away the holiday stuff, tidy the house, spend some time with my daughter and accomplish a couple of writing goals, so I'd better be off... but here are a few quotes to leave you with!

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"Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice."-
- Woodrow T. Wilson

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"The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right."
- Hannah Whitall Smith

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"The poet's, the writer's duty is to write about these things which are important to the soul of man. It is his privilege to help man endure by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail." - William Faulkner

The person who says it cannot be done

should not interrupt the person who is doing it.

- Chinese Proverb

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Writing 50,000 words in 30 days has been on my mind a lot, especially the breakdown. It's Twelve and a half thousand words a week. That sounds like a large number of words to me. When it's broken down by day, it's about 1786 words per day. That seems do-able I think. This morning I started working an idea out in my head... and trying to decide when I will find time for these 1786 words in my daily schedule!

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My biggest concern there is that we have company coming for Baby Bear's blessing Oct 30-Nov 6. Both my mother and my mother-in-law will be here... and I may find it difficult to entertain and write my 1786. And if I skip the first week I'd never catch up.

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I think I'll head in the fantasy direction... romance and good verses evil included of course. I have to write something that I am actually interested in reading. Considering character names. I have a handful of good heroine names to choose from that I've created for my WoW characters, but no hero name list. My husband has a few interestingly named characters, but none that I adore. Clearly I have a some prep I can do.

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Are real writers banned from using emoticons? Does it show a lack of literary intelligence that sometimes I just feel like the only way I can express myself is with a little face made from a parethese and a colon? :)

Writing and dreaming

"Self trust is the essence of heroism"
-Ralph Waldo Emerson



Last night I dreamed about a dancing, and a friend I had when I was a teenager whose given name was Molly Shenandoah. I always loved her name and it seemed to fit her. Being a child of the 70's in a small Washington self-proclaimed hippy town, I had lots of friends with unusual names - in my 2nd grade class their were girls named Butterfly & Cinnamon and boy named Reefer (no joke). But Molly's name wasn't just unusual, it was lovely.


Molly was tall and pretty and smart. She was a great dancer and she had a boyfriend I wanted (and eventually got a half dozen years later). She was a year or two older than me, thrillingly Californian and very kind.


After she moved, we kept in touch on and off... the odd phone call and Christmas card, meeting up occasionally when she came to town. She was someone I called when I heard at 20 the devastating pronouncement from a doctor that I would never carry a child. Since proved wrong... but at the time as a young newly-wed, very much wanting a baby, I was crushed.


What she said to me was one of the most comforting things anyone said during the following 8 years of childlessness. "Some people are just meant to be mothers, and you are one of them. Somehow you'll find a way. You'll be a wonderful mother."


I dreamed we were taking a modern dance class in the gorgeous room on the top floor of the local YMCA that I taught in for a number of years. She was married and expecting a baby. We were so excited because we were again in a place where our lives matched enough that we could keep up with one another again.

Being one who believes in the power of dreams, got out of bed and Googled her :) She is married, is living in Ohio and had a baby about a year ago! Weird. She and her husband run a spicy pickle company and she works with a local group whose mission is "to educate, support and empower women as they journey through pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period". I think I'll write her this week. Who knows. Maybe it's our time again.


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I've joined NaNoWriMo. I'm nuts. But Allie offered home made chocolate truffles. What was I supposed to do? I have NO IDEA what to write. The quote at the beginning of this post was to remind me that I can do this and I need to trust that I can.



BTW, that old boyfriend of Molly's? The one I went out with years later? He introduced me to Allie and after a dozen years she and I are still great friends.