Ahh...change

Well, what an eventful week is has been. I can't even express how excited I am about the next four years in this country. I hope that President-elect Obama will be able to continue to inspire people the way he did during his campaign. I'm also very glad that the election was uneventful. No replay of the 2000 election or anything. I was a supply judge for my local precinct. That meant I was an election judge, but sort of the judge in charge. Overall it was pretty uneventful. Most people in Colorado had either voted by mail or voted early, so we didn't have a lot of turn out at the polls. That was nice. No one had to wait in line and we had very few problems. Though first thing in the morning there was an altercation between a poll checker and a security guard. It was so ridiculous. Why can't we all just get along? I don't understand why people have to be negative about things. I've felt this way a lot in the last few days as I read friends' and family's negative comments about Obama winning. Regardless of who won, we're going to have to work together to get anywhere and a negative attitude isn't going to help anything. Anyway, I'll get off of my soap box now and get back to my regularly schedule blogging. :) 

Reading: Well, because we had such a slow election day, I was able to get a couple of books finished. I finished Paula, by Isabel Allende. I always love her writing. It is just so beautiful, lyrical and real. It sounds like she's sitting next to you telling you a story. This book was no differnt. The story of it is quite sad. Allende's daughter, Paula, has fallen into a coma because of a rare illness and Allende write the book as a letter to her daughter so "she doesn't feel lost when she wakes up." It's a beautiful story of Allende's life and a really gripping account of South American history, which many of us American's don't know much about. The poignency of Allende finally coming to terms with her daughter's condition is heart-wrenching and the love of their family will make anyone want to be an Allende. Truely beautiful, as always. 

I also finished Warrior of the Light, by Paulo Coelho. Coelho is so inspiring and I usually feel as if I'm not quite getting to the depths of his novels. I enjoyed Warrior very much, but feel like I'll need to read it again and again before the deep meaning really sinks into my life. Given it's format, short one page stories and reflections, I believe that it would be a good book to read just one page a day and really meditate on the meaning of Coelho's words in my life. Sometimes I feel like my brain just isn't quite ready to learn things. Still, a lovely book. 

So, I'm currently in a bit of limbo with my books. I've been keeping a more "spiritual" book on the shelf to read as well as something that I think can help me with my writing. I've picked upOpen Mind, Open Heart, by Thomas Keating as my "spiritual" book. I've been taking a contemplative prayer class at church, and this is the book that goes with it. However, I'm not sure what to read next for my other book. I had started Catch-22 quite a while ago, but haven't been able to bring myself back to it yet, and I don't know if it would be a good influence on my writing right now. We'll have to see. I'd like to read something that I think my own book would sit in the shelf next to... not sure what that is though. 

Writing: Well... the writing has actually been going much better. As I said earlier, I signed up to do NaNoWriMo. I'm currently behind in my word count, (I'm not counting anything that I wrote before Nov 1st) but it is coming along and the pressure of churning out 50,000 words in a month has helped me somewhat to let go of the perfection that I had been seeking. I can't say that what I've been writing is any kind of good, but it's at least out and on the page. I figure I just need to get a first draft done and then I can go back and spend years revising. :) At some point I might get the courage to post bits of the novel here, but we'll have to see. 

Knitting: Well, somthing has to fall of the deep end doesn't it? I haven't been knitting much at all. I worked on my pink prayer shawl some on Tuesday and Wednesday, but just haven't been motivated. Andrew's socks are still confounding me. I think I might have to frog them and start over. It's justnot working to try to double the bottom of the sock. The Mystery Shawl 4, which I now know all the clues to, is also still languishing in the bottom of my knitting bad. I just haven' t had the attention span to work with lace and beads. I'm also working on an angora scarf, which I'm starting to think may be completely impractical as it sheds ridiculously and I think I'll have bunny fur up my nose constantly. We shall see though. I have a deep hankering to make myself a sweater, but am not sure that I have the time or money to currently contribute to such a project. I also don't want to get into more startitis than I already have. I don't need 12 million projects on the  needeles sitting unfinished. I need to get some done before I start any more. 

Panic: I did have some close call panic attacks on Tuesday morning. I was so worried that something was going to go tragically wrong with the election and it would some how be my fault. All went smoothly, except the checker/gaurd thing, and the outcome makes me happy as well. So, it hasn't been too panicky a week. I did get an email from an old professor asking if I would be interesting in applying for an elementary literacy coach job. Not sure how I feel about that. I don't know if I really want to go back to teaching. But I decided that I'd inqure about the application process and see where we go from there. I haven't heard back from anyone yet, so maybe I won't have to worry about making a decision at all. :) The job front still sucks though. Maybe some day someone will call me back. I just keep trying to have faith that everything will work out in the end and that it all happens for a reason... sometimes it's just so hard to keep trekking through the dark though. :/