Overpacking & Unprepared - England Bound

I envy the backpacking friends in my  life.  I have them, you know. Those carefree souls who stuff three tee-shirts, a pair of jeans, 2 pair shorts and a comb in a backpack for a four-week trip.  Unlike me, they don't spend hours pouring over electrical circuitry sites for whatever country they plan to visit in order to ensure hair dryer compatibility with foreign outlets. And they don't just accept, as I do, that their bags will all exceed the 50 lb. maximum at the airport weigh in. (By this time I know better and just build the overweight luggage fees into the budget.)

In short, I am a travel coach's worst nightmare.  I pack crap I don't need, pack way too much of it, then spend hours between hotels counting bags to make sure we haven't left a fifty-pounder behind. 

All of this a long way of saying, look out world, Dena & Blair are preparing to travel again.  We laid down yesterday afternoon to discuss our travel plans which proved to be a mistake as we both promptly fell asleep. But we talked early this morning and it looks like a England/Scotland tour is in the works. 

England is one of those places where we always plan to visit but never quite get around to.  It's like California - yeah, yeah, it'll still be there when I'm ready. But while we both want to get away, neither of us feel up to the task of visiting a non-English speaking country (lazy Americans).  We love history, museums, churches, and architecture, plus hills and countryside, so England seems a good fit for us.  Plus, Blair's brother has been there something like 8 times, and has tons of tips on where to stay, eat, shop, etc.

We are the classic American tourists.  Map and tourbook in hand, video recorder slung around the neck, and tennis shoes on the feet, we don't even attempt to hide the fact we're not from around these parts.  We also do all the cheesy tourists things which this trip will include visits to Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and the like.  Again, I wish I were like my cool traveling friends who manage to find out where the locals hang out and then go there and blend in.  But I'm an uneasy traveller. I haven't done it enough to be good at it, so I'm always thinking we're being misled or ripped off.  I prefer to stay in areas with other tourists and get ripped off there.

But this trip, who knows? Some writers I know through the Cat Writer's Association live in England, so maybe I'll get some insider tips on little known towns or places to visit. Now we just need to pick a date and commit and start practicing posh English accents.

I'm sure we will totally be able to fool everyone.

Snow & Handmade Scarves

It's snowing! It's snowing!  Maybe no big deal to a lot of you, but this is our first snow of the year.  I've lived in the South for almost 14 years now but am still a mid-Westerner at heart, and winter is not winter without at least one snow.  I wish we'd get a little ground coverage but I just snapped this picture a few minutes ago and already the thick wet snowflakes are turning into more of a rain. 

But I'm ready for the first snowstorm of the year with my first completed scarf!  Yes, this is "purple practice scarf," my first completed knitting project.  It's not particularly attractive, but I've been wearing it the last few days everywhere I go because, darn it, I made the thing.  I have a thick green/blue scarf made out of a nubby material that's almost completed as well. 

I'm doing some interviews and write up's this morning while Blair is volunteering at an agency in Eden that's helps people prepare their taxes. We're going to meet back up at 3pm and plan some VACATION time for the two of us.  We used to be religious about taking one big trip a year but it's been close to 3 years now since we've done that.  Waaay to long.  I'm thinking overseas flight, here we come.

What's On Dena's Plate This Month

A friend who reads my blog said to me yesterday, "I can tell you're busy, but what exactly are you working on?" Since I'm bereft of any clever ideas for today's blog, I thought I'd give you a run down of what I'm up to these days.

•  I just received an assignment from Motorhome magazine to write a tips article for traveling with pets. So I'll spend the next few days looking at RV list-servs and e-mailing friends and family, searching for people who travel with their pets in their RV to interview.  I also need to find a vet or pet expert to glean advice from.  The article is due in 3 weeks.
• My Art Jewelry marketing column is due Feb. 24th.  This month, I'm showcasing business success stories from our readers, touching on new artists, mid-way artists, and established artists.  I have a list of readers websites to look through and today's job is to contact the 3-5 people I think I want to focus on and arrange interview times.
• My humor columns for U Manatee Magazine is due March 6th with the theme for this issue being "The Great American Outdoors."  I've scribbled down a few thoughts but need to rough out a column so it has time to sit and be polished before I send it off.

Those are the "must-do's."  I also have an assignment for Toastmaster magazine to write a column about whether or not speech content should be evaluated.  I don't have a deadline for that, but I need to get cracking.  My goal was to submit it in January and I haven't started work on it yet, so you can see how that's going.  But I'd like to send that out by early March as well.

Then there's always sending out query letters for new work.  It can take anywhere from 1-8 months to hear back on an assignemnt, so it's best to always have numerous letters in the works. 

I also have on-going projects that pop-up in seeming random patterns.  I do work on them, they go away for a little while, then reappear with a new flurry of activity.  Those projects include:

• Working with a Life Coach to help her pull together two 3-hour workshops on Empty Nest Syndrome and general Life Coaching.
• Ghostwriting a newspaper column.  I could tell you who and what about, but then my contract dictates I would have to find and kill you.
• Writing a bi-monthly networking column.

Next are groups and meetings.  These include:

• Wednesday morning networking meeting
• Children Writer's Group Critique meetings the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month
  
• WGOT Writer's Critique Group the 3rd Thursday of each month
• WGOT Board meeting 1st Wednesday of each month 
  
• Toastmasters every Wednesday at noon
• Writing time with friends every Wednesday, 9-11:30.

At the moment, I have a Toastmaster's speech I'm due to give in two weeks, plus I'm entering the International Speech Contest and need to come up with a topic and write a speech for that and start practicing for what I think is the March 15th contest date.

I also have some classes I'm teaching soon, including a three-hour magazine writing class at UNC-G on the 18th.  

The critique groups require I read and comment on people's work (that never feels like work as I'm in really good groups with great stories to read) and for the WGOT I'm in charge of planning and organizing community workshops so I spend time finding facilitators and locales and coordinating dates.

Then there is the "Misc." group and what bothers me is that so much of what is in this category I feel should be priority.  I just haven't quite figured out how to make that happen.  But here they are:

• Continue writing my middle-grade novel.  Right now, I'm only looking at it about once a week, which is ridiculous and nothing is going to get done that way. I'm mulling over options to overcome this.
• Market Lessons In Stalking.  This is a huge category unto itself and includes research, publicity, pulling together the long overdue press kit, seeking out gift store distributors and so many other tasks it makes my head hurt to think about them which is probably why nothing ever gets done here.
• Mentoring.  I'm working with two young women as they start their own businesses.
• Editorial work for NC Careers Magazine.
  
• Journaling.  Huh?  What's that? I'm supposed to do it every day but find it too is becoming a once-a-week thing.
• Working with a friend on her book project and speaking career.  Another area I enjoy working on but can never seem to find the time.
• I met a dynamic woman in my Networking group who has given speeches around the world and we met to discuss pulling together a Women's Speaker Bureau for our region.  I'm supposed to be doing some research for that but (ahem!) haven't touched it yet.

And of course, I'd like to exercise and see my husband and friends and family every now and then and maybe occasionally clean the house. Blair and I haven't been out to our land in months.  Partly because I've been traveling and he's sick, but also just can't seem to find the 2 hours to go.  BLAIR said last night we need to sit down and do some evaluating on our time.  BLAIR.  So you know our schedules are getting out of hand.

Honestly, I don't know what to give up.  The networking and Toastmasters and public speaking and teaching classes all feed into the promotion of the writing career.  I can't give up writing for magazines because that's my income, and I want to do my novel writing but can't just do that in a vacuum.  My critique groups are my creative lifeline as is my writing time with friends, so I'm not touching that. Come August, I'll rotate off the WGOT board and give that up. And if I get enough speaking engagements on my own, I could give up Toastmasters.  But, I just love the people in my group and it's a perk going there each week so I'll probably continue.  I just think it's a matter of FOCUS and better TIME MANAGEMENT.

Like maybe not spending 20 minutes typing out a blog entry.   Color me embarrassed.  Bye-bye!

Volvo Owners As Highly Evolved People

I haven't heard anything from the owner of the Volvo I scrapped on Wednesday.  He/She could be preparing their court case against me, but I prefer to think I had the fortune to literally bump into one of the nice people of the world.   You never know these days.  The scratches were minor but you always run the risk of getting the "You owe me a brand new bumper for my 1984 car" individual.  I saw waaaay to much of that sort of behavior in my claims adjusting days.  So thank you, nice Volvo owner, for restoring a bit of my faith in the rational-mindedness and kindness of people in our nation.  Kudos to you.