Where'd I go???

Gosh, sorry its been so long, all.  Happy Halloween all, first off.  I hope this weekend is so much fun for all of us.  How have you all been?  I feel so bad that I've basically been out of commission for so long.  To be truthful, I sort of lost track of everything so now it's time to get recharged and restarted, huh?  Ok.

So.  What happened?  I got h1n1 of all things.  It seems I've had this 3 month stretch of nonstop sickness, so my immune system must just really be exhausted.  Anyways, I got h1n1 and I *thought* I would get over it relatively quickly.  In fact, I seemed to be on the mend two weeks ago and life was going on in a merry little way. Suddenly, two Fridays ago, I woke up and was so.much.worse.  I mean, could barely move, felt like I was dying worse.  Nolan had to go into work that morning and I was here struggling to even deal with anything.  Anyways.  Nolan came home from work early and I got up to go to the bathroom to cough up a lung.

Next thing I know, I'm in the ER with Nolan and my friend Jordan (she's a nurse) and she tells me "You passed out.  Nolan and I brought you here and I think you've got pneumonia."  I spent the next 5 hours fading in and out of dozing during tests and lab work (luckily, the dr gave me morphine so I'd just sleep.  The results?  "Walking pneumonia", aka all the symptoms of it but not the actual virus or infection.  Apparently h1n1 can either mimic the symptoms of pneumonia or develop into it.  Thankfully, it was just mimicking the symptoms. 

So, I've spent a week and a half resting, medicating, and slowly working on writing projects.  I still have a wicked cough and lots of sinus congestion but each day I'm seemingly getting better.  I really need to commit myself to restoring good health.  I always sort of just get myself back to functioning but not actually doing "really" good, health wise.  I need to do that.  I need to focus on eating well, getting good sleep, taking my vitamins, meditating, and exercising so I can be strong and healthy but most of all productive.

Got any tips for me?  Honestly, I'd love and appreciate any and all advice or suggestions.  Isn't it kind of the chronic American lifestyle of just slugging through things but not really making the effort to make sure our wellness is a top priority? We're all so busy that we just run ourselves ragged but don't stop to take the time to make sure we can actually handle everything we're doing.

So.  On to writing.  I backed off of my blog to focus on doing a few things to get paid.  In my last BIG blog, I wrote about deciding to just take the jump and commit to being a full time writer.  I'm still finding my sea legs doing this but I'm so much happier than I was trying to apply myself to a job that wasn't going anywhere.  The trouble comes in just learning to balance working from home with being a mom and a wife.  So much easier said than done.  But I've found a few ways to focus myself, one of which being . . . .

NaNoWriMo!!!!  That's right.  Go to nanowrimo.org and sign up to spend a month writing a 175 page novel.  The goal is quantity, not quality for your writing.  You spend a month writing furiously to produce a verrrrrry rough draft of a novel.  The purpose?  Get your creative juices flowing, get yourself trained to spend significant parts of your day really writing, and also to not shoot yourself in the foot by constantly self-editing.  Sometimes writers block comes from the fact that we're always trying to make what we're writing "perfect" when really we just need to get it all out first, THEN edit.

I've been working on notes for a story for about a month now, so I'm going to use that as my NaNoWriMo project.  I'm really excited to just apply myself to this and I'm really hoping that its going to help me overcome some of my own personal hurdles with writing.  More on those later.

I got hired on by The Examiner and I'm writing 3-4 articles a week!!!  Hurray!!!  I also got a few freelance book review projects starting up, and am working slowly on developing two new blogs- one for my book birthday project and one devoted to political commentary that I'm doing with 4 other writers.  When those are up and running, I'll let you know!

For this weeks goals, I'm going to try to keep it simpler.  I need to really devote myself to the rhythm of meeting my daily nanowrimo word count so I don't fall behind and I get a running start.  I need to get back to regular posts on my blog, articles and pieces for The Examiner and other jobs, and development on the other blogs.  That sounds so overwhelming! Argh!  We'll see how I do.

My other goal is to get back on track with Weight Watchers.  Two weeks of being sick really got me unfocused, but since health and wellness is a priority . . .well time to pay the piper.  Anyways, have a wickedly fun little evening!  Talk to you all soon!

xoxo-
Sara Rose