Dreadfully Absent in Mind, Body & Spirit #TuesdayswithTaryn #burnout #tiredauthor

I've been dreadfully absent around here I know. I can't even remember the last Saturday recipe I shared or Sunday Snippits, but I had to step away for a while and I might still be spotty when it comes to posting.

Last month I took a huge step for a "woman my age" and finally took the road test to get my driver's license. I failed MISERABLY the first time, so I had to wait, practice and go back the following week to re-test. I passed with only 1 thing marked off the 2nd time, so I'm now a licensed driver- look out world! Some have already been warned, but I'll share here, just to warn everyone else.

I'm still getting used to the knowledge that I can come and go, pick up things from the store, do the grocery shopping- ALONE!- I can do birthday shopping now for family in my household without them being with me or finding out what I got them before I get to wrap it.

It's definitely given me a new sense of self and a sense of freedom, but there are days that I find myself wanting to go driving, or take off to go visit family and friends while the hubby and kids are at school, but it would be a 2 1/2-3 hour drive to do so, which is frustrating and makes me melancholy during a season that usually rejuvenates me. This year I'm torn between the joy of this newfound freedom and the fact that I can't just go visit my close friends and family at the drop of a hat.

Another reason I have been absent around here has a lot to do with my writing- or the lack thereof. Even with editing and getting help from fresh eyes to see where my faults lie in my writing, I feel like a car stuck in the mud, spinning my tires and getting no where fast~ except exhausted and burned out. And unhappy. Discouraged. Disappointed in myself and I'm mentally exhausted and even though I KNOW I don't want to give up writing, I just feel tapped out....I still have stories to write, begging me from the inside out to bring them to life, but I have no zest, no zeal, no desire to write, right now.

I found myself cycling through edits until all I wanted to do is cry because I'm so overwhelmed by the work I know needs to be done, not just on the one I've been editing, but the ones that come after, which are "1st-Draft finished". Talk about that sense that you are drowning. I found myself promo'ing for fellow authors and myself (for the one book that is pubbed) more than working on my own stuff that I intend to pub. When I did look at my own stuff, it just made me sick to my stomach and well, when you no longer "love" what you do, sometimes you have to step back and refocus and reassess where you are and what path you are going down. For me, I feel like a snowball, rolling rolling rolling, picking up speed, but headed for disaster. I've even backed away a lot from my real life social networking as well. I check in ever so often but not like I was before.

Now Mercury is in Retrograde and has been for about a week and will be till mid-November (the 10th actually), so I'm too superstitious (or silly) (or crazy) to pick up and start ANY new project at this time. I'm concentrating more on things I need to do around my house, making lists for holiday treats I plan to make before Thanksgiving to take to family and friends, playing seamstress to take up my daughter's oversized costume for Halloween (She wants to be Sabrina the Teenage Witch, though no one will get that unless she explains it. She got hooked on the show this past summer on Netflix/Hulu and just LOVES it). Normally I would dress up too, but I'm just not feeling it this year.

Now, even in my absence/quiet- I still have a book available- Castaway Hearts, which I'd LOVE LOVE LOVE it if you'd check it out and let me know what you think of it, but for right now, I think I'm going to step back from writing all together, at least until after the New Year. I've tried before to step away but I don't think I ever truly gave myself time to clear my head.

I'm so tired. My mind, body and spirit need time to rest and adjust and find the heart of my writing again. I think somewhere along the way, it's gotten buried deep beneath everything else in my life. It's the "autumn of my discontent" and on a personal/emotional level, I'm trying to figure out what's best for me and eliminating stress and unhappiness is a big big part of that.

Besides getting my license, I have two very busy kids~ stepson's on the Academic Team and has meets, daughter's in Jr. Beta, chorus & joined a run club. I visited family & friends during Fall Break earlier this month and with the upcoming holidays and knowing I'm not feeling up to NaNoWriMo next month at all, I think I'm going to step back into my life and try to figure out how to find true balance again. I know I don't have it.

I'm not sure I'll post anymore of the recipes I had slated for the rest of the year, but will try when I think of it. Same goes for the Sunday Snippits. And I will post from time to time, if the mood strikes me. If anyone is interested in taking a Tuesday or Thursday spot for some promo, please feel free to email me and let me know.

To close out today, here's an inspirational blogpost I JUST happened upon today that brought me tears and reminded me that I am NOT alone in being a TIRED writer. I just hope I find my way out of Tired, as well- very soon!

I'M TIRED

at ROMANCE MAGICIANS

from @LouisaCornell

January Hotstepping out the Door on this Thursdays with Taryn #amediting

This year has gotten off to a fast start and stayed that way. I'm currently working on edits and revisions for Love By Design, as most of you know. I'm hoping to spread it around again and get a few more beta reads for it once I'm done running through this (*insert random double or triple digit number here) edit. I'm not going to set a concrete date but I'm hoping this baby will be ready to self-pub in the next 2-3 months.

Editing line by line and deciding what should go, what should stay, what should alter is time-intensive work. Some authors enjoy it, others dread it. I fall over in the category with those who'd rather pull their fingernails out with tweezers than edit- at least, that is, when it comes to my own work. This has kept me busy.

That's why I haven't been posting many new blogs lately because everyday I've been trying to keep up with myself.

This year ushered in a new phase for me. I know I tend to be a creature of habit- some good, some bad. One of those bad habits, overeating, not exercising & not having good portion control at my age, which can be a lethal combination, is a habit I can no longer allow myself the luxury of indulgence. So, as this year began, I started working out to my husband's Everybody Dance video game. It has an exercise program that you can set up a profile on and it keeps record or your approximate calorie burn each day that you do the dances.

Unfortunately for me, my sedentary lifestyle has pushed me to the most I've ever weighed in my entire life and that's putting undue stress on my knees when I do the dance exercise. I've tried and failed numerous attempts to lose weight before, but this year, I've got to do something and I was really enjoying the dance. I'm not coordinated by any means, but its fun and it doesn't feel like exercise though I end up sweating bullets by the time I'm done with a few rounds of low and intermediate dance combinations.

My weight is wreaking havoc on my knees though, so doing too much dance is a journey into immobility, while I let my ligaments or joints have time to recuperate, which takes a while. After a week of dancing daily, I couldn't squat down to get a pan from under the cabinet in the kitchen because my knees and muscles all locked up. So.....after 2 weeks of dancing and not being able to move, walk, bend, squat like a normal person, I'm changing it up.

I'm now doing yoga in the mornings to hopefully balance and relax my core, my joints and muscles and bring my body into alignment with what it should be. It's not easy but it's getting better and I'm still breaking a sweat. Maybe not as much of one, but I do feel that I'm gaining flexibility and that will help a lot when I finally feel I can get back to my dancing as well.

Add to this, I'm also doing that 2 week meal plan with Special K cereal (started it this week) and so far, the past few days I've cut back my calorie and fat intake by a LOT. How do I know if I normally don't count anything I'm eating? My stomach tells me, because I still find myself wanting to snack, a LOT, but I fight it and am finding the willpower to overcome the bad habit of shoveling it in without thinking about what it's doing to me. I've also been doing my best to discover alternate snacking choices that won't be as detrimental to my success. Air popped popcorn is only about 30 calories a cup and I can still use Kernel Seasonings on it, at 2 calories a teaspoon, so it's not too bad. I'm also eating more yogurt, apples, vegetables and the Chocolaty Special K Pastry Crisps are a great 100 calorie snack.

I hate counting calories and fat, but in order to make the changes, I need to see what I'm doing to myself. The biggest thing for me is that my 4 year anniversary of quitting smoking is also coming up in March and I keep reminding myself, that if I could quit smoking, I can move more and eat less. It's not impossible to achieve this and I want to be there for my kids a long time and I want to write more of the stories in my head and spend time with my husband, my family, my friends. That might not happen unless I take control of this now.

In other news, we're contemplating dropping our satellite company and going with Netflix and Hulu + because it would save us a ton of money and I recently turned down an 8-book publishing contract, for both my Love By & Pryce of Love series. Though I was flattered by the offer, I still find myself feeling that the journey to self-publication is the right choice for me and so I'm keeping my feet on this path. The weather's been crazy here in southern Kentucky and one day you could be out in the yard wearing shorts, the next bundled up in coats and scarfs. I have to wonder if the rest of this year will be as interesting.

So, that's just a little report on the things in Taryn's World and this is only January! The last day of January at that! It's heading on like a Hotstepper- and yes, I went there....

Have a wonderful "Little" Friday!

One Blessed Momma~ Tuesdays with Taryn

This week is busy busy. Today is my stepson's 14th birthday. My daughter will be 10 two days from now and I find myself trying to pull back a little, to find balance because life seems to be zipping by- especially this month and the rest of this year.

It seems like it was only yesterday that I moved here, eager to begin my new life with the man I now call my husband, and in that move, I also became a step-mom to a little 2 1/2 year old boy with a big smile and a quiet disposition. He loved his "Doodle Doo" (as he couldn't pronounce Scooby-Doo) and because he also couldn't pronounce my name, he took to calling me "Yoohoo." It's a label I will take with me till my dying day. He STILL calls me Yoohoo and in some ways, I hope he always does.

I can hardly imagine that he's nearly an adult....already. It doesn't seem possible, but here we are, standing at that precipice, knowing we're going to have to let him take flight one of these days. I miss my little man who would fall asleep in my lap or on the couch beside me, and sometimes even under the coffee table. I still remember the fights over lunch and the grumpy refusals at nap time until he wore himself down. I remember changing bedsheets every morning as we struggled to learn to bed-training and rocking his feverish body back to sleep when he was sick or after he awoke from a nightmare and singing to him low and sweet.

I remember many a night sitting at the kitchen table helping him learn his letters and words in kindergarten and the thrill I feel that all the reading I did with him when he was little has turned him into the avid reader he is nowadays. (I know for a fact that my hubby didn't spend a lot of time reading with him and from what my stepson has told me, his mom hardly kept children's books at her house for him)...He currently reads at an adult level in 8th grade and he's already read all the Harry Potter books, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings books. He loves Christopher Paolini's Inheritance series, Naomi Novik's Temeraire series and Brian Jacques' Redwall series.

I've said it for years now, but I'll say it again~ He might not have been mine by birth, but he is mine by heart and I love him dearly. 

And then we have my daughter. Ten years have never been so long and so short at the same time. She's my precious gift, my brown-eyed girl, who looks so much like her father, there's no way he can deny her and as far as I'm concerned, she's one of the prettiest things I've ever seen on the planet (but then I'm biased.)

Pregnancy wasn't the highlight of my life- had a lot of nausea, etc, but the resulting bundle of bouncing baby girl was my reward. She's spunky and sharp as a tack. She excels in school and loves it (a blessing). She works hard, and also loves to read, but then why wouldn't she? The hours of reading I've put in for both the kids isn't even a drop in the bucket, from There's a Monster at the End of This Book to Turtle Time and The Story of May, my 10 year old 4th grader reads at a 6th, nearly 7th grade level.

Currently she's reading one of the Harry Potter books for her AR (Accelerated Reading) at school. Some of her favorites are the Ramona Quimby, Ivy & Bean, The Magic Half and The Spelling B series and a couple of her most recent favorites were Karen Kepplewhite is the World's Best Kisser and Dancing Shoes. She's getting Ballet Shoes in her stocking this year (The book, not the shoes. The one mentioned in You've Got Mail). I started her early though on classics like A Little Princess, Anne of Green Gables and The Secret Garden.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some of her other favorites, but these are ones that I believe have shaped her as a reader. (If only for the reason that she has had me reread them to her, if she hasn't reread them on her own.)

She's a lazy bones on school mornings, but on weekends, her crooked sleepy smile brings me pure joy and even though she tried to smother me with love sometimes, I wouldn't trade her for anything. She's artistic and loves music, has a real stubborn streak (though I'm torn who she gets that from- me or Daddy). Her stubbornness though isn't always a bad thing- she's braver and more outgoing than I ever was growing up. She auditioned for Chorus and got in and she's also in the Gifted and Talented program at school, too.

I'm one blessed Momma to have two wonderful babies.