I decided to break up with soda for 2021. I am nearly done with Day 6 and doing much better than I predicted. I thought I would be DYING for just a SIP of Caffeine Free Diet Coke. Instead, I occasionally feel a flutter of a soda craving that is easily squashed with some fruity sparkling water.

I think two things have been helping me with my 2021 Soda Fast.

First, my soda consumption was out of control in December. I was guzzling caffeine-free soda almost constantly. My blood was probably brown with Caffeine Free Diet Coke. By December 31, 2020, I was honestly sick of soda.

But I made myself keep drinking soda on New Year’s Eve as a sort of last hurrah. My gums were actually hurting but I soldiered on. I was disgusted with the stuff by the time I went to bed on the last day of 2020. I woke up on New Years’ Day eager to shed myself of an addiction that had turned from pleasure to burden.

Second, I am tracking my soda free days. I tracked a lot of my self-care practices in my bullet journal in 2020 but decided to get fancy with my tracking this year and created some templates on Canva.

At day’s end, I fill in a heart bubble to commemorate the success of another Soda Free day. It’s very satisfying to see the bubbles filling up. Now that I have a streak, I feel even more motivated to see just how long I can keep this fast going.

It seems absurd that filling in a heart bubble with green crayon makes me glow with pride, but it does. Maybe next month I’ll up my game to shiny star stickers…

Hi! I’d like to introduce you to my bullet journal.

I started bullet journaling about two years ago. I used special pens and rulers and agonized over drawing cute doodles wherever possible. It was a major pain in my ass.

I quickly gave up my ambition to make the perfect bullet journal and instead focused on making a bullet journal that was perfect for me. That means if I make a mistake, I just cross it out and keep going. I do not bother with rulers when making calendars. And I no longer waste time trying to imitate the ways people decorate their lists and spreads.

I have seen bullet journals that are works of art. And if that’s your jam, have at it! But I do not have the time, energy of inclination to turn my bullet journal into the Mona Lisa. I really just need a place to keep grocery and To Do lists. I don’t need pretty. I need functional.

My Messy AF bullet journal has actually become a great place for me to embrace mistakes and imperfections. I am a recovering perfectionist and my fear of making mistakes used to immobilize me. My messy bullet journal has taught me to release my grip on my desire to be the best at everything.

I am a bit late with these show notes, but hey, better late than never. At the end of the year, I like to reflect on the ways I grew over the past twelve months and then think about what I want to do in the new year.

Back in December 2019, when Covid-19 was barely a blip on my radar, I wanted to use my values to steer me through 2020. Despite the dumpster fire that was 2020, I actually did a fairly decent job of living in line with my values. In future episodes, I’d like to dive deeper into my values but for this episode, I focused on ten that were really important to me in 2020.

(1) Being Healthy and Fit: At the beginning of the year, I set a goal of attending 100 hot yoga classes and averaging 10,000 steps/day. By mid-February, however, I was uncomfortable going to my hot yoga studio — it just seemed too high risk — and by mid-March, the studio was closed. I could have attended some Zoom hot yoga classes, but I hate Zoom, so I released my goal to attend 100 classes. Instead, I walked. Walking was fantastic for my health, mental and physical, and instead of 10,000 steps, I averaged more than 11,000 steps/day in 2020! I also started using Noom in February 2020 and lost about net 10 pounds over the year. Not bad for a year where I was tempted by all the stress eating. In the summer, I started strength training at home. I skipped a period, did some hormone testing, learned my testosterone levels are low and started a testosterone supplement. I also meditated a lot with the Calm App and stretched almost every day. Although 2020 had plenty of challenges, I feel like I ended the year healthier than I began it.

(2) Paying Attention and Being Curious: I used journaling to help me pay attention and be curious about my feelings, thoughts and beliefs. Thanks to this value, I tuned into my anxiety and realized I needed to go back on Zoloft in early July. I also decided that reprising my role as as Cookie Chair for Pippa’s Girl Scout troop would destroy my sanity and relinquished that role.

(3) Going Slow: I totally forgot that “going slow” was one of my values until I read through my writings from 2019. But holy hell, 2020 helped me slow down! Between shutdowns and distance learning, I had not choice but to live more slowly and it was lovely.

(4) Being conscious and intentional: At the end of 2019, I wanted to do monthly and quarterly checks as to how I was living in accord with my values. Oops, I totally lost the habit of doing my monthly and quarterly checks. BUT I did start using the Noom app to log my food choices and that made me a lot more conscious and intentional about eating. I’d like to live even more consciously and intentionally in 2021.

(5) Embracing Change and Uncertainty: Again, holy hell, 2020 was boot camp for change and uncertainty. My god, there were so many changes this year and so. much. uncertainty. And it was TOUGH. I cried, I ranted, I went back on Zoloft. But I ended the year more comfortable with change and uncertainty than I have ever been in my life. I would never have chosen a pandemic for 2020, but I did learn a lot from it.

(6) Connecting with People: I value having meaningful connections with family and friends. In many ways, 2020 was isolating. There are so many people who were part of my regular life who I hardly ever see now. And there are even more people I have not seen in nine months thanks to distance learning! But 2020 also helped me connect more deeply with the people I was able to see. All in all, I would say that I kept this value alive and well in my life during the 2020 shit storm.

(7) Answering My Inner Divine Call: I think of the voice inside of me that tells me what to do as my Inner Divine Call. I also sometimes call her my muse. My inner voice prompted me to start this podcast! Then in the fall, she started telling me to create The Distance Learning Activity Book For Parents Just Barely Holding On To Their Last Shred of Sanity. I resisted that idea but finally relented and the book poured out of me in a month and damn, I love my new book. Then I got the idea to write a novel about a preschool room mom and I finished the first draft of that book in early December. I love that new book as well! Thank you, Divine Call. I’m glad I listened to you in 2020.

(8) Doing the Work: I think of this value as all the work I do to become my best self. In 2020, I certainly did my work through therapy, journaling, listening to podcasts, creating podcast episodes, reading books, and writing here on this blog. And thanks to all the challenges of 2020, the work found me this year! I did not have to go looking for it. I ended the year with better boundaries, a stronger sense of self, and a lot less guilt. All in all, I’m proud of the way I kept this value centered in my life in 2020.

(9) Feeling all my Feelings: 2020 was an emotional rollercoaster. I cried and cried and cried some more, but I laughed a lot, too. I went into the darkness of anxiety and despair and felt intoxicated by hope. All in all, I felt the shit out of my feelings.

(10) Seeking And Embracing Spirituality, Mystery and Magic: At the start of the year, I wanted to go on a day-long meditation retreat. That did not happen. #Pandemic. But I did do a lot of work with the enneagram in the early part of the year and by year’s end, I was lighting a candle at the end of the day to center myself and spend some time with my Divine Beloved. I read Tosha Silver’s Change Me Prayers and learned a whole new way to pray. I definitely deepened my connection with my Divine Beloved in 2020.

Okay, that’s enough about 2020. In the second half of the episode, I looked ahead to 2021. This year, I want to keep living my values. On that front, I also want to do more work to refine my understanding of my values. But I also want to focus on MOMENTUM.

I talked about the various projects I am launching in 2021 to increase my momentum. Curious about those projects? Listen to Episode 19 or read this blog post in which I detail my thoughts on momentum and my 2021 projects.

If you read the entirety of these show notes, please give yourself a gold sticker.

Me! Me! I am! I love projects!

My big goal for 2021 is to rebuild my momentum. Can I talk about momentum for a moment? When I was hospitalized for postpartum depression in 2013, the therapists talked incessantly about momentum. Their favorite analogy was getting off a chair. If you never get off the chair, standing up seems impossible. But if you get up once today, it will be easier to get up tomorrow. If you keep doing little things, those little things will turn into big things. The therapists kept telling the patients that momentum was a huge part of mental health. At the time, I remember thinking they were just a wee bit obsessed with momentum.

Seven and a half years later, I get it.

Take crochet. I wanted to crochet something more exciting than a scarf. To be precise: a sweater. But a sweater just seemed so damn intimidating. For years, I wanted to make sweaters (I knit and crochet) and for years, I kept making scarves. Scarves are lovely but how many scarves do you need in Southern California? But everyone needs sweaters! Yes, even Californians! Yet the thought of starting a sweater seemed insurmountable. I would have to pick a pattern and what if the pattern was confusing? Or what if I figured out the first half but then got stuck? What if I ran out of yarn? and couldn’t get more???

Last fall, I finally picked a pattern, bought some yarn, and started crocheting a sweater for myself. It was very simple. Just three rectangles sewn together. It’s actually more of a blanket with armholes than a sweater. But I did it, and even though I kept making mistakes and had to start over several times, I finished it and damn, that felt good.

Starting my second sweater was much easier. And this time, it has sleeves! This sweater is for Pippa, and even though I have also made lots of mistakes, and had to start over multiple times, I am growing more confident. Now I have visions of owning several handmade sweaters and I already have the yarn for my next two sweaters.

Long story short, momentum is important. That’s why I want to focus on it in 2021. Between the pandemic and distance learning, the first half of 2020 sure did a number on my momentum. But I spent the second half doing more projects and that felt good. Projects are my happy place and when I’m working on a project, it increases my momentum. And so, in 2021, I am embracing ALL THE PROJECTS.

Without further ado, the projects I am tackling in 2021are:

• Quitting soda. All year. Is this really a project? Meh, it’s probably more of an aspiration. But if I call it a project, it feels fun! So let’s call it a project.
• I am going to blog every weekday (except holidays) (although today is a holiday and I’m blogging anyway) (because I was too excited to wait for Monday!)
• Finish the Room Mom novel that I started in November. I am going to revise it as much as I can and then hire an editor. And when the novel is done, I’ll publish! Woot woot!
• Learn French on the Duolingo app. I learned a lot of French in 2020 but I want to double down on my lessons in 2021 and finish the fifth level of French lessons on Duolingo.
• Tap Dance at least 100 times in 2021. I have wanted to tap dance pretty much my entire life. I even bought tap shoes in 2020 and posted a pretty photograph of them on Instagram. But did I ever use those shoes after posting the photo? No, I did not. I just had this vague goal to learn how to tap dance and so I kept procrastinating. Next week, next month, next year… Well, it’s next year and I’m ready! I feel called to tap and damnit, I’m going to answer that call. I put on my shoes today after lunch, queued up a YouTube lesson, and tapped. It felt good and right.
• Roller skate at least 50 times in 2021. Roller skating is another thing I have yearned to do but I have always found lots of excuses to not do it. I went roller skating at a rink once with Pippa in 2019 and it was soooo fun. I want more fun this year! So yesterday, I ordered myself a pair of roller skates. I often take the kids to a park with a great area for roller skating, so damnit, skating is happening.
• Play the piano at least 100 times. I have a mental block from childhood piano lessons. I feel like if I am sitting down to play, I need to play classical music for a long time. But hey, I just want to enjoy the flow of making music. If that means playing a song from The Little Mermaid for five minutes, then hey, that’s what I’ll do. Piano does not have to be about scales and Beethoven.
• Post on Instagram daily. I enjoy Instagram so why not take the two minutes to post something every day.
• Walk An Average of 12,000 steps/day. Last year, I averaged over 11,000 steps per day. Today, I have already walked 16,000+ steps so I’m off to a good start!
• Do A Tarot Card Reading Weekly. This is something I like to do when I’m journaling but I often forget about it. It’s a great way to connect with my intuition and I’m always looking for ways to strengthen my relationship with my intuition.
• Read 100 Books For Myself. I read over 130 books in 2020, but only about 75 of those books were for me. The rest were chapter books for my kids. I was a little braindead from the pandemic but I’d like to get back into reading as ass shit ton (which is just the way I like it).
• Do 25 Craft Projects. For me. I love crafting, so I want more of it in my life. I have a whole list of craft projects but I’ll save that for another post.
• Try 100 New Recipes. I made cinnamon rolls for the first time for breakfast today. One down, ninety-nine to go.
• Go Down 100 Slides. These do not have to be different slides. So theoretically, I could go down the same slide at a park 100x in a row and call it a project. But I’m setting a rule that I can only go down the same slide once on any given day. The point here is to be playful and have fun. It’s so easy when I go to the park with my kids to stand off to the side and stare at my phone. But slides are fun! So what if I look a little crazy?
• 50 Different Places. We were not able to go to a lot of places in 2020, but going to different places fills me joy and energy. I will try to make as many of these places new as possible but if I have not been somewhere in over a year, it counts. Also, the point is to go somewhere different. It does not have to be something grandiose like a museum. A new grocery store counts. I just have to get out of the rut of going to the same parks and Starbucks on endless repeat.
• French Braid My Hair 100 times. I want to learn how to French braid my hair. You know how I will? Practice, practice, practice.

Stay tuned for future reports about my 2021 projects.

I love self-help books. To me, a self-help book is any book that helps me on my journey to being my best self, including psychology, physical health, and spirituality.

These are the self-help books I’ve read so far in 2020:

• The Wisdom of Menopause, by Dr. Christiane Northrup. I highly recommend this book for any women in their forties and fifties. I am keeping my copy as a reference for the perimenopause adventures that lie ahead.
• Turning Pro, by Steven Pressfield. Great for any creative folks who want to be serious about their work.
• So You Want To Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo. The audiobook was excellent.
• Caffeine: How Caffeine Created The Modern World, by Michael Pollan. This is an Audible original. A very fast listen. I listened to it while I was weaning off caffeine and it has helped me stay on track. (The author still fully embraces caffeine!)
• Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, by Byron Katie. This book really did help me change my life. I often use the Four Questions in my journaling.
• This Messy Magnificent Life: A Field Guide. by Geneen Roth. I love Geneen Roth. She writes about women and food and God.
• The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz. This was the second time I read this book. I think I’ll try the audiobook next.
• Untamed, by Glennon Doyle. I inhaled this book during the early months of lockdown. Love, love, love it. I requested the audiobook from the library. It’s a long wait list but by the time I get it, I’ll be ready to read it again in 2021.
• Change Me Prayers: The Hidden Power of Spiritual Surrender. Tosha Silver. This changed the way I pray and connect with my Divine Beloved.
• The Surrender Experiment: My Journey Into Life’s Perfection, by Michael Singer.
• The Road back To You: An Enneagram Journey To Self-Discovery, by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile. The enneagram is a personality typing system with a spiritual slant. I haven’t worked with the enneagram since the first quarter of 2020. I might need to change that soon…
• Making Life Easy: A Simple Guide to a Divinely Inspired Life, by Dr. Christiane Northrup. Title says it all.
• Warrior Goddess Training: Become The Woman You Are Meant To be, by HeatherAsh Amara. I am currently reading this book and it is sooooo freaaaaking inspiring.

But I have not always been such a lover of self-help books! I used to feel drawn to the self-help books at the bookstore (remember those?) but I would not let myself buy or even look at those books. Just being near those books made me feel ashamed, like I should not be so weak as to need advice about how to live my life.

The Kindle helped me get past that shame because it enabled me to read all the self-help books I wanted without fear of “getting caught.” At the same time, the Kindle reinforced my belief that I should be secretive about any self-help books I read, and secrecy just intensifies shame.

At some point, I got over the shame. I’m not exactly sure when. But for years now, I’ll happily read any and all self-help books wherever I please. I read the actual boo and make no effort to conceal the cover or title.

I read Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus when I was dating Nathan. (On the Kindle. Back then, I was still very secretive about self-help!) I had lunch with Nathan when I was in the middle of the book. During lunch, Nathan’s eyes seemed to be looking at anything but me. I fretted this meant our relationship was doomed. That night, as I was reading Men Are From Mars, I came to a passage about men and eye contact. Apparently men in intimate relationships do not make as much eye contact as women. As a matter of fact, men will make eye contact a lot in the early stage of dating because it feels like they are on a job interview but as they relax into the relationship, they make less eye contact. Reduced eye contact is acutaly a good sign! This was a huge and helpful revelation.

But toward the end of Men Are From Mars, the author John Gray recommended writing letters to significant others about any disagreements or issues. This advice did not sit well with me. My gut said, Hell no! But there had been so much other helpful advice in the book. I felt like I had to follow ALL of the advice or none at all.

That’s when I realized: it’s advice, not a freaking mandate. I can follow the advice that works for me and discard the rest.

I have followed that philosophy ever since.

When I am reading a self-help book, I write notes in the margins and highlight passages that resonate with me. I am not just a passive audience to the book. I am an active participant, making my own connections as I read.

Twice, I have thrown out a self-help book. One was about parenting, the other an extreme diet. Both felt toxic to me. So toxic, I did not want to pass them to a friend or Goodwill. I am a bookworm and published author. I adore books! But these two books needed to go into the trash.

But until recently, there was one self-help book that intimidated me.

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

I read that book when it first came out in 2014 and found it to be really inspiring. Yes! I wanted to tidy up! But the methods were so … extreme. Kondo advocated doing everything at once. You can’t just dip into your closet and purge a few things at a time. You have to find every article of clothing in the house, put it in one location, and tackle it all at once.

This approach was overwhelming to me. Under my philosophy of only following the advice that works for me, I should have seen that I was inspired to declutter but needed to do it my way. But for reasons I still don’t understand, I did not apply my self-help philosophy to Marie Kondo’s method. Not when I first read The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up in 2014. And not when I read Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class On the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up in December 2019. I treated Kondo like an infallible guru. I had to follow her advice if I wanted to declutter, end of discussion.

I was paralyzed. The past few years, the clutter has been mounting. But I kept procrastinating because I did not have the time or energy or inclination to tidy in the way Kondo advocated. And I had a mental block or a blindspot. With all the other self-help books I have read since 2014, I have remembered to pick and choose what works for me. But with this one damn book, I felt like a prisoner to all the advice, even though it clearly did not work for me.

Recently, the clutter was just too much. Or maybe it’s just that I have been spending more time than ever at home (hello, 2020!) so I have grown less tolerant of the clutter. Either way, I cracked and started decluttering.

I spent an afternoon sorting out the garage with the kids. We got rid of a bunch of old strollers.

Then it was Thanksgiving so I took a break from decluttering.

But since Thanksgiving, I have been attacking our messes, one by one. The kids are enjoying it as well. They both picked out a ton of toys to send to our curb. And the old toys are all gone! Even the Happy Meal knick knacks!

I am reclaiming my right to declutter in the way that works for me. Marie Kondo might have a fun Netflix show, but that does not mean I need to find all the clothes in the house and tackle them all at once. I have to do what works for me.

I have to put the SELF in self-help.

As I mentioned on Halloween, I participated in NaNoWriMo last month for the first time ever. If you have not heard about it before, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to start writing on November 1 and end the month with 50,000 words of a new novel.

I did it! I wrote every single day, even Thanksgiving, and ended the month was a little over 50,00 words of the first draft of a novel. It took me another eight days to finish the draft but hallelujah, I did it. I finished the Shitty First Draft of a novel that I am planning to publish in 2021.

The novel is about a mom who grew up in the circus and did not go to school until college. Now her daughter is starting preschool, and she feels insecure and overwhelmed that she does not know what preschool is like. She feels like a total imposter when the Director asks her to be room mom…

I’m calling it a Mom Com. It was really fun to write and was exactly the sort of project that I needed in November 2020. I suspect it’s the sort of project I will need for 2021. This is not the time for me to be writing some sob story with intense drama and personal conflict!

I am currently rereading my Shitty First Draft and creating an outline for the Somewhat Less Shitty Second Draft. I am also currently picking at Julian’s gingerbread house. Why is crusty frosting so delicious? Why did I just eat a stale chocolate chip that Julian says is reindeer poop??

I have no idea how long it will take me to revise the novel. (Oh shit, I just knocked over one of the sugar reindeers on Julian’s gingerbread tableau.) I am just going to keep revising until I don’t know what to do, and then I will send the book to an editor. Woot woot!

Excuse me, I have to move Julian’s gingerbread house before I accidentally eat the entire roof.

I actually made a new episode for my first podcast, Adventures With Postpartum Depression. (So for listeners of Adventures With My Forties, you did not pull a Rip Van Winkle and miss seventy episodes!)

I wanted to drop in and say, “Hello!” to all the listeners to Adventures With Postpartum Depression because the e-book of my memoir, Adventures With Postpartum Depression, is free RIGHT NOW, from December 8-12, on Amazon. Download now, listen whenever you want. It’s my early Christmas gift for all the mamas struggling right now. (And for everyone else! You do not have to be a struggling mama to read the book.)

While I was saying hello, I thought I would give a pep talk for all the postpartum mamas because sometimes, you just need someone to tell you, “You can do this. Yeah, this is tough. But I believe in you.” Because seriously, mamas, I do believe in you and I know how tough newborns are – and in 2020, sweet mercy, there’s a whole extra dimension to the toughness.

Here are the main points I tried to make in my Episode 86 Postpartum Pep Talk:

1. It gets easier.
2. Babies are tough.
3. You are not alone.
4. You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. Haters gonna hate.
5. You did nothing wrong.
6. You are enough.
7. Babies are all different.
8. If you have a maternal mood disorder, you don’t have to conquer it today or tomorrow or next week. It’s like you broke your back. Would you expect someone in a full body cast to get better tomorrow? Give yourself the same grace. Mental health matters as much as physical health.
9. You don’t have to treasure every moment. I’m sorry, but a blowout poopy diaper at 2 a.m. is no one’s idea of a good time.
10. You are allowed to make mistakes. Perfect is boring! Our children are entitled to our mistakes. In fact, if you never make a single mistake while raising your children, my god, you are setting the bar really high! Do your kids a favor and make a few (thousand) mistakes.

This is the pep talk I needed to hear when I was in the throes of postpartum depression, anxiety and OCD. I hope it helps someone struggling now. I am rooting for all of you and sending you my love!

p.s. Listen to this episode as often as you like!

The holidays are coming and spoiler alert: they are going to look a lot different this year, at least here in Pasadena, thanks to the pandemic.

For Thanksgiving, we are changing things up. Our gathering will be much smaller than usual. Instead of having full access to my parents’ kitchen, I’ll do all my cooking and baking at home, mostly the day before. Instead of eating at 5ish, we will eat outdoors at 1ish. Instead of making the turkey, my parents are ordering a bird from Honey Baked Ham.

And this is the just the current plan!

After I recorded this episode, I learned that Los Angeles County might go into another lockdown on Sunday. Fun times! I don’t know what that means for Thanksgiving. When I learned about the next potential lockdown (I am forcing myself to say “potential” although it feels “imminent”), I felt a ton of panic. Will there be another run on the grocery stores? Will I be able to get the ingredients I need for sweet potato casserole? But after the initial panic, I remembered Thanksgiving is a celebration of gratitude and if we can’t get turkey, we can be grateful for pizza.

The turkey is never even that exciting.

Though the prospect of another shutdown right before Thanksgiving still suuuuucks sooooo muuuuuuch.

Going forward, I am going to try to enjoy the 2020 holiday season as much as possible. With that in mind, these are a few principles I’m trying to follow (though I will surely forget and have to hit my personal reboot button again and again and again):

– Allow my feelings without wallowing in the negative ones.

– Embrace the adventure while mourning the losses. I already know that we won’t be celebrating Christmas Eve with my extended family. I am going to miss my Aunt Berta’s lasagna! And my family! So much! But we will figure out ways to be joyful without the lasagna. (The lasagna is the stuff of family legend.)

– Keep meditating, journaling, exercising and doing as many of the things that boost my mental health. These days, my mental health needs all the help it can get.

– If social media starts to feel like too much, I’ll take a social media fast for as long as I want. I’m pretty sure Instagram will survive without me!

On the bright side, shutdown or no shutdown, whatever happens with Thanksgiving, THERE IS NO SCHOOL NEXT WEEK. That means: A WHOLE WEEK VACATION FROM DISTANCE LEARNING! FUCK YEAH! That alone is cause for celebration.

In this episode, I revisited the topic of distance learning because hello, it’s 2020 and starting to feel like my second grader will never go back to “normal” school. I was in a 2020 rut at the beginning of October and feeling broken by distance learning. It is so time consuming! And aggravating! But then, my muse gave me an idea: I needed to stop working on my fantasy series and work on a new book called The Distance Learning Activity Book For Parents Just Barely Holding On To Their Last Shred Of Sanity. Writing and publishing that book restored my spirits – but damn, distance learning is still tough. Hence, this episode, in which I share about my struggles and the things that are helping me keep my last shred of sanity. 

I first talked about distance learning during Episode 4, Distance Learning and Mental Health. A few weeks ago, I actually listened to that episode and it was like getting a pep talk from myself. I almost never listen to my podcast episodes. It’s weird to hear my recorded voice! But I’m glad I listened to Episode 4, and if you are in distance learning hell, I highly recommend it. (Is it weird to recommend my own podcast? Because I just did.)

As of now, my son is going to preschool in person and my daughter is doing second grade remotely. Our district has announced that the kids will not be returning to in-person instruction before January 11, 2021. There’s no guarantee they will even return then so for now, the adventure continues.

These are some thoughts I have about distance learning.

1. It is hard because it is hard. I have to remind myself of that constantly. This has become our new normal and we have routines and habits and since we have been doing this for months, it feels like it should not be difficult. Why do I constantly feel like I have so little time to myself? Why do I feel drained and frustrated. Then I remember. This. Is. So. Fucking. Hard.
2. Paying attention and being curious about my feelings helps. My knee jerk reaction is to stuff down difficult feelings (usually with food) but when I catch myself having feelings that I perceive as difficult, I try to pay attention and understand the feelings. What are my feelings trying to tell me? What are they asking me to do? My feelings have helped me realize when I am on the verge of burnout and just need to spend a day lying down and reading a book. They also help me realize when we need a mental health day.
3. It is validating for me to know that other people are struggling.
4. When I’m in the middle of an emotional storm, I avoid sending emails and texts to people outside my inner circle.
5. I have had to shift gears. 2020 is not going the way I expected. I was going to revise my first fantasy novel but it’s just too tough for me right now. So I made The Distance Learning Activity Book For Parents Just Barely Holding On To Their Last Shred Of Sanity. Now I am writing the first draft of a book about a preschool room mom that is fun and playful.

Recording this podcast episode was very helpful for me. I need, again and again, to acknowledge how shitty distance learning. But now, I am ready to embrace a little more enthusiasm and grit for the adventures ahead. Distance Learning suuuuucks sooooo muuuuch but I am going to find ways to have fun and make the most of this experience. Stay tuned!

NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow! If you have not heard about it before, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to start writing on November 1 and end the month with 50,000 words of a new novel.

This will be my first crack at NaNoWriMo.

It seems a bit insane to try to write 50,000 words of a new novel smack dab in the middle of the special hell that is distance learning. But for me, it also seems a bit insane not to.

Writing energizes me. When I write regularly, I feel like my best self. When I don’t find the time to write, I fade and wilt.

Distance learning has been kicking my ass. Now, more than ever, I need writing to keep my spirits up. That’s why I am trying NaNoWriMo.

I have always wanted to write novels. I actually wrote the first draft of a novel the year before I got pregnant with Pippa. When I was recovering from postpartum depression, I started working on the second draft of that novel. But that work did not feel right. All I wanted to write about was postpartum depression, so finally, I shelved the novel and started working on my memoir.

After I published my memoir in April 2018, I started working on a couple of different novels. I knew I wanted to write fiction, but I had so many ideas, I did not know where to start. Eventually, I settled on an idea I had for a fantasy series. Long story short, I finished the first draft of the first book in that series last May, which felt like a major victory since here in Pasadena, we were in the midst of the Covid-19 shutdown. I worked on a plan for revisions over the summer and felt ready to whip the book into shape.

Then distance learning started.

Working on my fantasy novel and helping my second grader with distance learning are mutually exclusive activities. I do not have the brain power to do both. I wish I could choose the fantasy novel, but life has gone with Option Bat Shit Crazy: The Distance Learning Edition. I kept trying to chip away at my fantasy novel, but I was interrupted by distance learning demands so often, I could have ripped off my eyebrows with frustration. I am used to having at least a couple of uninterrupted hours to write. Getting interrupted every five minutes because my daughter has been kicked off Google Meets AGAIN is suboptimal, to say the least.

Then, my muse gave me the idea for The Distance Learning Activity Book For Parents Just Barely Holding On To Their Last Shred Of Sanity, and that project really did help me get a firmer grip on my waning sanity. I realized that I have to hit the Pause button on my fantasy novel during distance learning, but I still have to keep writing. I just have to work on writing projects that are bit more lighthearted and do not require hours of uninterrupted focus.

I could just start making another snarky activity book. I have a list of at least five dozen ideas and the challenge will be picking which one to do first. I expect I will make several more activity books next year.

But first, I want to try NaNoWriMo.

In addition to my fantasy series, I have always wanted to write a book series about a regular mom’s regular mom life. No magic, no dragons, and no complicated plots that unfold over the course of seven books. 2020 feels like the perfect year to start writing that sort of book.

The working title for my novel is Confessions Of A Reluctant Room Mom. I am so excited to start tomorrow! I was ready to start a couple of days ago, when I uploaded The Distance Learning Activity Book to Amazon and ordered my author proof copy, but that felt like cheating. I want to start tomorrow, on the first day of November and see how quickly I can write a shitty first draft of a novel. I am a recovering perfectionist, so I think NaNoWriMo will be the perfect challenge for me.

On that note, I better start getting ready for our pandemic-friendly Halloween festivities. Good Lord, what a surreal year this has been. Yep, it’s definitely a good year to try to write 50,00 words in a month!