Category: writing

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Temptation {Spin Cycle}

Usually when I think about temptation, I think about things I want to do but I shouldn’t. For example, eating four peanut butter cups. Or having one more glass of wine. Gossiping just one more time about that friend and her husband. Buying that pair of boots that I really don’t need to add to the three other pairs of boots in the closet.

Last night, however, as I was putting my daughters to bed, I was tempted NOT to write this blog post for so many reasons:

My back hurts.
Teaching 5 mornings a week leaves me less time to write.
I have to fold that pile of laundry. (It’s still sitting there, unfolded, this morning.)
I made dinner, didn’t I?
Writing a post every day for NaBloPoMo is kicking my ass.
Isn’t November over yet?
I’m tired! (I seem to be continually tired. Is it the season?)
I just want to go to bed and read a book!

But then I thought about how much I love the Spin Cycle. And dang it, I had to write something for NaBloPoMo anyway.

So I sat myself down and wrote this post. Then I stumbled up to bed and read my book. I managed one chapter before I gave in and turned out the light.

What are you tempted NOT to do?

Be sure to visit Gretchen at Second Blooming. Her temptation post is probably way better than mine. Link up your own temptation post below!

Second Blooming



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Electric Poles and Telephone Wires

I took this picture around 7:00 Monday morning.

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I saw the clouds as I was looking through the window. They looked so pink against the blue sky that I had to have a picture, so I grabbed my camera and went out on the patio.

Then I noticed something that I hadn’t noticed before; the electric lines and telephone wires. When I looked at the trees and the sky in the my backyard, my mind took away the lines; they were erased; edited out. But when I looked on my camera screen, they were still there, dark and bold and in the way.

My mind is pretty good at editing out what I don’t want to see. The negative traits of the motorcycle-riding boyfriend my mom wanted me to break up with. The mistakes I made as a young teacher. The bad decisions I made when I drove 400 miles to visit a different boyfriend and ended up with a broken car window in the middle of March.

Those editing skills come in handy, too. It’s not all bad. Parents naturally edit out the sleepless nights and the difficulty of parenting a newborn, and then go through it all over again. Disagreements between husbands and wives need to be edited out, or there would be an even higher rate of divorce. Loving your neighbor as yourself demands some editing.

What telephone wires do you edit out of your life?

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