Posts Tagged ‘writing

01
Jan
10

no drama in the new year

By Courtnay Leave a Comment
Categories: Personal
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The last couple of weeks have been incredibly hectic, with way too much chaos and drama, but in the way that hard times often do, the recent difficulties have shown me once again how truly blessed I am to be surrounded by family and friends that love and support me.  I know that no matter what, I have people that I can call on to cheer me up, listen to me vent, bounce ideas off, commiserate with, make me laugh, and just generally be there for me (as I would for them) and that means more to me than anything in the world.  I appreciate all of you more than you’ll ever know and I can only hope that I can even begin to repay everything you’ve done for me.

All in all, 2009 was a pretty good year for me.  Professionally, I’ve gotten to a place where I’m fairly satisfied: doing interesting contract work and also freelancing.  I just began working for a new company in November and I’m pleased with how that’s going so far.  I also began working on putting together some stories that I’d like to eventually compile in to a book, which has been something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time but haven’t actually done anything about so it felt good to actually take some first steps in that direction.  Knowing my tendency to procrastinate, I’m sure it will take quite a while for me to complete the project but at least it’s started, right?

My son started high school this year (I’m still sort of in shock about that) and is doing amazingly well.  My husband and I have had our ups and downs this year but we’ve gotten to a good place and I’m thankful for his love and support as well.  Yes, it’s been a good year.

Holcombe Waller released this song from his soon-to-be released album yesterday and, given all the circumstances, I thought it was especially appropriate.  It’s called “Risk of Change” and it’s available for free download on Holcombe’s site.

I don’t usually like to make New Year’s resolutions but I suppose if I was going to make one, it would be for less drama in the New Year.  There’s enough drama and chaos that we can’t control so I certainly don’t need to invite any extra drama in.  I wish the same for you as well.  Happy New Year and all best wishes for a drama-free 2010!

07
Oct
09

Back among the living

By Courtnay Leave a Comment
Categories: Personal
Tags: ,

I’ve spent the last several weeks in a self-absorbed fog, dealing with health issues, relationship troubles, job woes, and parenting challenges.  The only thing I’ve managed to stay consistently involved in is my continued and passionate advocacy of health care reform, which has taken me to town hall meetings, public forums, protests, and various other events – and despite my profound sadness and disappointment at the lack of humanity and compassion I’ve seen displayed by my fellow citizens on some of these occasions, I’ve also seen that although the loudest and the nastiest among us often get more airtime there really are more reasonable folks out there than there are town hall-disrupting crackpots.  If it weren’t for that fact, what I’ve seen would have left me absolutely bereft and hopeless.

Now that things in my life have settled down a bit and I have room to breathe once again, I’m back to my standard dilemma:  how best to arrange my life so that I can have a full and satisfying professional life while also maintaining my health.  It’s been five years since my chronic health issues made it necessary for me to leave a job that I loved but which was, quite literally, making me sick and since then, I’ve struggled to achieve a work-life balance that feels right.  For quite a while, I’ve been wanting to focus more on freelance writing and less on my piecemeal assemblage of contract work, which provides a reliable paycheck but very little in the way of personal satisfaction.  The bottom line is that contract work is getting me nowhere…at least not anywhere I want to go.  At the same time, contract work is a necessity at this point since I haven’t proven to be disciplined enough to earn as much as I need through writing alone.  I do think that if I can get focused and learn better time management skills, I should be able to slowly but steadily increase my writing income and therefore decrease my dependency on boring contract work.  That’s the goal anyway…now to see if I can actually manage to follow through.

26
Apr
09

Hiding in plain sight

By Courtnay Leave a Comment
Categories: Personal
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So the last few weeks have been really crappy:  I have been feeling worse than I have in ages, my husband and I haven’t been getting along, my son is being a pain in the ass, the house is a mess, the homeowner’s association is threatening to fine us over our “unkempt” yard, the list of reasons for my melancholy mood goes on and on.  Usually, when things aren’t going well in my life, I tend to just shut down – I start feeling overwhelmed and unable to cope so I end up spending much of my time sleeping in an attempt to avoid dealing with reality.  My waking hours are spent leafing through my dog-eared copy of “SCRAM: Relocating Under A New Identity” while day-dreaming about leaving everything behind and starting fresh somewhere in South America.  Needless to say, these haven’t been very effective coping strategies.

I’ve come to the realization that I haven’t been taking good enough care of myself and if I don’t start paying more attention to my own needs, I’m going to suffer a complete breakdown.  I don’t say this just for dramatic effect – I’ve found myself teetering on the edge of a breakdown on several occasions.  When I don’t feel well and my resources are limited, I spend all of my energy taking care of everyone else because I feel like a bad mother or a bad wife if I choose to do something for myself over doing something for my family.  It’s not that I enjoy playing the martyr, I just haven’t placed enough importance on my own needs and making sure that my family understands how meeting those needs impacts my overall well-being.  This needs to change immediately.  I’ve made some important decisions this weekend about changes I can make to give myself more time for the things that are important to me…now all I need to do is follow through and make sure it actually happens.

01
Mar
09

Running on empty

By Courtnay Leave a Comment
Categories: Personal
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For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been totally off schedule – awake all night and then catching up on sleep during the day.  This started before Ken went out of town on business but got much worse after he left…it was as if he took my temporal frame of reference with him.  Before all this, I had been accustomed to waking up with him at 4am and chatting a bit before he left for work, then returning to bed for a couple stolen hours of  sleep before waking again and truly starting my day.  This schedule worked fairly well for me and kept me adequately rested, which in turn led to a better overall sense of physical and emotional well-being.  All that has changed, however, and now I find myself wide awake night after night…then crashing mid-morning for several hours of much-needed sleep.  Part of me is desperate to get out of this cycle but another part of me strongly resists.  I feel more creative and productive during these all-night work sessions and when I return to a “normal” schedule, I feel as though I have lost something vitally important.  I do my best writing in the quiet early hours of the morning when everyone else is asleep and I don’t know how to harness that same creative energy during the day.  But this schedule takes a toll on me physically, often leaving me tired and irritable and more susceptible to the various aches and pains that sometimes overtake me.  Something has to give…I just can’t decide yet what it should be.

30
Jan
09

Catching up

By Courtnay Leave a Comment
Categories: Personal
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I have never been a fan of resolutions.  It has always seemed obvious to me that if you want to make some important changes in your life, the sooner you do it the better – there is certainly no reason to wait until the New Year!  That being said, there is something quite natural about viewing the New Year as an opportunity to start fresh – embark on new projects, explore new opportunities, embrace new possibilities, etc.   With that in mind, I spent some time today checking out various online resources for freelancers.  I signed up with a few new sites and will report on which I find to be the most helpful.  I also finally got around to creating a profile on LinkedIn.  I have quite a few ideas for various projects I would like to work on so I am trying to come up with a schedule to help me stay focused and on track.   So far, I am feeling pretty good about 2009.

29
Jan
09

A fresh start

By Courtnay Leave a Comment
Categories: Personal
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Me

Me

Welcome to my new blog!  It has been quite a while since I last maintained a personal site of any kind but I feel like I am now ready to embark on such a project again.  I’ve been quite active on Facebook and Twitter recently and while I enjoy my interactions in those environments, I feel like maintaining my own blog will be a natural complement to my other online activities.  I intend for this blog to be a place where I can share information about a wide variety of topics that are of interest to me:  writing, working from home, education, parenting, health, wellness, politics, pop culture, music, travel and more.  I have big plans for this blog so come back soon and check out my progress!  I appreciate feedback so feel free to email me with your comments or questions.

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