Cider Bar Rules (And A Flashback)

My favorite thing to do right now is drink a cider with my twin. Luckily, I did this very thing last night.

cider time

While drinking a cider at a bar with your sister and best friends, here are the rules:

Laugh and cause a ruckus.

Eat an entire gluten free pizza in the process, because that rarely happens. ;)

Don’t think about life and don’t get serious. Save that for later.

I’ve been pondering life lately, which could sound deep and profound, but usually it’s small little thoughts that don’t amount to much. Like:

“Why did I say _____?”

“What do I feel about ____?”

“Why does ______ affect me this way?”

“When ____ said ____ I felt ___. WHY?”

“What am I doing?”

Your typical, run of the mill life questions.

I recently had a conversation with a friend about life changing moments. We both agreed that people can change quickly. I said, “An entire lifetime can happen in one day.” By that I mean, something so profound can happen that changes you forever.

You can age, so so much, in one day.

You can suddenly feel younger.

Your opinions can change, your entire outlook on life. Not even in a day, but sometimes in just one moment. All it takes is the perfect sentence to be read or heard… all it takes is a look in someone’s eye or a feeling of being cared for or something to strike you as so sad and horrible that a part of you is stuck in that experience forever and you now live life … just… differently.

I have been thinking about this a lot. I have been wondering who I was one year ago. Sometimes I don’t recognize myself and rarely do I want to go back, but sometimes I sit and ponder why I wrote what I wrote, why I said what I said, and ultimately, how was I justifying my actions?

Then I did something I rarely do (because once I write something, I have a bad habit of never wanting to read it again… unless it’s a manuscript that still needs work, which is all of them right now) and I looked at what I was writing here on Hey Lou Writes almost exactly a year ago. The closest date was December 8th. Close enough, right?

Me on Dec. 8, 2012.

one year ago

How I feel NOW: (and my current FB profile pic, haha)

pensive?

Do I look older? Wiser? Is anything in a photograph real?

Here’s a link to that older post. I want to share it because it seems to be coming from a different version of Lou. Though I remember writing this post well, I am also baffled as to how I was that person. I can no longer stay up so late without some serious consequences (aka, being really tired.) I still carry around the same journal and others, but my notes are much more sporatic.

But I’m still having Too Many Thoughts.

I still love the Rumi quote. I still am haunted by a memory monster.

Yet I am a completely different person in so many ways, it’s hard to know where to start.

If you take a look at the post from a year ago, I’d love to know what you think. Did you change as much as I did?

Is there a moment (or a more than one) in your life that changed you for good? Has a lifetime happened in one day?

Let me know if I’m not alone…..

Love, Lou

Wake Up Time: 4:45

That’s AM folks.

I don’t necessarily have to wake up that early. I could scrape by with waking up around 5:50, rushing around, and being out the door by 6:10.

But I love my morning routine. LOVE it. So therefore, I have been going to bed around 9:30 or 10.

BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT REAL FARMERS DO!! Guess what? I am trying to become a real farmer. That’s what this new internship is all about. 

However, this post is mostly just about how early I’ve been waking up. Can I tell you a secret? I love it. There’s something special and wonderful about being up before the first crack of dawn. I love driving to work when the sunrise begins and watching it complete itself once I am there. I love the crisp morning air that requires an extra layer of clothing. I recently figured out how to make coffee (almost) as well as Greg does, so that’s good too. Great guy, woke up with me one time last week and fell back asleep after I left. I am not that crazy of a wife that I’d make him wake up at 4:45 every day. That’s my prerogative right now, not his.

When a person wakes up that early, the world is at his or her fingertips. I mean, I have never been so productive. I already looked at my favorite blogs, I already spent time watching the youtube video of Miley Cyrus and her awful, I repeat, awful, performance. Since I don’t have a TV, I only knew about her craziness via facebook. I guess I could say some time is wasted if you wake up so early in the morning. My time was definitely wasted, but then I stopped wasting it as soon as Robin Thicke appeared on stage and I hit the X button. BOO. I had my first real feminist moment when I watched his music video for Blurred Lines and saw boobs all over the place. Please.

When I first went to bed at 9:30 it felt so weird. Because I LITERALLY (Amanda!) had not gone to bed that early in years. I’m more of a midnight to 1AM type person… I drink coffee around 8 PM… I stay up writing/reading. Here I am, finishing books before work. Typing up a blog before work. It’s a new thing.

Just an update on what I’m reading:

SHE’S COME UNDONE by Wally Lamb

And I am loving it. It’s great. Nice and depressing, just the way a good book should be. I fell in love with Wally Lamb when I read I Know This Much Is True about the twin brothers. You should definitely read some Lamb sometime soon. It’s of the life changing variety.

Also, another update:

I will be posting a vlog soon. Partly because I loved The Lady Okie’s vlog so much. Partly because she tagged me in her vlog post and now I feel some pressure. And partly because I am up for the challenge! I hate my voice when it’s on any sort of recording, but I’ll look past it. I will probably take you around the backyard to meet the chickens. Who knows.

Good morning, everyone. Hope you have a wonderful day!

Love,

Lou, The Early Riser

Tear Down to Build Up

Some thoughts recently:

Even though this got me down, I realized that all I needed to do was refocus. I got rejected. So what. I’m a writer and that’s part of the process.

I hate to admit that the taste of success, followed by the rejection, really did affect me. I haven’t written nearly as much as I should have. Plus, with that Blog Every Day In May Challenge… I was giving all of my focus to the blog, and very little to my fiction/short story/novel writing. I realized I had to start over. I had to just let things go…. I had to stop, drop, and sit back and relax. I took a short blog break. I took a sort-of writing break altogether, but I’m back in action.

During that time I:

Chopped off all of my hair. It’s one of the most refreshing, liberating, and confidence-boosting things I’ve ever chosen to do. Yay!

I’m loving it.

me and mah books

 

Began a new book. It’s very personal in some ways, and just the book I’d like to pick up and read (which they say is the way to do it, so, yay again!) Some parts have been difficult to write, & I am finding myself writing out plot lines, character details, and chapter by chapter notes for the first time. I think this is a good sign. (though it’s by no means super organized. Read here about why that is.) I’ve had fun making up the (tragic) scenarios, because although the book might feel personal, it is very different from the life I live. That’s the beauty of a book. You never know what lead the author to writing it, what he or she took from real life, and what came from simply listening to a song. Ahhhh, the beauty of secrets.

I’ll never be completely organized, but this is a start!

I got a new job!!! Well, internship. I gave my two weeks at the bakery (which is really almost a month, since this starts in mid-august), and starting soon I will be interning (full time!) with Skarsgard Farms here in Albuquerque. I am SO EXCITED and SO READY to take on a new challenge. (Come visit me at the market!)

This will be me, not just at home, but at work:

out in the garden

Those are the highlights of the changes in my life.

Oh, and I also thought I’d be giving you all a summer reading list update every Sunday. I realized that goal was a little too burdensome for me. Now, I’ll just be doing those at random. But don’t think I’ve been slacking off, either. I finished two books in the last two weeks, I’m reading two right now, and I still have two more for book club. (Ask me how I have so much time to read, and we’ll have a real conversation, oh boy!)

I have been relating to a poem of Rumi’s lately, so I’ll leave you with that. Maybe it’ll speak to you in the same way.

The Pickaxe

Rumi

Some commentary on I was a hidden treasure,

and I desired to be known: tear down

this house. A hundred thousand new houses

can be built from the transparent yellow carnelian

buried beneath it, and the only way to get to that

is to do the work of demolishing and then

digging beneath the foundations. With that value

in hand all the new construction will be done

without effort. And anyway, sooner or later this house

will fall on its own. The jewel treasure will be

uncovered, but it will not be yours then. The buried

wealth is your pay for doing the demolition,

the pick and shovel work. If you wait and just

let it happen, you’d bite your hand and say,

“I didn’t do as I knew I should have.” This

is a rented house. You don’t own the deed.

You have a lease, and you’ve set up a little shop,

where you barely make a living sewing patches

on torn clothing. Yet only a few feet underneath

are two veins, pure red and bright gold carnelian.

Quick! Take the pickaxe and pry the foundation.

You’ve got to quit this seamstress work.

What does the patch sewing mean, you ask. Eating

and drinking. The heavy cloak of the body

is always getting torn. You patch it with food,

and other restless ego-satisfactions. Rip up

one board from the shop floor and look into

the basement. You’ll see two glints in the dirt.

~~~

Maybe you need to tear down your house, like I did, and find something that works. Make a big change. Take a portion of your life and start over. Good luck!

Love, Lou

 

The Best of the Best

 Blog Every Day In May Challenge

Day 21, Tuesday: A list of links to your favorite posts in your archives

lou and lou

I know you are all probably dying to know about my hippy weekend. But alas, I’m still waiting on some pictures from my sister. I don’t have a camera at the moment, or a smart phone, so I’ll just have to wait. (and so will you)

In the meantime, this challenge allows me for sort of an easy day. However, I have spent a lot of time on my favorite blogs (the best of the best, in my humble opinion), and I HOPE beyond hope that you will take a look at them.

I’d also be honored :)

Blogs:

It’s Official- We Are Parents

Lou’s Really Good At…

Things I {Hate To} Love

Gone Girl, Marriage, And Being Cool

Confidence, Truly

Short Stories:

Proud Mothers

APPEAL

I Looked Over Jordan

Poetry:

Fare Thee Well

Just Exactly

It Was Life

LOVE, Lou

 

A Recap and a Teaser

Day 19, Sunday: Five of your favorite blogs and what you love about them

PLEASE go look at this post of mine, about three amazing and talented women and their blogs:

The Lady Okie

JenEric Generation

Olive Me Post

There, you will find links to my all time favorite posts of theirs, as well as little snippets on why I heart them so much. My feelings have not changed :)

Stay tuned…

for tomorrow…

you will find out WHY Greg and I were dancing yesterday with tie dye and hippes and bangos surrounding us! 

fun, fun, fun… peace and love, man

Love, Lou