To write or not to write

OMG! I almost forgot to blog today! This new schedule is going to take some getting used to.

I've basically had no schedule this week, especially since I decided to no longer do a daily blog. The first three nights this week, I had to actually remind myself to not blog. I thought this would help me get other things done, like my book perhaps. Not so much.

I like to write, really I do, but lately it's just been so hard to sit down and work on it. The frustrating part is that I am SO close to finishing! I probably only have about 70 pages to go! I even managed to bang out 2 chapters during the road trip! I totally thought I'd be able to get at least another chapter done this week. I've only managed to write a paltry 4 pages. I sometimes wonder if I should set a specific schedule for myself, like I'm gonna work on my book from this time to this time every day, but I don't want it to become a chore. Plus, I highly doubt I'd be able to stick to a schedule like that.

Hopefully, when school starts and I get back on some kind of schedule, I'll actually start writing again. It's kind of ironic, but I think that's how it's gonna work. I'm starting to wonder if the book is God's plan for getting me out of debt. Wouldn't that be cool!

Day 372 (The Day After)

So, it's the day after the road trip. We went far! I'm not sure exactly how many miles I put on poor Hammie, but it was over 10,000 miles. Here is the basic route we took, courtesy of my friend Carly:

It was weird being home after over 2 months on the road. I hardly knew what to do with myself. I finally watched the Joan of Arcadia DVD that I've been waiting to watch for all this time and I had some good catching up time with some friends. I have a week left here before I need to head back to school and I'm hoping to make some good headway on my book before then. In that vein, since I've been doing this blog once a day, every day, I think it's time to change the format. While I've enjoyed doing the blog, it's kind of morphed into something I didn't expect it too. It's kind of been taking over my life in that everything I do, I'm always analyzing it in terms of, "Does this need to go into the blog? Would people think this is interesting? I need to get some good pictures for the blog." It's like I'm always kind of removed from the situation because I'm behaving more as an observer than a participant.

So, I've decided that from now on, until it changes, this will be a weekly blog. I will make it part of my Saturday Sabbath, more of introspective on the week rather than a report on things that have been going on. We'll see how it works. Bye for now, see you on Saturday!

Day 371 (Gem Mining)

Last day of the road trip, which also happens to be my birthday! My family and I went to a tourmaline mine in Pala, CA to try to find some precious gems.

Here's my loot! The people there told me that the big pink one in the upper right is worth $40.00 to $50.00!

PICTURE OF tHE DAY: My dad found a really nice one, too! His is on the left. Raw like this, we were told it's worth about $100.00. If he gets it cut right, it could be worth over $700.00!!! Holy Moly!!!

Day 370 (San Diego Zoo)

It was so great hanging out with my family today; I always have so much fun with them. As planned, we went to the San Diego Zoo today. What was unplanned was the long walk to get there. My mom and I had explored the area around the zoo yesterday, and we assumed that it was somewhere nearby, so we just drove to the same parking lot that we went to yesterday. It wasn't all that far, but the zoo was at the opposite end of the complex, almost a mile away, with its own parking lot. We didn't figure this out until we were at the halfway point, so we ended up walking there. We also ended up eating way too much food today, so it was probably a good thing we had to walk so much. Here are the pictures I took on our way there.

From left to right: my dad, my nephew Raj, my brother James, my nephew Kai and my brother Brian.

And of course, pictures of the animals:

From left to right: my dad, my mom, my brother James, my sister Dianne, my newphew Kai.

PICTURE OF THE DAY: This is a happy hippo.