Verbal Crayon

I’ve always said that I’m better in writing, but I guess I do both pretty well. In the first year of the mentoring group you may have heard me talk about before, we decided at one point that each of us had a kind of super power. We gave each other nicknames to reflect our powers, some of which were cooler than others, I thought, but they were all pretty spot-on descriptors. They told me I was a verbal crayon because I was able to communicate with words in such a colorful, fun, beautiful way. They were so kind.

You guys have also been so kind. Thank you for your sweet words of encouragement as I process grief, loss, fear, anxiety, terrible sadness, hope, anger, guilt, pain, and love right out in the open in front of God and everybody. I don’t know what possessed me to write all of this in public and not in my own private journal (because the writing process is the same, and it’s therapeutic either way), but I’m glad I did. So many of you have told me that my words have been helpful to you, or that you think they might be helpful for someone you love. One friend who is a nurse even asked permission to refer patients to these words now and then. And y’all, I am honored and give permission freely to all of you to tell anyone and everyone about my silly little blog.

If you send someone to me please tell them – and if you’ve arrived here looking for support, help, strength, or encouragement after a miscarriage – 4 things:

  1. I’m so sorry. Losing a baby is awful, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone ever.
  2. All are welcome here. All are respected. All are loved.
  3. If you find things here that don’t help, just skip them. Come back to them later or just write them off forever. I’ve read so many well-intentioned things in the past month that have only left me in tears of frustration, anger, and hurt because I’m just not in the right place to receive those words. I may revisit them in two years and find that they ring true, or I may never go back to them at all. But right now, if they aren’t for me, they aren’t for me. The same goes for my words and you. If they aren’t for you, that’s ok.
  4. But if you find anything that helps, anything that brings hope, or anything that just makes you feel less alone, then I am so glad that I chose to process my pain in public.

Nothing will ever make losing a baby ok, but if anything I say about it helps someone else, then I feel like my daughter has a purpose, that she’s contributing to the world, that she’s working for hope and redemption, that she’s someone I can be incredibly proud of, and that she’s not entirely lost.

NaBloPoMo Table of Contents – September 2014

As I was scrolling through Facebook this morning, I saw a post from BlogHer about September’s NaBloPoMo. For those of you who don’t know, NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) is a challenge for bloggers to post daily. The official, annual challenge is usually in November, but you can do it any month, and each month has a different theme. Since September’s theme is healing, I thought now would be a good time to join in.

This is kind of a huge undertaking for me, but BlogHer provides daily prompts that you can use (or not). Since the theme of healing was chosen largely based on the recent events in Ferguson, MO (and the media coverage of those events), I’m going to use some of them, but since I’m focusing on my own healing process, I’m changing others to suit my needs.

As I post each one, I’ll try to remember to link to it from here so that this post will serve as a sort of table of contents.

Monday, September 1, 2014
Do you find it more helpful to talk things out or to let things quietly rest?

Tuesday, September 2, 2014
How do you communicate best? Speaking or writing?

Wednesday, September 3, 2014
What is the most helpful advice you’ve received (heard/seen/read) since your miscarriage?

Thursday, September 4, 2014
Why do you think it is so difficult for people to talk about miscarriage/stillbirth/infertility? PPROM

Friday, September 5, 2014
Tell us about your comfort foods.

Monday, September 8, 2014
Do you give yourself time to heal, or do you keep making yourself move forward?

Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Write a poem about your loss/grief.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Tell us the methods you use to get through a disappointment.

Thursday, September 11, 2014
What is the hardest stage for you in Kübler-Ross’s model of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, or acceptance?

Friday, September 12, 2014
Have you ever been scared to let go of your grief?

Monday, September 15, 2014
Do you believe that time heals all wounds?

Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Rumi said that a wound is where the light enters you. Discuss this idea.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Name five things that heal your soul.

Thursday, September 18, 2014
What are you the most sad about?

Friday, September 19, 2014
Tell us about your best friend.

Monday, September 22, 2014
If you had to make a mixtape of healing songs for someone, what would you include?

Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Tell us about the best movie to bring on a cleansing cry.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Do you think it is possible to heal on our own, or do we always need to reach out for the comfort of other people in order to fully heal?

Thursday, September 25, 2014
Ella’s Story

Friday, September 26, 2014
Is laughter really the best medicine?

Monday, September 29, 2014
How do you get through anger?

Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Make a commitment to give yourself an hour of undivided self-attention this week, and tell us how you’re going to use that time.

Addendum OR Getting a Taste of My Own Medicine

My husband and I are both writers. He writes fiction; I write non-fiction. We would both love to be able to make enough money with our writing to just do that all the time. I mean, who wouldn’t want to work from home in their jabambas, saving money on gas and car maintenance, and saving sanity by not having to drive on I-40 every day? Currently, however, neither of us is makingany money on writing projects, so we both have “real” jobs. To be fair to our “real” jobs, it’s important to note that we both like them. I actually love mine and would probably miss it if I quit entirely, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

My point is this…

After months and months of saying he wanted to finally write his freaking novel already, and after many conversations wherein I told him it would be hard, but he just needed to suck it up and make it happen if that was what he wanted, he is making progress. Since we got back from our honeymoon, the dude has been getting up at 6:30 every morning to write. I don’t know how he does that, but I couldn’t be prouder. Even on mornings when his brain can’t wake up enough to write anything before his writing time is up, he’s still doing more than I am.

So last night, when I was saying I also wanted to do more writing, I don’t know why I was surprised to hear my own advice coming back at me.

  • You just have to make time for it and stick to your schedule. No procrastinating.
  • A little bit at a time is ok. Every little bit counts.
  • So if your book needs to be 60,000 words, you break it up into, say, 20 chapters, and then you just write 2,000-4,000-word chapters.

Friends, I’m here today to tell you the eleventh thing that changes after you get married: Your spouse picks things up from you and uses them. It’s like a mirror. You give advice, and you get it back. You give encouragement, and you get it back. You say a certain word or phrase all the time, and you’ll start hearing it come out of his mouth. This is potentially dangerous, but it’s also potentially amazing, and y’all are smart enough to understand what I mean by that, so I won’t explain it any further. I’m just going to go ahead and count this instance as amazing.

This productivity is wearing me out.

Well, it’s been a very productive few days full of fun, friends, surprise visits and getting things done. Rock-o-Ween was a huge success. The only thing that didn’t happen the way I wanted was that my hair didn’t turn blond despite the fact that I left the dye on it for at least a full ten minutes longer than I was supposed to. Oh well. I think the costume worked anyway.

Yesterday was beautiful, and I got to hang out with two out-of-town friends. I also got a lot of work done and did my weekly grocery shopping. BOOM. Productive.

Today, I figured out how to change the light bulb in my headlights. I also got my oil changed and my tires rotated. Now I’m blogging. See? Productivity. But the big news is that L-Josh and I registered for the 1/2 marathon yesterday!!!

So the race is ours to run, and now we just have to prepare for it.

Busy Is Good (Mostly)

Whew, y’all. This week has just been non-stop so far. On Monday, I taught until 1:00, and then I went immediately over to the main ESL site to prepare for and lead a training that afternoon. All of Wake Tech’s ESL sites have blogs, see, and each site has a blogger who publishes two posts a week about lessons or community events. They’re doing a great job of it, but a lot of them are fairly new to blogging in general, and the whole system just switched from Blogger to WordPress, and they had a lot of questions about how to use it. I am apparently an expert, so I gave them the answers. Well, a lot of them.

Anyhoe, I left there around 6:00 and then had Community Group at 7, so I went home for a few minutes before heading out again.

Then yesterday, I taught until 3:15, came home, planned my lesson for today, picked a chapter to read at my writing group, ran to Kinkos to make copies, and then went to the group at 7.

And today, I taught until 1:00, had a meeting at 1:30 that lasted until about 3, ate freshly baked apple pie over at my sister’s house, and now I’ve just gotten home. I have about 2.5 hours to prepare for tomorrow’s classes before I have to go to work again tonight. Like I said, whew.

I don’t think I have any plans or obligations after class tomorrow, so that’s nice, and honestly, it’s been a really good week. Being busy helps to keep me on top of things. I just haven’t had time to spend with you guys or go running, which is a shame. I’m definitely going to have to start over on Week 4. I’m ok with that, though. I’m not in a hurry, and I know I’ll get there eventually.

I know this is not a very exciting post, so allow me to share with you this video that was brought to my attention last night by G.Lover (and KimSko). It pleases me greatly. I hope it does the same for you.

Making (Bad?) Choices

Here are my daytime options for the next two weeks:

A) Work my butt off writing two articles a day so I won’t have to eat canned beans and spaghetti for the next month.
B) Hang out with friends I’m not going to get to see much after I move.

I have chosen to hang out with friends more and work less. I know that’s the stupid thing to do financially, but it just feels like the right decision. So on Wednesday I had breakfast downtown and hung out with my friend Michelle. Then I made Eden the best mix of music I’ve ever put together for her birthday.

And today I went hiking and played in a river with some friends and their kids, and although I came home in the early afternoon to do work, no work has been done because I haven’t blogged in like two days, and y’all deserve some quality time too.

By the way, I’m working on what I hope will be a really good blog post that my boyfriend Don will read and then fly me out to Portland for a weekend in September. It has to be really good, though. So that’s why I’m working on it extra. I know his love for me isn’t supposed to be based on the quality of my blog, but hey, nobody’s perfect. I judge him based on his hats anyway, so I think we’re even.

Aaaaaand now I’m off to do some research. Stay tuned for more fabulousness coming your way real soon!

Back to the Questions

Well good golly, I had completely forgotten about my formspring page until I was notified earlier today that someone had asked me a question. And let me just tell you, it’s a doozy. We have to get through several more, however, before that one can have its turn. So let’s start where we left off, shall we?

We all know the moon is not made of green cheese, but what if it was made of spare ribs? Would you eat it then? Heck, I know I would – I’d have seconds and then wash it down with a nice, cool Budweiser.

Well, Harry Caray, it appears as though you’ve forgotten at least one thing about me, and that is that I don’t eat spare ribs. I wouldn’t eat green cheese either, and as I’m sure you are well aware, I don’t like beer. If you were not aware of that, now you are. I also don’t like coffee.

Now let me ask you a question. Would you rather be the top scientist in your field or have mad cow disease?

The next “question” isn’t really question at all. In fact, I’m not sure it’s even a complete thought. It just says:

your first

I’ll be honest. I’m not really sure what you’re going for here, and I really don’t remember a lot of my firsts, but I’ll make a list and hope it meets with your approval. Let’s go with alphabetical, yeah?

My first…

  • apartment – Junior year of college in an apartment complex called Pirate’s Cove. Becky, Faith and Nicole were my roommates. Ask me how I damaged the coffee table.
  • boyfriend – Brandon Inscore. We dated for about a year in high school, and we absolutely were NOT making out at the bottom of the stairs after the prom in ’97 when my mom snarled at us.
  • car – A light blue Toyota Corolla named Gloria the Disco Queen. Yes, that was her whole name.
  • date – With Brandon. I’m pretty sure we went to Wendy’s and a high school basketball game. Tres romantique!
  • email address – besufern@aol.com. Don’t try it. It no longer exists.
  • friend – I don’t know. Probably someone at church? There’s a great picture somewhere of me and 3 other kids in our 3-year-old Sunday school class. I went to 2 of their weddings in the past few years, and I go to all of the other one’s concerts when I can.
  • gynecologist visit – Don’t worry, guys, I won’t gross you out. I’ll just say that when she asked me what sort of contraception I was using, I told her abstinence. She asked me how long I thought that would last, and I said, “Until I get married.” She laughed at me and said, “Yeah we’ll see about that.”
  • hair color experience – I started out with the temporary stuff, back when they still made level 1 color that would wash out in a week. I’ve dyed it so many times now, I don’t remember the first one. But it was probably red, and Jeani was probably involved.
  • iPod – I bought it in NYC, in the SoHo Apple Store, just before I ran off to Europe for the first time, in 2004. I just bought my second one last summer.
  • job – If babysitting counts, then that’s what it was. But if we’re talking about work for which I was paid and then later received a W-2, then that would be Caswell.
  • knitting project – My grandmother taught me to knit when I was a kid. I have no idea how to start or finish a knitting project, but I can actually work those needles. In fact, in middle school, I played Beth in a drama class production of Little Women. In one scene, I sat by the fire, knitting. People were amazed by how real it looked. But alas, I don’t think I’ve ever actually finished a knitting project.
  • lemonade stand – I think it was with Rebecca Booi. Her house was in a great spot, right at an intersection.
  • musical – When I was in maybe 4th grade, my sisters and I got the soundtrack of The Phantom of the Opera on double cassette tape. We LOVED it, and the next year, we all went to New York for Thanksgiving and saw it on Broadway. So to all of you who have been (and will be) subjected to my random musical outbursts, you can thank my parents for getting me hooked early.
  • NYC apartment – It was graduate housing, which meant a shared studio with a Taiwanese Canadian named Lily Lu. It was in an unbelievably amazing location that made taxi drivers jealous, but I’m still paying for it.
  • origami – It might not have been my first, but I made literally hundreds of paper cranes in high school. What? I was the president of the Japanese club.
  • pet – I had a fish in high school named Chip. He was more than just decoration to me.
  • quadratic equation mnemonic device – It was to the tune of Frère Jacques and went like this: Minus b, minus b / plus or minus root, plus or minus root / b squared minus 4 ac, b squared minus 4 ac / over 2 a, over 2 a. BAM. Still got it. I have no idea what you use the quadratic equation for any more, but that’s how it goes. Music, check. Math, not so much.
  • rifle – No, I’ve never owned a rifle, but I sho nuff did learn to shoot one at Camp Cheerio when I was 10 years old. That was perhaps the unsung verse of the Cheerio Girl song (get me to sing it for you some time).
  • second language – I have a really vague memory of taking French classes when I was very young. Did I just make that up? Specifically, I remember a “cultural lesson” wherein we were expected to eat escargot, and I almost vomited.
  • trip outside of the U.S. and its territories – Honduras, 2002
  • UFO sighting – I’ve never actually seen one, but one Christmas at my grandparents’ house, we could have sworn Santa was on the roof with aliens, burping.
  • vote – I know several people who will be very upset with me for this, but I had never voted until the most recent presidential election. I plan on voting from now on, though.
  • wedding – Not MY first wedding, of course, but the first one I attended. And I have no idea. Someone in the family? An aunt and uncle, perhaps?
  • xylophone? – It is very late, and these letters are getting harder. I remember having one of those rolling xylophones as a kid with the mallet underneath that see-sawed as you pulled it, striking the same two bars over and over again. I learned to play “Do-Re-Mi” on that thing.
  • YouTube video – Has not yet been made, I told you. Sheesh. Give it a rest already.
  • Zumba class – Also has sadly not yet happened. But it will. Oh…it will.

Well that was fun! And exhausting. I’m going to bed. Join me again tomorrow for more blogging fun!

Sharing the Love

My virtual friend Elaine just nominated me for a Versatile Blogger Award. Thanks, Elaine!! We’ve never met, but I’m totally joining her writing group when I get back to Raleigh as I’m 99.8% sure that my schedule will allow it. I’m not sure why she only nominated me for the award instead of just giving it to me. I mean, it’s not like there’s a committee somewhere voting on the matter. So what am I going to do? I’m going to AWARD Versatile Blogger Awards to some people. Yeah that’s right. I’m just handing them out. And I’m claiming mine while I’m at it, and yours too, Elaine. Because I think we’re all winners.

The way this thing works, see, is I have to tell you 7 things about myself that you don’t already know, and then I can give the award to up to 15 other bloggers (Technically I’m supposed to nominate them, but whatever. I AM the committee). Then I’ll notify them that they’ve won, and they can join the committee and give the award to 15 of their own peeps. Word. So here we go with yet another list of things about me…

  1. I have never eaten steak.
  2. I still know all the words to “Ice Ice Baby.”
  3. I wash my pillow cases more often than my sheets because (a) clean pillow cases keep my face from breaking out as much, and (b) I’m lazy.
  4. I have 3 shirts featuring pictures of my former/future boss, Dan. I’m wearing one right now.
  5. I always wear undies. A bra is optional with some outfits.
  6. To my knowledge, I do not appear in any YouTube videos.
  7. All my cars have been Toyotas.

And now for the awarding. You know, guys, we used to just call this an activity, and we tagged other people to play along. Do we really have to “win” something now to have a little fun on the Worldwide Interweb Net? Ok fine, but if you accept this award, you have to link back to me and act REALLY excited about it all. Ok? Ok.

And the Versatile Blogger Award goes to…

I chose these blogs because they are the best of the ones I’ve discovered the most recently. And also, even if they don’t participate in the game…uh, I mean very serious award giving…I think that they will at least not find it completely lame. And I can notify them all via twitter. Hooray!

Congratulations, y’all! I look forward to reading your random information!

Questions I Don’t Know How to Answer

Today’s first question is this:

Gain? Really, your reader demographic skews towards ads for Gain?

And my best answer is…Yes?

I honestly have no idea how my ads work. I don’t know if my reader demographic skews toward ads for cleaning supplies, or if BlogHer just has an agreement with all their advertisers to give equal time to all the products, or time commensurate with the amount of money that advertiser has paid to be a part of the BlogHer advertising network. I don’t know. I would guess, however, that the reader demographic of the entire BlogHerAds network skews in that direction, and that’s how I got ads for Gain on my site.

The next question is this:

Presuming you had a totem animal what would it be? And would this differ depending on whether you or the animal chose this relationship?

Do you mean to imply that there is a parallel universe somewhere in which animals are making totem poles of people, and an animal could choose me as its totem human? Because that’s AWESOME! Or that in this universe, animal guidance counselors are asking animal high school students inane personality test questions like “If you could be a human, which human would you be?” and the animal teenagers are thinking, “I’d be Beth,” and then justifying their answers?

I love this.

Now. I have no idea which animal(s) would choose to be me, but I think I would have to be an owl. According to this website, the owl represents deception, clairvoyance and insight. It is also a messenger. I don’t know about deception or clairvoyance, but as a writer, I fancy myself an insightful messenger. Maybe if I’m writing fiction, I could fit deception in there…or when I’m ripping off Paula Abdul.

I chose the owl, however, because of the questions for consideration asked here (and listed below).

  • Have you ever felt drawn to one animal or another without being able to explain why? This could be animal, including birds and insects.
  • Does a certain kind of animal consistently appear in your life? This doesn’t necessarily have to be a physical appearance, it could be represented in other ways such as receiving card and letters with the same animal pictured over and over, unexplainable dreams of a particular animal, watching television and seeing the same animal featured time and time again, or, actually having the animal show up.
  • When you go to the zoo, a park, wildlife area, or forest, what are you most interested in seeing?
  • Are there any animals that you find to be extremely frightening or intriguing?
  • Is there a particular animal that you see frequently when you’re out in nature?
  • Have you ever been bitten or attacked by an animal?
  • Have you ever had a recurring dream about a certain animal, or a dream from childhood that you have never been able to forget?
  • Are you drawn to figurines or paintings of a specific animal?

I have had a small obsession with owls since the fall (The fall of 2009, not the fall of man). I find myself drawing them, thinking about ways to create art that includes them, wanting to make appliquès of them for bags and jean pockets, etc. I see them everywhere – not necessarily real ones, but you know, on clothes and note cards and jewelry and things. And as you know, I have an irrational fear of birds. So while, in choosing my totem animal, I might be inclined to choose an animal that represents characteristics I think I have or hope to have one day, it seems that the owl is my animal.

Hey wait. Does that mean that the owl has chosen me? Do I need to choose a different animal now? Nah, I like the owl. So I guess to answer your question, no, there would be no difference no matter which of us did the choosing (me or the owl).

Getting to Know YOU

Oh. Four words, and I feel a song coming on. Getting to knooooow yooouuuuu! Getting to know allll abooouuuut yoooouuuu. Getting to liiiiiiiiiiiike yooooooouuuuuuu! Getting to hope you like meeeeeeee. Dangit. Now I have to get up and dance around the living room. Please hold.

Ok. That’s better. Y’all. I feel bad. I’ve been rambling on about myself for six years, and never once have I asked you to tell me a bit more about yourself. You’ve had the opportunity, sure, but you are sweet and unpresumptuous people, and you didn’t want to use MY blog to talk about yourselves. Well, it is high time you did. And I’m going to do this regularly because I want to know who you are.

Just leave me a comment answering the following 3 questions:

  1. What is your go-to late night snack food?
  2. Where is the next place you’d like to (or plan to) travel?
  3. Would you rather (a) travel around in the shirt pocket of a very sweaty giant, or (b) always be on a horse? Why?