Well, maybe it’s not that exciting, but I sure have been thinking about it lately.  I’m updating my work website, and on the “About Me” page (because everyone wants to know about me!) I am adding a link to this personal blog.  It’s a little scary.  It’s a little weird.  It’s…well, it’s the Internet, I guess.

I tend to be a bit goofier here than on my work website – which you would expect, I guess, so forgive me if I act silly here in my little corner of the Internet.  I promise I’ll get serious when I’m working on your manuscript!  And as a proofreader, I hereby declare this to be a judgement free zone (by which I mean, don’t judge me by my grammar and typos!)  This is supposed to be fun and, despite my best efforts, I will make errors.  Just remember – I can’t write for crap (or maybe my writing is crap) and I don’t have aspirations to be the next Stephen King (or Theresa Ragan).   I just want to make all my authors shine.  (Almost sounds like Agnes Nixon’s poem The Great and the Least, The Rich and the Poor, The Weak and the Strong, In Sickness and in Health, In Joy and Sorrow, In Tragedy and Triumph, You are ALL MY CHILDREN, doesn’t it?) (Ok, maybe not.)

It’s that time of year again – back to school.  The Boy is firmly ensconced in the dorm, with only one item he “forgot” to bring (a rug, which is really pretty good considering he could have forgotten his pillows and blankets – AGAIN).  He got to move in early as he is a Facilitator.  Basically, he helps out the freshman class get around campus and learn about the school.

His dorm is in the middle of campus this year, so he’s right in the thick of things.  There’s no parking lot in front of his building, but other than that, it is a much nicer setup compared with last year.  He’s got a room to himself, with two other guys next door, and a shared bathroom with three other guys on the other side of him.  He and some friends signed up together, so he’s pretty happy with the arrangement.  His GF is one floor below him, so it makes hanging out with her easy.

And I am proud to note that I hardly cried.  I teared up a bit when he hugged me goodbye and then The Hubby had me crying as we drove away.  He’s awesome that way.

I hope your back to school experiences go well this year, whether it’s a first timer going off to kindergarten or a seasoned middle schooler ready to rule the school.

So, the last month or so has been rather interesting.  And by interesting I mean challenging.

A few weeks back, my mom slipped on some wet grass (no goats were involved in this story).  She thought maybe she sprained it and decided to keep off it, but the pain never really got better.  After a few days, she gave in and went for an x-ray.  Yup – broken ankle.  Six weeks of a cast before they took another x-ray to see if it was healing enough to put on a walking cast or if she needed the regular cast a bit longer.

So my dad basically had to take over farm duties that she typically did on a daily basis.  Seven (well, actually there were eight before he sold one) goats.  Two sheep.  Ten chickens.  Two ducks.  Various amounts of barn cats.  All of them want to be be fed and watered on a DAILY basis (imagine that!).

My parents live in an old house.  We are talking 1790’s, not 1990’s here.  It’s been in the family since it was built.  And do you know what happens when houses get handed down from generation to generation?  They leave their stuff, and new stuff comes in.  Then they leave all that stuff, and newer stuff comes in.  Starting to get the picture?  It’s crowded in the house.  So much so that it is difficult to walk in the house without bumping into something.

Which, of course, makes life difficult on crutches.

I am a slow thinker sometimes.  It took me three weeks to figure out my mom needed help getting around.  As I had a break in book assignments/jobs, I offered to help her widen the pathways from the dining room to her bedroom (which is, thankfully, only a few rooms away on the ground floor).  I was determined to get her bathroom back in shape so she could use the handicapped shower we had installed for my grandmother ten years ago.  I was determined to get her clothes into her closet (I was also determined to be able to get to the closet). And it hit me that I should actually DO her laundry (and my dad’s) so it would be one less thing they’d have to think about/never get to.  So all was going well.

My father called me Wednesday morning.  You know, just to fill me in on a small little thing that had happened the night before.  My mom had fallen/slipped when she got out of bed to go pee in the middle of the night and now she couldn’t move her shoulder without horrible pain.

Yikes – just what we all needed – she couldn’t put any weight on her bad ankle and now she couldn’t use crutches because of her pain in the shoulder.  But we had to get her to the doctors for another x-ray to make sure she hadn’t broken anything there.  It took us three hours to get a wheelchair that would (mostly) get down the hallway, create a very steep ramp to get her down the large stone step, and into the car.

Good news was nothing was broken.  Bad news was it is probably a rotator cuff tear and would need to rest to maybe get better on its own.  It might need surgery if it doesn’t repair itself, but they weren’t going to do an MRI or talk about surgery until her ankle was done healing.

So, I spent Thursday creating a wider path, finishing up the bathroom/closet project, eking out any extra room in the bedroom I could get for her, and generally packing up and stacking boxes of stuff in her office like Tetris.

Overall, I took out 9 large garbage bags; filled a 4′ recycling bin full of cardboard; did about 12 loads of wash;doubled the walking space from the dining room to the bedroom; hauled out 2 CRT monitors, 1 printer, a 6′ table, and miscellaneous junk for recycling on Saturday (plus planning for some last minute items to add – like the old toilet on the sidewalk!); and swept, and swept, and swept some more.

So that’s what on did on my week off of work.  So looking forward to next week’s manuscript!

Ugh.  I am not having a productive day.  I can’t seem to concentrate on anything (and if you saw how much I had to correct in that sentence, you’d know I can’t type today, either!).

I am not sure what started this but I am sure tired of it.  In order to combat it, I have tried:

1) working…it didn’t work.

2) shopping…I now have food in the house I don’t want to cook.

3) obsessively checking email…and wanted to reply to all my spammers with yes, I do believe you are a Nigerian princess and you desperately need my help.  Just hold on a sec while I do about 100 other non-productive things on the internet.  Like look for images of “concentrate.”

4) obsessively checking Facebook.  I have nothing to say; I just want to be amused.  Amuse me!

5) obsessively checking Twitter.  I constantly wonder why people follow me.  I like it, but I wonder…

6) pretend I am going to work, but actually create a blog post instead.  (It’s typing, so it’s like working…right?)

Well, I’ve done it.  I’ve gone and gotten myself a twitter account.  Because, as you know, I have all the time in the world – nothing to do but get lost in tweets and new links and funny photos…all in 140 characters or less.  I’ve done such a bang up job with this here blog that surely another time-suck is called for.

Anyway, if you are inclined, you can follow me at @FaithProofing.  I picked that because 1) it’s my name and 2) it’s what I do.  I thought about using my company name, but as you are limited to 15 characters (and those characters count in a tweet/re-tweet), shorter is better.  So of course, I pushed the limits – right up to 13 characters.  That’s lucky, right – 13 is an okay number?  (Please reassure me that it’s okay that I picked a username with 13 characters, but you will have to do so in some mind-meld fashion as I have comments turned off.) But using Atwater in there REALLY pushed it to the 15 character limit and although it would get my company name out there, I want to be myself, not my company.  (They are the same thing, but you know what I mean – I am not trying to ram my company down my follower’s throats…or tweets, as the case may be.)

And speaking of followers, I have some.  A few.  Well, two.  But I love them!  They found me the first hour I was on Twitter.  Of course, I made it easy for them by responding to one of their tweets, but still…they were kind enough to follow me.  Now the pressure is on.  Be funny, informative, helpful, insightful…but concise.  And isn’t that the watchword of this blog?  Concise.

The Hubby and I watched a movie last night (no, that’s not a major news flash!).  We had thought about seeing it when it came out, but like so many movies, we decided for it to come out on cable instead of plunking out the cash.  The title of this cinematic endeavor?  In Time.  Starring Justin Timberlake.

Now, say what you want about his singing (I’m sure I like some of his stuff, but I’m not a Timberlake fanatic), but he’s pretty interesting to watch on-screen.  I do have to say my most favorite place to watch him is Saturday Night Live.  He and Jimmy Fallon do a great Bee Gees skit (it has me laughing even as I think about it, much less watch it.  Note to self – find on YouTube and watch today during one of my “breaks.”).

But this was a pretty good movie.  The basic premise is that we are engineered to live until age 26.  At age 25, your counter lights up, notifying you of every second you have left to live.  Time becomes the method of exchange. No one wants to work for money; they work for more time.  And, as you can guess, the rich get richer and the poor, well, they get dead.

I don’t want to give too much away – after all, you are going to run out and watch it now that I’ve given it such a glowing review, right?  But it brings up some interesting points.  Justin Timberlake’s character has almost always been so broke that he’s only had one day to live, but somehow he’s lived three years on that one day, finding ways to make ends meet and getting just a little more time to live.  When he is asked: “What have we got?”  he says: “A day. You can do a lot in a day.”  And the girl he meets is rich but unhappy: “Do I really want to spend my life trying not to die by mistake?”

And how weird it would be to see how much time you had left, down to the second.  I’m almost sure I don’t want to know that much about my death – I think I’d be thinking about it so much I would pay attention to what’s in front of me.  I have enough distractions already without having the biggest one of all staring me in the face.

It reminds me of the other movie about time we watched sometime in the last six months or so, Timer.  When implanted in a person’s wrist, a TiMER counts down to the day the wearer finds true love. But Oona O’Leary faces the rare dilemma of a blank TiMER. Her soul mate – whoever and wherever he is – has yet to have a TiMER implanted. Staring down the barrel of thirty and tired of waiting for her would-be life partner to get off the dime, Oona breaks her own rules and falls for Mikey, a charming and inappropriately young supermarket clerk with a countdown of four months. (stolen borrowed from imdb.com) This was a pretty good movie, too.

Now, it’s time for me to get motivated.  I have a book to finish and send on its way to the author, and two more on my plate for this week.  Although I just realized the dental cleaning I thought was today is really for next week (yay!), so I’ve got that going for me!

I actually have a folder in my browser called Creativity and Productivity.

On the “productive” side, I have sites like Lifehacker, Fast Company, Freelance Switch, and Harvard Business Review.  On the creative side, I have Dear Photograph and a Flicker stream from a photographer.  Stuff that falls in the middle: TED, You Are Not So Smart, and Brain Pickings. {And let me apologize now for giving you these links and sending you off into the wild Internet without a net.}

Now, you might be tempted to think these things are unrelated.  But they’re not. I go to this folder when I need a mental break or inspiration.  Sometimes my inspiration is a new program; sometimes it’s the story found in a photograph; sometimes it’s in something I never knew.

Of course, if I just want to goof off, there’s always Facebook!

I’ve been pondering what to write here lately – it seems like I’ve been working and working and working (not that I’m complaining – I love what I do!) and nothing interesting has been happening.

I guess the highlight of the month would be The Boy’s birthday.  My baby -sniff, sniff- turned 19 this month.  I was totally fine on his actual birthday – no tears, no melancholy, no going through his baby book.  He had a party a week after his birthday (just, you know, 50 or so of his closest friends) and that was the night I kind of lost it.  I went to bed around 11, looked at The Hubby, and burst into tears.  Being his wonderful self, The Hubby laughed and asked what was wrong.  I said, “Nothing.  Our baby is 19 now.”  His response: “Yeah, but he’s been 19 for a week now.  Get over it.”  And I did.

See, not very exciting, huh?

Although, tomorrow may be interesting.  The Hubby is going to court to fit a speeding ticket.  I’m going with him to see the exciting proceedings.  {insert dramatic soap opera music and voice over} Who knows what will happen?  Will the court dismiss the charges?  Will the cop show up?  Will there be arguments and counter-arguments?  Will I throw up in the excitement? Stay tuned for our next episode of…At Home With Faith…

On July 4th, I ran away to Canada.  So did The Hubby.  Aren’t we patriotic?

The Hubby needed to do some “shopping” in some of his potential customers’ locations in Canada before he made some presentations in a few weeks.  The only time he could fit it into his schedule was the week of the 4th.  Well, actually it was the week of the 1st, but the holiday on Wednesday threw everybody off and I am sure everyone was calling it the week of the 4th.  So we ran away from our country on its birthday.  Bad, bad citizens!

Anyhow…this was the first time The Hubby and I have been in Canada at the same time…together, even.  It was the second time I have visited our wonderful northern neighbors.  The first time was with my father, The Boy, and my niece and nephew.  But that’s a story for another day.  Today’s story is about me and The Hubby’s visit to Canada.  We drove to Montreal on the 4th, by way of Vermont.  We took the hour ferry drive from Vermont to New York.  We walked around Burlington for a bit before we left and guess what we saw?  You’ll never guess (unless you have lived in Burlington or wandered around the ferry area in Burlington).

Aghh! Flying Monkeys!

So then we hopped on the ferry (well, actually, The Hubby drove the car onto the ferry and we generally behaved while we looked at the water) and made our way to New York.  We finally got to Montreal around 6 or so.  We stayed at the Marriott – very nice hotel, but the pool closes too early! – and walked up to Catherine Street area and found an outdoor restaurant for dinner.  We finished and walked back to the hotel by 9:30 – just in time for the pool to close.

We left the hotel on the 5th.  While we were waiting for the valet to bring the car around (doesn’t that sound wonderful – “Giles, bring the car around, there’s a good fellow!”) the doorman – Ronny – charmed us.  He has worked at that hotel for 40 years.  4-0-YEARS.  He must make a lot in tips, because he knew how to chat up guests and make the ladies feel good, in a nice old-gentlemanly way.  After the car finally showed up and Ronny told us how to get to Ottawa, we made some stops at the stores The Hubby wanted to check out.

I found a thumb latch that I have been looking all over for.  $10 Canadian.  $50 USD on websites I’d actually been lucky enough to find them on.  No way was I going to spend $50 on a door handle, so I am glad I waited for our trip.  Also picked up some mats to go under the grills (yes, there is more than one grill on this new, expanded deck now!) that we couldn’t find at our own Home Depot, but were plentiful at the Canadian Home Depot.

We made our way to Ottawa and got a bit turned around trying to find the hotel.  We stayed at – wait for it – the Marriott (sense a pattern here?).  After The Hubby checked in, he inquired about the concierge level hours.  For those not in the know, the concierge lounge is a perk for Platinum Marriott patrons.  They have light breakfasts, snacks, and dinner appetizers throughout the day, as well as internet and concierge services.  But there was a problem.  Remember how it was the week of the 4th of July?  Well, apparently we were NOT the only Americans who decided to ditch our homeland celebrations.  The Ottawa Marriott decided to CLOSE the concierge lounge that week because there were “too many American tourists” in the hotel.

Now, this did not sit well with The Hubby.  Not any Joe Shmoe can access the concierge lounge.  In fact, they have to code your key in order to open the doors of the lounge.  And you have to be in that elite group that gets that code in the first place.  So why close the lounge when they can control who gets in there in the first place?

So he pitched a fit.  He called corporate Marriott to complain.  We ended up with vouchers for a free breakfast in the restaurant AND a personal card from the hotel supervisor on duty for “appetizers and drinks” or “dinner” in the hotel bar/restaurant.  After The Hubby calmed down and we did some more shopping at stores, we went back to the hotel to decide on dinner and the night’s activities.  After much internal debate, we went to the bar and ordered some drinks and two appetizers.  It was the perfect amount of food.  The bar guy – Keiren – was told to give us “anything we wanted.”  I guess it pays to bitch sometimes.

So – guess what street we saw in our travels?

And some cool horse sculptures:

We left the next morning to return to our beloved homeland.

We ended up taking rural routes home from Ottawa, which was pretty cool.  We went through Amish Country – which I was not aware there was Amish Country that far north.  We had breakfast at the Silver Leaf Cafe.  It was the BEST French toast I have ever had.  I highly recommend it…so hop on over there and have some.  They also had little kick-knacks for sale.  As The Hubby picked our table, he gets credit for getting me within sight of these:

Yes, 10 wonderful tourist souvenir spoons for $5.  There’s one from Hong Kong; Wellington, NZ;  Luxemburg; and even one from Kentucky (which I don’t think I had yet).  Super cool, huh?

Anyway, that was our Canadian adventure.  I was a little disappointed they didn’t stamp our passports, but at least we had them with us in case they did want to stamp them!

So, I only went through 6 or 7 tissues for the funeral service.  Not bad.  I got to sit in back of the room, hidden by a room divider, so I never made eye contact with anyone talking.  That probably saved me another 4 or 5 tissues.  My aunt gave a nice remembrance of her sister, and my cousin read what his dad had written about his wife (which was pretty cool – he remembered the exact day he met my aunt and recalled that he gave her a beer {he was 21 and she was 18} and she thanked him but never drank it).

As we left for the cemetery- according to my brother, who says he saw it- there was a squirrel on the edge of the road, just watching the whole procession go by.

But the funny thing that happened was this.  Well, actually, before I tell you that, you need to know that it rained here this morning.  Not just rained, but poured.  And lightning and thundered.  It was like this:

{but louder}

It had kind of stopped during the service and there wasn’t any rain for the burial.  But it was still a little cloudy.  Until the minister said, “Let the light of her smile…”, at which point, this happened:

The sunshine came through.

Just like her smile and love.