it's been a while

It has been a while since I have posted in my blog. I am not entirely sure what to write about, because I haven't been writing a whole lot in the last little while. It seems like I go through cycles - times when I do well and writing comes easily, and times when I am distracted by other things and don't get much done. I guess that is human nature in general, but there is something that drives me to accomplish more as a writer, and I feel like I am letting some part of me fail when I am not consistent with my writing goals. That sounds like I am being really hard on myself when I say that, but I really do feel guilty for not having written much. I went to a conference with J out of town, and brought some free writing stuff with me to work on while I was there. It wasn't very practical to bring the novel with me - it is in a file on my old mac, and it is long enough that printing it out would have been more trouble than it is worth. I got some ideas jotted down, but that was about the extent of it. We had cleaned out our kitchen pretty well before heading out on the trip - just for the sake of not having stuff left behind to go bad while we were gone. Now I am in the process of cooking and getting some stuff in the freezer to be quickie meals later. That is taking up a decent portion of my day today. I have made applesauce bread as well as a few batches of chicken pot pie filling to freeze for later. I have some tortilla dough started to go with the chicken enchilada filling that is waiting in the fridge for dinner to roll around. I am thinking that either today or tomorrow, I will make a large batch of burritos and freeze them. I have done that once before, and it was nice to have a quick meal like that on hand. That will be a major production - cooking black beans, rice, and pinto beans, then putting the pinto beans in the food processor with some salsa, and mixing it all together with some corn, cheese, and seasonings. Then I will make a huge batch of tortillas and assemble a bunch of burritos. I wrap each one in foil individually, then store them in gallon ziploc bags. That way, I can use them like you would a store-bought frozen burrito, but they are a lot healthier. I don't put any lard or gook like that in there, and I use brown rice. I guess I am writing on this blog partly to show that although I haven't been writing a lot, I am pursuing some creative endeavors, and partly to convince myself to get some writing done, even if it is just a little. This counts as my own personal guilt trip/motivational speech. Now I had better go do something so I can claim that it worked!