Catching up

Life is funny. When I have too much to do, I still find time to do more. But as soon as my schedule becomes lighter, I catch myself doing less. I still haven't figured that one out.

Of course, the fact that I've been fighting a pretty bad throat, and then chest infection hasn't helped.

Anyway, May is around the corner, the heat in Hyderabad is now reaching its peak, and I'm busy trying to finish a first draft of what I hope will turn out to be my first completed "shitty first draft" of a novel, in true Anne Lamott fashion. If - no, scratch that - WHEN I type the words THE END on the manuscript, I intend to treat myself to something very special (haven't decided what yet, but I'll have to.) In the meantime, I'm now about to reach the crisis point somewhere around the third quarter of the novel.

My weekly posts on Haiti have also suffered from my being ill, but I have another problem. I'm running out of pictures.

My husband came back a few days ago, so exhausted he cannot even read a short story to his younger daughter without falling asleep in the middle on the book. Quite unfazed, the little one just let him sleep, and came to me with her book, so I could finish it, coughing or no coughing. She's not one to let exhaustion or illness get in the way of hearing a good story. My coughing so much allowed us to introduce a new ritual, though. I now read her one or two bedtime stories, and she reads me one so I can rest my voice - or what's left of it, these days. It is such a joy to see her slowly overcoming her shyness of words unknown and becoming more and more confident about her ability to decipher them.

Tomorrow, I'm hosting The Motherhood Muse, a digital literary magazine that comes out four times a year and publishes literature on motherhood, nature, children, cultures and more.

Kimberly Zook, Founding Editor and Publisher came across my blog, and sent me an email, asking if I'd like to participate in their blog tour to promote their second issue. I was immediately drawn to their mission statement of encouraging mother writers to rediscover and reconnect with nature through their bodies, minds and souls, but I knew for sure I wanted to participate when I read Kimberly's profile. Someone who lived "in a hut in a Costa Rican forest for a few years and journeyed through the back country in many places on Earth?"

So, please come back tomorrow so you can read about "A Challenge to Change the World." I will pick a person among those who leave a comment and the lucky winner will receive one free subscription to the 2010 issues of The Motherhood Muse.