Category Archives: Erika Beebe
Day 10: A Day In The Life Of…
1. 4:30ish a.m. The alarm goes off. I wake up with a jolt and shut it off quick so my little early birds don’t hear it, and get up right along with me. Cyrus, our Boxer, nuzzles my hand ready to be fed, pronto!
2. Hopefully, I’ll have some time to feel inspired. I’ll sneak in an hour or so of writing in, and sip on a great cup of coffee.
6:00 a.m. Time to get ready for work and I hope and pray the kids stay asleep until at least 6:30 a.m. Usually my son wakes up around 6:15. Some days it’s earlier than that.
3. 6:30 a.m. Wake up the kids, get them their cups of milk and coax them into their outfits for the day. They pile in our bed and watch a few cute cartoons.
5. 7:30 a.m. I usually pull up to work, rush in the door and I am greeted first thing by two furry friends! George, my giraffe, was a gift to me my senior year in college. I’ve taken him with me to every job I’ve ever had where he sits on the computer.
6. Gus the gecko is a new addition as of last year. He hangs out on the top of my cube. Right above a couple of drawings. The one right below him is Werewolf Jesus. My son drew him last summer. I definitely will have the write a post on that one in a few weeks.
8:00 a.m. I’ve eaten my weird breakfast of Greek yogurt, whey protein powder and flax meal because I’m on a health kick right now. I’ve also probably downed a second cup of coffee while planning my to-do-list for the day. I’ve sorted through my emails and I’m on to planning some fun event. I start to juggle my basket of tasks from planning, to proofing, designing, photography, editing, just to name a few.
11:30 a.m. I’m starving for lunch, so I head home and devour something healthy. I think today I had a can of Campbell’s soup. It was sort of delicious.
12:30 p.m. I head back to the office. I work some more and the afternoon rushes by as I check off my list.
4:00 p.m. Some days I rush to the YMCA to try to squeeze in a good hour of a workout. 20 minutes of cardio. 10 minutes of lifting weights. 20 minutes of cardio to finish out the workout. I try to finish up with yoga, but on the days I’m running behind, I don’t quite make it to the stretch part. Today, I didn’t make it to the gym at all.
8. 6:45 p.m. A game of some sort. A new routine I’ve started right after dinner. Less TV, more games and drawing with colored pencil. Tonight? Hi ho cherry o!
7:00 p.m. is definitely bath time with about 30 minutes of snuggle time right afterwards. Many nights they wind down with Sprout TV.
8:00 p.m. Bedtime! Sometimes they just don’t want to go, but we’re stringent and they know it. Dad sometimes carts them off to their bedrooms with a pony express ride like he did tonight. Quick stops drop them off in their bedrooms where we say our prayers, and something we’re grateful for in our day. Today? My son said Mommy. My daughter said her best friend’s name and her teacher. They made her happy and that makes me happy.
8:30 p.m. I either blog or I write for a bit and start to fizzle about an hour later.
10:11 p.m. The End. Closing up a bit later than I hoped. Oh well.
Day Nine: Bucket Lists make us stare at our fears and do something
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..it’s scary and different, but what if?
Today’s blog challenge asks me to look at my bucket list. Up to today, I’ve had five things I wanted to do in my life. I always thought, keep the list small. Keep the things doable. But now that this blog challenge asks me to think about a bucket list, I wonder why in the world have I limited myself to five things?
Fear probably. I have to take a hard look at my life and face a few things. First of all, I can’t live in today. I have to forecast my future. So let’s say I get a few ideas down. Then what? Well, I have to figure out how to make it happen. Break down the steps. Wonder about the cost. Time scares me too, because right now I feel like I’m constantly running to stay on the tail end of life, and I’m running so fast I can barely catch my breath–but I’m still trying.
Imagination. I have a little bit of this I could spare. ;0) But then I have to deal with the follow-through, which is another scary thought.
But what if? What if I made my bucket list and tried to do one thing this year. Could you do it? Would you try it?
Maybe we should challenge each other a little bit here.
So here goes. Here’s a list I’ve thought carefully about, and these items are in no particular order of importance.
A hot air balloon ride.
I’ve always dreamed about them when I ‘ve seen the big bright balloons drifting in the sky. They’re beautiful. They’re happy.
Dancing.
I’m pulling this one straight from my dream list. I haven’t started it yet, so I figured I could count it as one. Beauty and the Beast style. The dress. The sparkly shoes. And the moves. That is what I want.
Travel.
I want to see Africa. The Lions. The Chimpanzees. To get in a jeep and track some of the wildlife.
Italy. I want to take a Gondola ride. I’ve been to Italy once before, but I never went to some of the cities on the water.
Fiji. I definitely want to go there. I don’t have a real reason aside from all the beautiful island pictures I’ve seen.
Alaska. To see the whales and the Polar bears in their natural habitat.
The Statue of Liberty. I’ve been to New York City twice, but have never stood next to her statue and I’d like that.
Learn a Language: Spanish.
And I want to be able to speak it.
Writing.
I need to finish my novel, move on to the trilogy, and start my next couple of series I have ruminating around in my head.
Head/Handstand. I teach Yoga. Strength and balance are important to me. I’d love to do both of these things someday, and sooner much rather than later.
A rose garden.
I’ll never forget my babysitter’s backyard growing up. She had the most beautiful rose garden, with a stone fountain in the center and a perfect path of stone steps leading right to the heart. I want to design my own garden. To pick my own flowers and wear them in my hair if I want.
Paint.
Another item from my dream list. I want to take another painting class and make something straight from my heart. I never finished an oil painting in school. Wouldn’t that be something?
Make a Difference.
I want to continue pursuing a path to inspire people. To help people believe in their dreams.
Mentor.
I’d like to be a mentor to students in school at some point again. To help them dream and to figure out how to make their dreams come true.
Broadway.
I’ve never been to a Broadway show. I’d like to see something fun like Chicago.
Disney World. I’ve been there at a conference. But I’d love to take my kids. I’d love to actually ride the rides and see their faces as they stare all of their favorite cartoons in the face. Hug them. Laugh. Wow. What a moment.
I’m sure I’ll think of more now that I’m thinking about. I’ll probably add a few from time to time. But if you’re needing some ideas, here’s a couple of web resources I found on the spot.
Register a bucketlist profile. It’s free. I did it. http://bucketlist.org/accounts/register/
If you’re not into joining something, take a peek at this website. It listed tons of ideas. http://daringtolivefully.com/bucket-list-ideas
And if you feel like taking a second to think and sharing one thing on your list, I’d love to hear it.
~Erika
Day 8: A vivid childhood memory—chickens are not sweet. They kind of scare me.
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I have been chased by a headless chicken.
All of sudden, the memory floats to the front of my mind: I see those little sticky legs, its flapping wings, its giant feathery chest—and yes, no head on that creature—and I laugh.
My dad’s side of the family is from the middle of Kansas. My grandparents, Ike and Helen, lived in a tiny little town called Lehigh. A town so small the high school closed two years after my dad’s graduating class in 1966. There was a post office, a car wash, and a Coop. That’s all folks.
I spent a great deal of time with my grandparents in the summers. Lehigh sat 40 minutes north of Newton, the town I grew up in until I was ten-years-old. I stayed a whole week in Lehigh every summer, going to their Mennonite Church’s Bible school, hanging out at my Aunt Joyce’s farm when I wasn’t in church or with grandma, and that’s where I encountered Ms. Headless Chicken, herself, ready to pounce on me.
One summer my cousins Leslie and Laura drove up from Oklahoma and spent the entire week with me and my grandparents. We learned about the farm. I remember the bull escaping from the pasture, holding my breath as Uncle Gerald worked him back behind the safety of the fence. My cousins and I tamed the farm kitties. We picked beans from the garden and prepped them for dinner. The cutest red calf cinnamon was born. His momma didn’t want him, so we helped out bottle feeding and bonded with him.
Back to those pesky scheming chickens. Well, they were being prepared for dinner(to put it nicely). I tried to hang back, far out of the way, but curiosity got me and I walked down the path from the house to the chicken coop, beyond the pigs and I saw it—a wild headless chicken flapping and flying straight my way! I think I screamed. I turned and I ran and that darn chicken chased me down the path, me thinking, it was part ghost part chicken not wanting to let go of life, wanting to get me somehow. It ran half way up the trail—Finally! Finally it fell limp. My cousins laughed. Leslie was always the super brave one.
“You can stop running Erika. The chicken is gone.”
Anyway (taking a big giant breath) I’ll never forget that summer. I love my family. I miss my family. We’re now scattered all over the place and it’s so hard to see each other.
Miss you cousins! Miss you aunts and uncles! I’ll never forget our memories together.
Day Seven of My Blog Challenge: Three Books I Adore
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“All this time I’ve hated myself for it. I thought I’d given it up for nothing. But if I hadn’t fallen, I wouldn’t have met you.”
― Becca Fitzpatrick, Hush, Hush
My first love has always been urban fantasy type stories. I like the mix of real life and the subtle scattering of magical possibility. I wonder. I dream. And I hope for the what-if.
So when I heard Meg Cabot had just published Abandon, the first book in her retelling of Persephone’s famous story of being kidnapped and taken to the Underworld by Hades himself, I had to get a copy. I fell in love with the book.
“And eternity is a long time. So if you have to spend it with someone I could see wanting to spend it with someone impossible…but interesting….”
― Meg Cabot, Abandon
All the characters in Abandon, felt different and interesting. Not to mention, the first page jumped right out with a strong voice and pulled me into the story of Pierce’s near death experience. I understood her fear in living with the reality of dying, coming back to life and not being able to tell the details to anyone because they made her sound crazy. I think we can all relate to feeling crazy at times and wondering if the world will ever believe what we think. In my mind, Meg opens up some great questions about human character in a unique structure I hadn’t seen before—how she jumped between the worries, the internal sorting of her character’s thoughts, and the present moment, blew my mind. It felt messy and random, exactly how I remember feeling at that age, and for that, I loved it. I love unconventional. Gertrude Stein’s story of Three Lives taught me a great deal about breaking conventions. I felt like Meg Cabot did the same for Pierce, the Heroine in the book.
I’m definitely a sucker for a girl in a strange new life, after coming back to life, and finding out a dark and dreamy immortal angel has been in love with her, has been secretly protecting her, and she doesn’t know why. Needless to say, I can’t wait for the third installment in the series.
― Mark Twain, What Is Man?
Twain’s style bites in this book with humor, satire, and can even burn you if you’re not careful. I like a challenge. And while reading his works, his biographies, and learning a little about his life, I saw him much like a painter. Never take art at face value. Interpretation is always left to the observer. Who will ever understand the painting except the artist?
Cloud Nine Girl 