I Have Writer's Block; But Writer's Block Doesn't Have Me

As you might have noticed, I don't blog much anymore. Instead, I am all about the Benjamins. I still wake up early, but it's to write serious articles about serious topics. My jokes frequently get cut out during the copyediting process. Probably because they are so funny that the editors forgot to laugh.

I keep a ledger and send out henchmen to collect my unpaid bills. Well, they're more like kindly e-mail reminders, but whatever.

And all those financial advisors on T.V. are right. Saving money--even a little bit--becomes addictive.

Meanwhile, not writing the blog every day gave me a serious case of writer's block. I had nothing to write about. That's like Fran Dresser having nothing to talk about.

Which was fine because my blog served its purpose. In a round-about way, it got me more business and more time for writing now that I wake up in time to see the car thieves cruise the neighborhood.

Note to punkass car thieves--if you put things back where they belong, they would be there for you to steal the next time. Did I mention that someone borrowed our New Yorker and forgot to return it? The police said that they probably needed a ride across town and we'd find the car later.

Sometimes I picture the car parked in front of a house or in a vacant lot or a crowded parking lot, and I miss it. Or I envision bad guys riding around in it and I become insanely jealous. But I'm sure the car and I will be reunited sometime in the next five years, according to police estimates.

The car actually got me thinking. After the initial frustration of being stranded at home, I realized that we have everything we need. We live right by the bus stop. I know because I hear the crazy bus riders talking loudly to themselves as they walk by our house. Food. Shelter. And--after opening Christmas gifts--we now have a portable phone and spoons.

We were down to three spoons prior to Christmas--which made eating soup a team effort. You know, people teach you how to drive a car, write in cursive, and type, but no one ever teaches you not to let your sons dig for worms with the good spoons.

I guess that's what common sense if for. I'm going to ask for that for Christmas next year.

People give such awesome Christmas gifts and I had some paychecks come in the mail.

But something was missing. I really liked writing about our day-to-day lives around here. To me, if I don't write about it, it's almost like it never really happened. If I don't put a funny spin on it the next day, I tend to lose my sense of humor all together.

I thought about disbanding the blog. Does the world really need another mommy blogger, I wondered.

Of course it doesn't. But I need to write.

So I'm actually going to cut back on the paid writing I do. I know it seems counterintuitive. I really don't want to be the kind of family who Shriners donate circus tickets to. But we'll just have to save more slowly. I'll have to be all about the Abrahams instead of the Benjamins.

That way, I'll be able to write about things that are important to me, like my family. So two-three times a week I'm going to write about the little things that make a house...a madhouse...I mean, a home. That is my blog-related New Year's resolution.

I won't bore you with my other resolution lists, such as "Movie Rental Resolutions" and "Books to Request at the Waldo Library in the New Year" and "Homeschool Resolutions" and "Chess Club Plans for '07" and "Lists not to Write in the New Year."

Suffice it to say that I might have writer's block. But writer's block doesn't have me.