vortexae

I quit my part time job back in October 2008, which theoretically brings me one step closer to this goal. It was the step I tried to take back in April of 2004 when I quit my full-time job, but the folks where I volunteer snapped me up and I didn’t say no. It took me more than four years to remember how to say no. Damn.

Anyway. As a once-more unemployed writer-housewife-bum, now I can spend the time I would have been in the office writing instead.

How’s that going? Er. Well, I’ve gotten very good at sleeping late. I hear in some parts, and at some ages, this is a coveted skill. Right now I think I need to master the art of rising early, because it’s hard to get motivated at three in the afternoon.

Have I mentioned how much I love my gainfully employed computer programmer husband? Heh. Seriously, he is a blessing. He wants me to write!

So that’s what I’m doing today. Even if it has gone three in the afternoon.

I didn’t get anything done for Christmas 2006; I’m barely getting anything done for Christmas 2007! This makes me unhappy and ashamed. :-(

However, right now I’m just focusing on writing a little each day, getting some of my short stories ready to go by the end of October 2007… and then writing a new novel draft during November! (It’s NaNoWriMo, dontchano!) After that… we shall see.

Big time cheers to everyone else working on their novels!

I spent a great deal of June and July taking weekly lessons in order to get back up to speed, with the result that I am now once more a legally endorsed pilot of Cessna 172s! Since getting my BFR endorsement, I have been flying no less than 1.5 hours every 14 days, weather permitting. It feels so good to be flying solo again!

For anyone else in this position, the only advice I really have is, Just Do It. If money’s the issue, save up what you can over time, and budget for maybe 10 hours rental and 15 hours instruction. (You may need less. I’m slow.) If time is the problem, start looking at your early morning hours—when I first took lessons, I went weekly from 6 AM to 8 AM, biking from the airport to my workplace after turning the plane back in.

But preventative—staying in practice—is the best cure. Which is why I’m gonna stick to this biweekly practice routine. And pushing yourself to do something new each time—landing at a new airport, taking a new route, using a different navigation technique, getting checked out in a different plane—is what keeps a pilot from stagnating.

In the near future I hope to…

• check out in my FBO’s Cessna 152
• fly from Boulder to Pueblo
• get checked out by my FBO for mountain flying
• do an overnight trip
• take a lesson in a non-engined glider

Yay!