The Things You Never Expect

"Life is what happens while you're making other plans."

In the past month we moved, we gained a dog, and our computer crashed. All of them very unexpected. All of them various levels of unpleasantness. All of them still affecting life.

The house we moved into AZ  we thought would be our permanent residence. We had every intention of staying there. But life being what it is...

We'd been here in the new house a week when a dog showed up. I am not a dog person. Dogs (to me) are TOO much like babies, babies that never grow up and are in constant babyhood. I enjoy watching the "Dog Whisperer",  but at the end of the episode I was always grateful that I wasn't dealing with one in real life. This dog needs some love and a home, and at least half my kids are in love with him already. I am reserving judgement, but the number of messes I've had to clean up since he showed up last Saturday is reminding me of having a precocious 1 year old in the house. I haven't decided yet if he'll stay. But life being what it is...

As part of moving we ended up needing a wireless adapter for our desktop. We plugged it in for about an hour on the family room floor to make sure the new adapter worked. Yay! It worked.

Then we moved the computer to its permanent home. Boo. It stopped working. After some assessment by a professional, he thinks a stray spark may have fried the motherboard. From one hour on the floor, enough static built up to cook it. And the three year warranty ended 4 months ago. Ain't that always the way?

But on the bright side, we moved to a house that fits our needs much better. The layout is better, the flow of space, the increased family room size so we could all fit comfortably. (The jacuzzi in the master bath!) So even though we had to move and it was miserable and yucky, things are finally settling back to a new normal.

The dog is forcing me to take walks about 4 times a day. Anything that gets me off my behind is a good thing. I think that between the walks and hiking over the small rises in the desert around us, I walked almost 3 miles yesterday. And my kids really like him. It gets them up and moving, too.

A fried motherboard is good in that for just a few dollars more, we can get a whole new upgraded computer. (Not that we had those few dollars in the first place.) Which we may have to do. And we have Carbonite, which means I shouldn't have to worry about losing any data. Thank goodness. (If you as a writer do not have an outside source where you're saving your stuff, a flash drive, portable hard drive, something in the "cloud" like Carbonite, do it. You don't want to lose any stray stuff that might have come in handy later. BACK UP, PEOPLE!)

In the end, life is about learning and growth. If it were about making ourselves comfortable, we probably would have thought Lucifer's premortal plan a good thing.

We can do this in our writing, too. We can be so sure about the way a story is supposed to go, maybe we've outlined, maybe we just have a vision of where it's supposed to go, that we aren't willing to let the unexpected come. We each of us have a unique experience, one that allows each of our writings to come out in a unique view. Let you and your characters struggle. Let the overwhelming odds crash down on you and them. In the end you'll all be better for it.