My Favorite Week Of The Year

The week between Christmas and New Year is my favorite week of the year. Not because it’s bookended by two holidays, but because nobody works. Even for those of us who do have to go into an office or punch a time clock during that week, little work actually gets done. Yes, despite the fact our bodies are there, we’re on a mental vacation.  (And getting paid for it!)

On the other hand, it can also be a pretty productive week. Without the pressure of work deadlines, we can get caught up on all that stuff that piles up day-after-day at the office or out in the field. We can also do this if we're at home that week. So it can be very beneficial from that perspective, too.

Whichever way you spend it, the week between Christmas and New Year, for me, at least, always seems to pass very slowly. Time crawls. Which is good. We all tend to rush through our days, anxious to get everything done, but like my yoga teacher says, the only moment you are alive is THIS moment. The past is past, and the future hasn’t happened yet. The only moment is NOW. Right now. So stop. Enjoy it. Live in the moment. Appreciate right now. Time is big when you think of it like that!

 

So this week, I give you the gift of time.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and I wish you all a Happy New year! 

 

See you in 2013,

Leigh
www.leighcourt.com

Time flies...

The irony of this post is that time got away from me, which is why I’m so late in getting it up here. Time is such a conundrum for humans. It dictates every aspect of our lives, yet it’s invisible and passes, it seems, at different speeds for different individuals. I remember in my twenties, time stood still. It dragged. Now, later in life, time just flies by. For example, where the hell did 2010 go?

It was just a little while ago that I was pondering this about 2009 as 2010 loomed, and now--surprise!—it’s 2011. Is that even a valid number? I mean, really? TWO THOUSAND AND ELEVEN? It boggles the mind.

Well, it boggles my mind anyway. I don’t think I’m the only one, though, or else we wouldn’t have all those sayings about time, such as

Time flies when you’re having fun.

Time got away from me.

Time stands still for no man.

Timing is everything.

It just takes time.

Time heals all wounds.

Time after time…

and so on…

I guess because being a writer has been so much a part of my life for so many years that I work on an alternate time frame. I have to plan a Christmas or New Year’s story well in advance, for example, or plan when my next novella will be done or plan for the release of my latest book weeks or months in advance. Publishing is like crafting in that you’re constantly working now on something that won’t see the light of day until at least a few months from now. If you’ve ever wondered why you can walk into a hobby store in July and find winter crafts or yarn colors for fall, or if you’ve been to a hobby store lately and been overwhelmed by all the Valentine’s Day materials, that’s why.

The changing of the years is a great time to reflect, and today I’ve been really thinking about my writing. Though I’ve been a writer for years in other areas, my first erotic short story, Grave Circumstance, was published in December of 2006. It seems like a million years ago, but it really wasn’t. It’s just been four, but so much has happened and I just have to wonder…

How did all those words come out of me?

Where did they come from?

Will I run out?

Only time will tell. LOL

To readers everywhere: Thank you so much for sharing our passion! May we all find many fantastic stories to read, write, and enjoy in 2011. Have a great New Year’s everyone!

Time-Our Most Precious Commodity?

Time is running out on 2010.

And time only runs one way.

Is this a true statement? I think so. A scientist I've enjoyed reading has posed this question: If time travel is possible, why have we never seen a person from the future in our time? We think about traveling back in time (the medieval time period seems to be popular, though personally I would not want to live then). But I can't think of a story where someone from the future traveled back to our time. Perhaps this is because we don't know what type of life this person from the future would live, whereas we know a lot about how people in the past lived.

The other reason I don't think time can be changed is because it is a man-made construct. The earth twirls around on its axis without regard to today, yesterday, or tomorrow. The rain falls, plants and trees grow, the seasons change - all without worrying about the concept of time.

But man has, over the centuries, constructed and measured time to provide a framework for living life. Not so much to tell us when it's time to wake up or go to bed. These things we know by the position of the sun in the sky. But measuring time tells us many important things. How far have we traveled (in a time when distance wasn't easily measured)? Ships at sea used time in calculating longitude (poorly, but it helped).

People used time to fix certain ceremonies in place (though many of our fixed dates today were originally established by seasonal events – for example the winter or summer solstices). But the concepts of days, months and years took scientists years, centuries actually, to figure out. Even now, we need a leap day every fourth year to account for the vagaries of the earth's revolutions around the sun. 365 days is not a perfect measure of one year. But centuries ago, the calendar used to be off by several days each year, and in a relatively short period of years, the seasons would be totally off-kilter.

I read a quote recently from someone who said, under the age of 25, the most precious commodity to a single person is sex. After the age of 25, the most precious commodity to anyone is time. What do you think?

Happy New Year to all our readers!!!!!