Fun and Second Chances

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We’re on a short vacation this weekend.  Chris took Saturday off, is already off on Sunday and Monday is a holiday.  We haven’t had that much time together since before he took this job.  We have a barbecue to go to on Saturday at our friends’ house.  Afterwards, we’re taking the kids to the shore to go to the beach, if the weather permits.  If not, we’ll go to the aquarium or something else fun.  I’m looking forward to it.  I’m still bringing my laptop so I can work at night.  I have too much work not to do so.

This is, unfortunately, the same weekend that my best friend is up from Florida.  I didn’t find out until after I had booked a hotel, so I’m not sure if we’ll be able to work it out so we can see each other.  I’m certainly not upset about having some time off, but it will suck if she’s up here and we don’t get to see each other at all.

On another note, the house that we wanted and didn’t get is back on the market.  We’re reapplying and doing whatever we can to get the landlord to choose us.  I really want the house, and we can afford it, but I’m not hopeful.  I mean, we already got turned down once.  Why wouldn’t they just turn us down again?  I hope they don’t though.  It’s a great house.

I’m not sure how things will go with the blog while I’m away.  I’ll definitely be doing some planning, and I owe you all my “end of month” goal recap and my July goals, so that will be up here soon.

Right now though, I have some packing to do and then some sleeping!

Enjoy your July 4th weekend, if you’re in the US.  If you’re in Canada, I hope you had a great Canada Day.  And for the rest of the world?  Just have some fun!

 

Memorial Day Poem

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I recently published a Memorial Day poem on Associated Content.  There was a call for poetry on that subject, so I thought I’d play around with it a bit.

If you’re interested, you can view it here.

 

What you’ve missed

 

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St. Patrick’s Day was M.’s 3rd birthday.  The two older kids and I ate dinner with her and sang her Happy Birthday again over a cake made in a ladybug mold but colored green in honor of the holiday.  S. said it looked like a turtle, and M. agreed so instead of being a St. Patrick’s Day ladybug, it was a turtle cake.  There was frosting, there were sprinkles, M. was happy.

I have sent out a story to two different magazines and a poem to another in the last week.  All three have months-long wait periods before you hear anything at all, and since they are only first submissions I’m not expecting much, but I had to at least get the process started.  I wanted to get used to the idea of contributing so that it will be a more regular occurrence.

I saw over the weekend that there is a short-story writing contest in my area and I’m trying to put something decent together to submit.  Submissions are accepted until April 22, so I still have time.  I just need to make sure I can get one of my preliminary ideas to work out as a story.  It’s sponsored by the Mark Twain House and the Harriet Beecher Stowe House, both in Hartford right next door to each other.  If you’re ever in the area and get to visit, you should.  They are very cool houses in their own rights just because they are fine examples of architecture and decor, but that they were the homes of such great authors makes them twice as interesting.  I’ve always been partial to the Twain house, partly because I’m a bigger fan of his writing than of Stowe’s and partly because there are some great stories/facts that are part of the tour of his house.  When I was a kid (8 or 9) I used to imagine living there or at Gillette’s Castle (in East Lyme…or is it Old Lyme?) which was another of our vacation haunts.

I had two court appointments having to do with the house (one with the bank, one with the ex) scheduled for the same day, which I thought was very efficient of me.  The 9:30 appt. got messed up on my end by a lack of a phone call that I was unaware I had to make and had to be rescheduled.  The noon appt. was rescheduled by the bank because they’re still waiting on paperwork on their end before they have any info for me at all.  Basically, I wasted the better part of the day not dealing with things that ultimately were both rescheduled, or at least will be once all the paperwork has processed.  So much for efficiency.

I have done exactly zero work on my book.  I have been tied up with household finances and cleaning and other mundane but necessary tasks, and really have just been dicking around not doing anything productive other than the bare minimum.  That is going to have to stop.  Tomorrow I’m starting to work with a time log.  It’s more to force me to admit to myself that I waste a LOT of time doing nothing (email, Twitter, iPod, etc) than to show me where my time is going.  I’m not asking myself what is happening to all my time.  I know it’s being pissed away on crap.  I just need to force myself to be a grown up and get back to work.

Do you find yourself wondering where your day has gone?  If you were brutally honest with yourself, would you really need to ask?  Would you like the answer?

 

Weekend Updated

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I realize it’s been a couple of days since I posted, and I do actually have two book reviews in the works that will be coming up soon.   Things have just been very busy in my non-writing life so I’ve been caught up with that.  As I mentioned before, Monday was H.’s 11th birthday.  Yesterday (Sunday) was M.’s birthday party for her 3rd birthday, which is actually on St. Patrick’s Day.  I’ve spent the last couple of weeks getting the house ready and getting all the necessary decorations and favors.  It’s been exhausting, but also good because it’s progress I can actually see.

Friday I decided to rip the carpet out of the downstairs hallway, an area not much bigger than a stair landing.  The carpet predates our buying the house by quite a bit, and was a disaster.  Cleaning it would have had no real effect, and our former dog (now living with my ex) destroyed areas of it around the doors trying to dig her way into/out of the rooms.  The floor underneath is the same wood as the living room, not just plywood.  Even though the floor is not in good shape cosmetically, it’s still a lot better than the carpet was.  I want to do the hall stairs too, because they’re also real wood, but not until M. is done with the stage where she still could potentially fall down them.  No need to make them slippery.

Sunday’s party went very well.  All of my in-laws came as well as my mom and Cliff, and M. had a blast with her cousin, C.  C. is three months older than M. and they play as well together as can be expected of two girls their age.  They had a great time, the food was good (with Chris’s help) and the house isn’t totally destroyed.

I’m still recovering from all the work, and there is a little more cleanup to do, but I’ll be posting at least one of the reviews either today or tomorrow. I broke my writing chain on Friday, and haven’t picked it up yet.  I decided since I had already missed a day I’d take the weekend off instead of driving myself crazy trying to find time.  I’ll restart today though.  I’ve decided I really want to spend more time now on rewriting and editing than on new work, unless I think of a great idea that can’t wait.

How did everyone else’s weekend go?

 

Nanowrimo

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I’ve been getting ready for Nanowrimo as well as preparing Chris for the fact that writing will be a priority for me for the next 30 days.  I’m excited and nervous about finishing.  I hope it goes well!  For now I’m off to bed (finally) because tomorrow is Halloween (or actually today is based on the time) and I have a tiny, curly-haired wicked witch to take out tomorrow night.  She will be carrying a little black cauldron instead of her usual pumpkin bucket for trick or treating, and a broom.  I can’t wait. Think warm thoughts so we don’t freeze!  I hope you all have a safe and happy Halloween.