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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?
