Mentone, California ~ March 9, 2011
Last week, it was Spring Fever versus Spring Cleaning. What do you think won out? Can you hardly blame me? The orange blossoms are in bloom, their fragrance filling me with the urge to run naked in midnight fields and howl at the moon. Well, not exactly, but close. Already I am finding myself “setting” on the cooler on the back porch in the middle of the night contemplating life with the dogs, an activity generally reserved for warm-weather days.
The weather’s been perfect. Everything’s green, including our backyard. (Yay!) The Toddler and I have been all over the local mountains just hiking, poking around, and taking lots of pictures. Hard to believe we were shivering our you-know-whats off on the 7th, and making slushballs.
Last week was a little frustrating to me. I realize I cannot live in this Disorganized State of Hell any longer. The taxes are too high, the morale is evil, and the food stinks. I ran shrieking around the house the other night looking for the baby monitor, convinced the Toddler had hidden it somewhere. Of course, I ran past it sitting on the kitchen counter at least three or four times before I finally recognized it as the Item I Was So Desperately Seeking. I feel like I can rarely lay my hands on things I need, much less something I saw two minutes before. I always feel like I’m looking for something. It is an awful place to be.
My only saving grace is that maybe a year ago, I finally trained myself to put my keys in the same place. Without that, I surely would have flown screaming off the deep end by now…probably in a kicking and screaming swan dive that nobody wants to see, but can’t make themselves look away.
Anyhoo, I hatched an impromptu plan on Sunday and invited a few friends over in an effort to make myself finally get the house cleaned up. It worked, though I’m slightly embarrassed to admit why. Suffice it to say, I’ve got some awesome friends who are willing to wash dishes for two hours, cook chicken sausage and tempura shrimp, and still rock the party. (heh, heh, heh…my plan worked perfectly!)
Anyway, the head start on the kitchen has been tremendous for my morale. I’ve cleared working space on my desk, and everything’s a little more flat instead of in slip-slide-y mounds. (I swear, one of these days I’m going to have to put together a topographical map of my desk — I’ve got at least two Mt. Everests!)
So I am quadrupling my Spring Cleaning effort. (What’s 4 times 0?) I may need to use my own office for this week’s Workspace Wednesday. The dust bunnies scoff at my eviction notice, but their time is coming. I’m busting out that broom thingamajigger.
Still struggling with Toddler sleep issues this week, though it seems to be getting better. Blargle! I missed posting two days this past week, due mainly to the fact that I can only pretend to be asleep for so long before I really embrace the role. It really annoys me that I have to sleep, but such is life.
I dream every day of having a set schedule for the Toddler and myself…where we both sleep consistent hours, I get consistent work hours in (and I’m a little ahead on the blog), and we both slide out of bed every day on rainbows. This is my dream. I will have this soon.
But even with all the frustrations of the week, I got a decent amount of fiction writing done. It was kind of a slog, most of it, but words are progress.
By the way, I just started using Toggl to keep track of my time, and I can tell I’m really going to like it. My good friend Mona recommended it to me a while ago. I promptly downloaded the app onto my iPhone and forgot about it. But then she wrote an enthusiastic review of it on her blog. Seeing as how it took me a half an hour to add up my hours and stats this week, I was greatly motivated to give it a go. Easy-peesy. Using it right now. Looks like I’ve spent two hours on this post already. Good to know. I am interested to see how the 80/20 rule plays out, as Mona mentioned. We’ll see in next week’s log report.
Anyway, here are last week’s stats:
~ Week of March 5 – March 11, 2011 ~
- Best Daily Word Count (fiction only): 2,000
- Total Fiction Word Count: 5,303
- Total Blog Word Count: 1,087
- Total Writing Work Hours: 27
~ Personal Stats to Beat ~
- Best Daily Word Count (fiction only): 3,915 (February 27, 2011)
- Best Weekly Word Count (fiction only): 12,787 (January 3-9, 2010)
- Best Weekly Work Hours: 33 (February 27 through March 4, 2011)
~ ~ ~
So how are we doing with our monthly goal you ask? Well, it’s looking good. (You understand that my optimism stems mostly from my belief in the 80/20 rule, and that most of the words will be written in the last six days of March. 😉 )
So far this month, we’ve got Sparks in Shadows with a fantastic 3,081 words; Heather gives us 450 words, of poetry, no less!; my good friend and fellow Third Ninja Omniscient Jeff is experiencing a productive creative surge and generously offers us 5,600 words from his Western serial story; and I humbly offer 6,390 words of fiction and bloggerty wisdom. That brings us to a grand total of 15,521 words, and we’re almost halfway through the month. You know what this means, kids. That’s right. Listen to the dog.
But before you do that, I wanted to mention that on March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day, I will be participating in a blogfest hosted by the equally witty Colene Murphy and Alexia Chamberlynn. I am working on a teeny tiny story for the occasion that I hope will knock your socks off, and I hope you’ll stop by and check it out…and all the other Irish love fest participants’ stories.
Now I really have to go. The dog is really riding me hard this week. She’s a real hard nose. Or is it long nose?
Three straight hours hunched over the laptop. When the nice Starbucks man-child came around and offered me a free cupcake, I said, “Yes, please!” I marauded the peanut butter cup chapeau before it occurred to me to take a picture, but I think it looks better kind of “undone,” don’t you agree?