Sunday with Sven

I've been doing Sven's sweating challenge for--I'm not sure how long, but I haven't been checking in. I actually thought today might be the last check-in, so I counted up my words, and I've written 60,132 during the challenge. If it weren't on several different projects, it would be almost a brand new book.

I'm actually a little disappointed because I'm not where I hoped to be, but I'm pleased that I've had mostly steady progress.

Now, to: Focus.

P.S. One more thing to love about an iPod: The headphones are so good that I literally can't hear what my beloved and the girl are heckling each other about. (She's making a scrapbook of her trip as a class assignment, and I'm pretty certain he's offering a heaping helping of invaluable advice!)

I'm such a freaking peacemaker, I feel as if I ought to do something when I spy a tiff.

However, put on a pair of headphones and they start tuning up--and my feeling becomes--I guess they can sort it out. Besides, if I asked what was going on, they'd both look mystified and ask what's wrong. "It's just a conversation!"

Sometimes it's hard to be the quiet introvert in the house! :-)

I had to find my coat

It was 5 degrees yesterday. Probably too cold to type--but I love it! Right now it's 16. And Sunday we're due for snow showers. It's almost too exciting.

My poor child has been out of the country for the past week or so, freezing half to death. I suspect she's been looking forward to the balmy, unseasonable temps she left, when she's actually coming back to a 20 or so degrees colder country than she left behind. Poor girlo. We didn't tell her.

Anyway, I'm hard at work at a coffee shop--again--because the cold apparently slows down the passing of bytes at my house. Better get to work because I have to pick up my baby! Yay!

Hope you also have wonderful goings-on to anticipate!

Monday

Had lunch with a good friend today. Now I'm working and listening to inappropriate music. (Ne-yo's Closer. Not that it's inappropriate in general, just not what you'd expect on my generation's iPod.) My daughter despairs. I don't quite get it either, but I cannot help myself! In fact, I need to set up a repeat instead of starting it over and over. :-)

My house is such a wreck I had to leave or haul out the cleaning products. (It's not just the slow Internet that makes posting a blog a forced march.) I need to work, and cleaning is a great time waster, so I've spent this chilly, sun-riddled afternoon writing like a woman who knows how. Please let me be on track--yet again.

Gotta stop stopping progress!

Not sleeping/Crazy Dreams

I've never been what one might call a natural sleeper. I'm often more familiar with the colors of the night sky than the daylight one because I'm often waiting for daylight to show up. But last night was particularly long. If I'm awake, the cat feels free to start yowling for breakfast at midnight, and even though I know he's not starving to death, when he pretends he is, I feel compelled to do something. Which, I fear, he has discovered. (I lasted till 5:03 a.m.) And then, about 8, I went to bed. I'm awake again at noon, having dreamed about running and strange colors and falling.

Stress? The knowledge that my body clock is incapable of telling time? I don't know, but I wander my house like Hamlet's stinking ghost, eyeing the darkened windows in the houses around us, envying all those sleeping people.

Oh, well, gotta get to work. Hopefully, those scary dreams have built up some adrenaline-fueled creativity.

Happy Monday--halfway through the day!

Oh, the weather outside is foggy!

We had some snoring in the house last night. I couldn't manage to sleep over it or get the ocean waves on my iPod loud enough to drown it out, so I moved to the guest room, and this is the view I woke to.

And then I did an accounting. These are things I've already done in 2009:

Crocheted scarf for daughter
Mailed Rita books on time (Though this was actually begun in 2008. Thank you, Mr. Overnight Courier)
Edited chapter (now must shower and leave the abode for Internet access capable of emailing to CP)
Bought Eagle Eye, which I love (to my hip child's despair)
Watched Eagle Eye too many times (I'd alternate with Dark Knight, but said child has absconded with said DVD.)
Noticed that: Je suis une slacker!
Posted on the blog two days in a row (like a woman who can meet a commitment)

I hope everyone's already having an equally productive 2009! I like this year!

Back to Work

I've been playing around with my girl and reading and loving my new iPod. (Dragged, kicking and screaming into the iPod age, I guess, but how on earth did I ever live without it?)

Reading (cozy mysteries, some romance, a lot of history). Writing (not enough). Enjoying friends. Enjoying life. Everyone needs to do that. Tell me it's called filling the well.

But now it's time to ply nose to grindstone.

Focus.