All my notes on this story that live in the computer are labeled with a number that corresponds to the book “90 Day Novel” because that’s the method I was using when I started this particular novel. I have other notes, of course, in longhand in a notebook from days when I was out and about in meetings or riding in the van on the way somewhere or otherwise trapped away from the computer – those are not numbered by day. So the system is…flawed. Ah well. Today was “Day 53” in the computer and here are the notes:
“I haven’t done any character building for this novel, outside of Sharon and Minerva, because that’s what the 90 day Novel focuses on – the hero and the antagonist. Today I am working on details for the main character’s daughter Katie.
From Katie’s POV:
One thing you still need to know about me is…
Beginning: I’m the middle child. Sometimes I feel left out. Nell is the oldest girl and she is nearly perfect. Jake is the only boy. I’m just in the middle and it frequently sucks.
Middle: I’m so jazzed about being the center of attention now. Mom is really paying attention to me. I’m special for once and it’s great. I’m mean, it’s still not how I dreamed it would be, but still better than how it was.
End: I don’t want this gift. It’s too hard. I have to make too many choices now. How does anyone live like this? Mom was so excited for me, but Grand-Deb wasn’t. And Grandmother Minerva is just scary in so many ways.
The lie I continually tell myself is…
That it doesn’t matter that no one pays attention to me. That it’s my superpower: Unnoticeable Katie.”
And then a huge amount of research on Middle Child Syndrome in case that comes into play. I’m not sure it will.
So it’s not morning. Morning was good. Full of Animal Crossing and kids and happy, human goodness. David came over and we sat on the back patio and chatted online with Steph. We visited each others islands in Animal Crossing and made stuff for each other. We sat around and watched Community, I cleaned the kitchen, we ate some Shells and Cheese. A good day so far.
So now I’m at the computer and looking at my planner to see what I scheduled to write for today. Only I scheduled everything except for the writing. Oops. So here I am planning my writing in my non-morning Morning Pages.
Today: Finish critique for TCG
Tomorrow: Caro’s Quest writing – whatever the next scene needs to be
Wednesday: Getting class stuff together and writing ahead for that.
Thursday: Start work on Chapter 2 Magical PTA
Friday: Finish up work on Magical PTA for LCG submission
Saturday: Start work on The Dreaming end of Ch 5 or beginning of Ch 6
Sundays are fairly normal. My husband, Nick, gets up around 6:30am and exercises, then I get up and make some breakfast. The midkid and I watch our church service online instead of driving two minutes down the road. Nick and Greg make a grocery list, which Ree and I add to once our church is over. Then Nick goes out shopping for a couple hours while the kids and I do some household chores. In the later afternoon we watch another documentary or play a board game. Sometimes Nick has to work some more. Then the Nick makes dinner, the kids set the table, and we eat dinner. Then it’s time for showers and bed.
On any given weekday, Nick gets up at 5:30am, goes to the living room and exercises with some weights my kid brought home randomly from my dad’s house. He is so thankful for that. I wake up at 6am and grab a cup of tea and a chat with him before he heads off to shower. I read the news until it’s time to swap. After my shower, I dress myself and put on makeup and jewelry because that is one little piece of sanity in my day.
Nick starts work at 7:15am in the home office I rigged up for him from the desk our college kind left behind. It’s perpendicular to my own home office. We hung a curtain from the ceiling between us so our online meeting people don’t have to see the other person in the room. I also need it there because I cannot write if someone is looking over my shoulder. I’m also not used to people being home during the day. I usually spend quite a lot of time alone and I’m going a little bit crazy without alone time.
7:15am is also when I wake up the kids. They don’t wander out until nearly 8am, so I spend time playing the new Animal Crossing Game. It’s very soothing to have someplace to go and other villagers to visit with. My brain doesn’t care that it’s not real. Once the kids come out, we eat breakfast and then take a walk around the neighborhood. I try to pick a different kind of thing to look for every day, just to keep it interesting. Sometimes it’s a kind of tree or a bug or a bird.
When we come back inside, our 7th grader has an online meeting at 9am. The teacher says its optional, but she also texts me every time he doesn’t show up, so I try to make sure he goes into the Zoom meeting before I leave his room. Then I encourage our 10th grader to look at his assignments. His teachers haven’t posted much at all, so he’s inclined not to check unless I stand there and watch him do it. Since he has 8 classes to check, this takes a while.
At 11am, I coax the kids away from the computers and we start looking at our lunch options. I’m usually the one that buys the lunch food, but I cannot go out because I’m immunocompromised, so we have to make do with what my husband brings home. He rarely thinks of lunch food. By noon, we’ve come up with something, eaten it, and the kids wander back to their devices for some recreational screen time while I chat with my husband, who has an hour off for lunch. Sometimes instead I hide in our now-quiet bedroom and luxuriate in the fact that no one is speaking to me.
At 1pm, it’s instrument practicing time. Each kid has two instruments, so one plays for 30 minutes, then the other, and then back and forth again. Sometimes I don’t have to monitor this time period. If I can get away with it, I sneak off to do some writing or editing.
From 3-5pm, it’s serious school work time. The middle school teachers have been assigning all the things, so our youngest has a TON of work. The high school kid does not. So I have the youngest ask the middle one for help during this time while I go do my “work hours.” I have a lot of volunteer positions — Secretary for the Tyler Council of PTA’s as well as focus person for Bell, Moore, Lee, and Andy Woods PTA’s when they need help, Secretary for the Lee Band Parents Association, Secretary for the Moore Middle School PTA, Membership chair and Assistant Webmaster for the East Texas Writers Guild, Facilitator for this group. Plus I’m a member of two critique groups. Some of my groups have successfully transitioned to online meetings, some have not.
At 5pm, I encourage the kids to go play outside or water the garden or weed something. Soon it will be too hot for that, so we may swap our morning walk for yard work, do indoor chores during this time, and take a post dinner walk.
From there, the kids get some non-homework time until dinner set up starts. I usually try to find some artistic thing for them to do or science experiment to run instead of more screen time. Some times it works. Occasionally one of them has an online music lesson during this time.
We eat dinner around 7pm, like we always have. After dinner, it’s time for a family board game or more Animal Crossing, which we play on the big screen together in group mode. Occasionally Nick or I will have an online meeting for one of our groups instead. (He’s on the security and media teams at church and he’s also trying to host online game nights for some of his co-workers who are quarantined alone.) Then showers for the kids and they are sent off to read in bed until they fall asleep. Nick and I go to bed around 10pm after watching Star Trek: the Next Generation.
Fridays are different because Nick only works half days. We have our eldest son over (he lives alone around the corner from us) and do some take-out for lunch. Then play a game, usually. He goes home afterwards. Then Nick’s been finding household jobs to do to keep him occupied while the kids finish their school days. He’ll make a fancier dinner that night.
Saturdays are pretty normal. We wake up later, sit around reading or playing music on our instruments, then eat a bigger brunch. Nick’s church meets on Saturday, so he and the bookend boys watch the service online while I sneak off to write. Our midkid wanders off to read. After church is over, we have a family dinner and maybe some more board games. Sometimes we watch a documentary together. Then the eldest goes home and we do our nighttime routine.
In between the arm breaking and fall festival shopping craziness, things still did get done around here.
I got a plastic dresser from the clearance rack at Wal-mart (bright turquoise) for Greg’s closet and got his stuff moved over and Ben’s moved down. Now they have a shared Treasure Drawer and Ben has three drawers for clothes and so does Greg. I’d show you a photo, but it’s kind of boring in there.
I made my lunch drawer happen, even though it wasn’t on the Official List. Nick and I had a discussion about the plastic ware and where it needed to live (my answer: Goodwill. his answer: in the kitchen) : it’s gone into the top cupboards with the regular stuff. Some of the stuff was removed from several categories and will be making its way to Goodwill this week: mugs we didn’t care about, bowls that didn’t fit our needs, lunch drink containers that ended up not being as leak-proof as advertised.
A tall bookcase arrived for David’s room, so he has room for the books that came out of my room (for his age and interests). We still need to get that moved in and the top of the old shelf arrangement mounted on the wall above his dresser for his Lego creations. The old shelf may go to its forever home in the garage.
I have plans for the garage. Oh yes. Plans that are not fully envisioned yet. But I did start work on making it tidier for the present. (For the future, I would like to take in half the garage and make a “project” room or -even bigger dream- the whole garage and move the master bedroom over there and let each kid have his own room. Nick would like to think on these further. Poor Nick.)
Last, but not least, I got my lovely, lovely, lovely electric teakettle for a feast gift from my sister-and-brother-in-law. Isn’t she gorgeous?
You know what? I thought I’d post more once I got out of my hectic-working-two-part-time-jobs-and-pta-president lifestyle. It turns out that I just don’t. I want to, and I mean to, but then things just go on and it doesn’t get done because it’s not on my calendar of things to do.
So what have I been doing? Here, let me show you:
First I made a weekly schedule of all our extracurricular activities, then added in the housework and stuff I need to do at home, then I put it into Excel and made a handy-dandy worksheet for the fridge and my family binder.
Then I made a template for our meals and snacks. Nick and I still work on the dinner menu together in a two week format for the fridge, but having this here one week at a time gives me a better way to figure out what snacks and lunches go best with the dinner plan we’ve already come up with.
Finally, after looking at a bajillion planners online, I realized that I wasn’t going to 100% love any of them and I’d better just make my own. So here we have it. I loved the idea of a TOP 3 for my week and I loved breaking down what I needed to do not by day, but by for what/who. My text/call/email/snail mail list is awesome, too, because I can do those things whenever I have time for them.
If you zoomed in on those pictures, you saw that I have time to clean, time to work out, time to eat… some of the schedule still needs tweaking. I forgot to put important things like laundry and Bible study time in there. But I also have time set aside for “Special Projects” which is super fun. So far “special projects” has really meant “in-depth house cleaning and reorganization.”
If you follow me on facebook, you’ve seen this one. I cleared off my grandmother’s desk and rearranged my art (adding some new pieces and repainting frames) and added back my desk tray. I even found my label maker and labels! 🙂
Ben & Greg’s room got the next treatment. We took down the bunk beds that were causing musical bed nights (the kids take turns sleeping with the puppy and she couldn’t be on the top bunk). Ben has a light he can reach now and he can look out the window at the pink crepe myrtle trees outside while he’s reading.
We’re reusing the ladder as a magazine rack (though it’s moved into a different place since this was taken) for Boy Magazines (Lego, Cobblestone, Kind News, Boy Scouts, etc), and Greg has room for his side table and music stand & guitars in there as well.
During the desk cleanout, there was also a cleanout of the Giant Filing Bag of DOOM (a queen sized-comforter bag filled with old papers and file folders). I spent a solid day and a half sorting through papers, shredding, recycling, labeling folders, and filing. I have four of these bins now living in my closet on shelves.
Change of seasons: I do this every year, even when the house wasn’t clean. I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem like school is back until I’ve put up my fall decorations. There’s more than this, of course, as we’ve got a few things in nearly every room of the house. This is just my favorite view. 🙂
I hesitated to post this. I’ve been feeling private lately, which may be why it took me so long to blog at all. Anyway, this is my bedroom. You would not even believe how awful it had gotten in there. My room used to be the dumping ground for everything any time anyone came over. NO MORE.
Yes, I actually TOOK OUT a bookshelf from our bedroom. I didn’t get rid of the books. I just sorted them out into two categories: 1) appropriate for boys in the near future and 2) things the boys will probably never want to read or if they do, they have to wait til the far off future. Anyways, this made the hugest difference in my room. I really cannot explain how big a difference; it has to be seen in person. Anyway, the room looks twice as big now.
Organized liquor cabinet. Yes, this is all some sort of scotch or whisk(e)y. It is nearly all earmarked for some special occasion or other (each of the boys turning 21, anniversaries, special whisk(ey) tastings). I made Nick move it all out of the kitchen so I could put kitchen items in the cabinet there. *gasp* I KNOW, right? Anyway, it looks much better here.
Bins for Morning Snacks (we got notes this year from all three kids teachers that lunch is much later than usual and to PLEASE send healthy morning snacks) and Outdoor Toys that Live Indoors. A weird combination, I know. This is a temporary location at best. What I’d really like is a part of the kitchen cabinet set up as Lunch Making Central and a cabinet outside in the back for Things That Are Outdoor Related, but Shouldn’t Get Wet. But I have neither of those things at the moment, so we have bins sitting here. At least all the boxes of snack food in front of this shelving unit have a home now (scroll down for the next picture).
This used to be the liquor cabinet. Now it stores the aforementioned Sam’s Club sized-boxes of extra snack items (yes, Ramen is an after-school snack for starving middle school boys), a few Need to Be Used Soon alcoholic beverages (that I don’t actually recognize, so maybe they’re just THAT old), oddly sized boxes of baking gear, and of course, the special-from-London chocolate I don’t want the kids to get their hands on (it really does taste better than the ones you buy here.)
What’s next on my list?
Moving the shelves from Ben’s closet to the front hallway closet and the bins from that closet to his closet.
Sorting through the last two boxes left in my closet.
Tidying the hallway bathroom closet.
Rearranging storage boxes in David’s room’s closet so stuff he needs is below and stuff he doesn’t is above.
Getting a second dresser for the younger kids clothing.
Tidying up the last bits of the garage (things get dumped there now that they’re not being dumped in our room).
Those are all small projects compared to the ones I’ve already tackled, so I’m going to do those on evenings and weekends as the year moves on.
So what’s really up next? Finishing the novel I started last year. I’m nearly there, I just have about a dozen scenes to finish and some segues to throw in between things I’ve been rearranging this week. When I need beta readers, I will tell you and if you’re interested, I’ll send it your way. 🙂
And now I’m off to do laundry. Because it’s Thursday, and regardless of the wrongness of the above (now corrected) chart, that means it’s Laundry Day.
I didn’t “quit” the PTA, despite how gleeful I might be about stepping down from President-status. I’m still going to Student Health Advisory Committee meetings and am acting as a Council Delegate for at least the middle school PTA (and I’ve offered to do the same for the elementary school, since I’m already going to be there and be writing up reports, may as well kill two birds with one stone, right?). I’m still on the Staff/Teacher Appreciation committees and bringing food up for those days and also doing the Flex Day and 93 and Up Party at the middle school, and heck, I’ll probably even chaperon some field trips and dances while I’m at it. But I’m not on any Executive Board this year and really, that is a lot of work/time/mental stress I’m “skipping out” on.
What am I doing? To sum it up quickly: writing and exercising and organizing.
Oh, you want details? Okay, here goes:
Writing: I have a few novels that are nearing the end of Draft One that I’d like to see actually finish Draft One and move on into Draft Two and Ready for Human Consumption/Editing sometime this year. Also a dozen or so poems that are probably finished, but need Eyes and Sending Off.
Exercising: I’m trying to lose about 90 pounds (a number which I find horrifying). I’m a stress eater/drinker. Boy, have the last few years been full of stress. (Joy, too, but still a lot of stress.) Plus I have been taking multiple medicines that have been shown to cause weight gain as a side effect. So I’m starting with restorative yoga one day a week, strength training a couple days, aerobics a couple days, and a couple days off because I can’t keep it up if I don’t take time off for rest.
Organizing: I’m a pseudo-hoarder. I occasionally watch those shows on TV and think “Oh, thank God I’m not THAT bad!” while I have boxes and boxes of things carefully labelled and awaiting sorting/filing/recycling. I love labeling things, but throwing things out or recycling them? AIE. I’d rather die. What if I need something out of that pile?!?!? No, really, I’d rather scrapbook them and move on, but barring time and energy to complete those tasks, I’ve labelled and boxed things up and now my house is impressively full. So my plan is to start going through the boxes and start tossing/recycling things that no longer have meaning to my family. Once that part is done, I’d like to get back into scrapbooking things again. I like scrapbooking; it’s just time consuming and I have been far too busy with working for money and working for the good of our schools and our church to get that kind of thing done. So part of my time this year will be catching up on that.
Extras: singing in the church choir & ladies ensemble, helping out on the kitchen crew one weekend a month, playing with the church ensemble and playing piano/clarinet solos/duets for Special Music or Offertory, helping out with kids crafts/social time at church, maybe starting up a book club again, helping out with Cub scouts and Boy scouts, helping people figure out their computers and smart phones, writing blog posts, and updating Facebook. You know, the usual. 🙂
Getting back on The FlyLady bandwagon and getting my house/life/sanity under control. Spring Break was fabulous, but the cleanup is going to take a while. Have had a nice last few days at home. It is so good to finally be at home and get things done that need doing. I’ve updated my household notebook and finally put some of my lists in sleeves so I can use the dry erase marker on them. I love technology, but somehow my brain does not equate checking something off a digital list with crossing something out on a paper list. My brain wants paper. What can I say?
Also had a fantastic time having coffee with a sweet, uplifting friend of mine. Have I mentioned how much I love having coffee with people? And that I will continue to call it “coffee” til the end of time regardless of whether or not actual coffee is involved? Oh yes I will. BTW, I need more people to coffee with. I am available during the day and will even make time for coffee with dessert in the evenings for all you working gals because I still love you even though you’ve gone off and left me during the day (boo hoo. sniff-sniff.)
I’m finally getting around to the “Create more” portion of “Pin-free February!”
The first thing I’m trying to “create more” of is less chaos. 🙂 I know that sounds weird, but that’s the first thing on my list. So I’ve been emptying bins around the house and making sure that they are filled with what they’re supposed to be filled with and then I’m labeling them. I’ve also got a few new/new-to-this use bins and have been putting them into use.
New baskets for hats in the hall closet
Newly labeled (but definitely not new) bins in the hallway closet.
Reorganized & labeled kitchen drawers. I’m trying to teach the kids to be a bit more independent when emptying the dishwasher.
Speaking of kids independence: kids bathroom drawer: now organized & with labels! (that black tray came from today’s kids meal – saving money FTW!)
I’m also trying to create more beauty in my house.
I bought a cheap garland at the dollar store and prettied it up with some extra fake flowers I had lying around. I looks a lot nicer in person, actually.
Prettying up my laundry room shelf – I think I’m finally going to repaint it once the rain goes away.
—
Later:
I spray painted the shelf pink, which is not a color you will really find a lot of in the house, and the picture frame I tried using a pinterest method that failed and I tried to decorate the other frame using a different pinterest method as well.
Combo: I spray painted my red key holder to match the shelf and run and I also labeled the hooks once again. That space is awaiting a spray painted basket. 🙂 I wanted to make it green but I didn’t have the right shade so I once I realized it looked bad I decided not to hang it up until I got the color right.
My new laundry room rug – see how it picks up the colors from the fairies & art on the shelf now? YAY! 🙂
David stayed home Friday, so we stayed home and I did some little things I’d been meaning to get to (photo editing, making appointments, etc.) 🙂
Greg helped Nick make dinner that night, which was super cute.
:)Then later Nick and I had a wine & cheese night. 🙂 It was lovely.
Yesterday was a church day, but today I got back to my little projects. I cleaned the front hallway closet, took out the hanging shoe rack thing since we haven’t been using it since we no longer exit out the front door in the mornings. I moved those items into bins on the floor of the closet (mostly spare hats & gloves, sunscreen & bug spray, and miscellaneous fun things we use mostly in the summer.) and threw out most of the junk that was in those bins previously.
Next up I’m going to cut the shoe rack into fewer columns of cubbies since the outer rows are broken. I’m going to move those into the garage for wrapping supply storage. Then I moved my purse rack into the hall closet because it was messing with the calmness of my bedroom.
After all that I put away my stamps & ink from last week and gave Greg the leftover bin for his science supplies.
While I was doing all that, my menfolk were getting the garden started for the spring.
Last week I was thinking that I’d love some kind of jewelry rack that hid my jewelry a bit more than what my current system did. By some miracle, I found just what I was looking for in the Family Dollar store:
I bought two, because I have a lot of jewelry. (I also got a cute rug for my garage entryway/laundry room, but I forgot to take a photo of that.) I haven’t filled them with photos yet, but I’ve been digging through Flickr looking through 2009 photos (because they were lost in the Great Hard Drive Failure of 2009) and I’ll have those printed tomorrow while I’m getting things ready for a Secret Project.
Speaking of projects, I also helped Ben with his Solar System project this weekend. He decided to make a mobile, so we made balls from Sculpey, baked them, & painted them today.
Now we’re having dinner and games with my parents. All in all a productive weekend.
I promised more organizing for the next day’s post and many days have gone by and I can’t remember any more what I organized, so I’m looking through my pictures to help me remember:
See, now my three-tiered shelf can be for pretties again! (Temporary display for now; first things my hands came to)
This is our new art storage cart. I like that it has many drawers, so pens in one, markers, crayons, pencils, etc… I also like that it’s on wheels so it can live there in peace during regular life, or move to the kids room when Greg is on an art spree, or move into my room when we have guests over for dinner. 🙂
This doesn’t look as tidy as I’d like, but for a $3 over-the-door tie-and-belt rack, it does the job. No more lost belts & ties! Woo hoo!
Shoes are always going missing in this house, but NO MORE. Bottom two rows are Greg’s, next two are Ben’s, and next two are next-size-up for each of them (for those days when Daddy is impatient).
Honestly, I’ve gotten nothing else done since then, except a tiny bit in my makeup & hair boxes. Steph and I did a writer’s retreat this weekend, which I posted about here(from a writing standpoint) and here (from an RA standpoint). Since I’m still working on last month’s holidays, I brought her her family’s gifts, and she sent some home with me for the boys as well.
There were cards & gifts from another friend in there as well. 🙂
The kids were out of school on Monday, so we had a quiet, fun day:
Greg pulled out his science kit and we spent quite a while trying out all its tricks.
I remember playing on this with them when they were all babies!
This sign on the door of the bathroom at the park cracked me up!
and worked in the garden. Ben had scouts in the evening. I don’t know that we should call it that anymore, as he’s the only one that ever shows up any more. *sigh*
Yesterday I didn’t have to work, but I did have a bunch of errands to run: a Goodwill drop-off where I spoke to a man named Ram about how God changed his life, a grocery store run to buy lunch makings since the kids had eaten them all up over the weekend, and then my book study on Raising Resilient Kids over at the PDC. After school Ben had dance, so Greg and I hit the dollar store so he could use some of his Christmas money. Then off to piano lessons, where we got a lesson on what goes on inside the piano and how all the pedals work. It was awesome!
Our teacher is super interesting! 🙂 We love her!
Today I was hoping to sub, but haven’t gotten a call, so I’m going to go off and work on some stuff in my bedroom, which has all the boxes of “doesn’t live here” from David’s room cleaning last week. It’s pretty scary and I’m tired of looking at them! Once I get done with that, it’s time for fun stuff: writing! 🙂
Lisa Holcomb 