My middle child graduated from high school last month. He’s starting out at the local community college five minutes down the road, which is known for its fantastic band program, with the intention of heading to an even bigger band program a couple hours down the road to get a music education degree and become a band director. In any case, he is moving this week.
For those of you new here, my father has a house around the corner from me, in addition to his main house in College Station. Our eldest son moved over there his second semester of college, just before Covid hit. We never got his room repainted, he eventually decided he liked a different room better, and he never completely unpacked in either room so now he has stuff in two different bedrooms.
What the room looked like when my eldest lived in this room.
So last week we started consolidating the eldest back into one room and prepping the walls in the other one for painting. My husband and youngest kid primed the deep maroon walls with Killz.
This week we (my husband, me, my younger two in pairs over three days) painted the room mint green. The midkid started packing up his room at this house, in between Freshman Orientation and working at Studio Movie Grill. So far, he’s entirely his mother’s child and has only packed books and stuffed animals.
So refreshing now! To be fair, we haven’t really moved anything in yet.
In the meantime, his little brother, who is taking over his room here, has been picking out paint for his new space. Just imagine the opposite of this happy light green. This kid wants to live in the depths of the evil forest. He’s already weeded through all his worldly goods and is halfway packed. Yesterday he stood by his brother most of the day and made him keep putting things in boxes. I love him so much.
halfway packed and has .
I’ll also be moving — all my office equipment, writing, and craft stuff over to the youngest’s old room — so I have been picking out paint samples of my own, buying decor, and trying to find some bookcases that don’t have to be built by me. I was sorely tempted by a color called Love Poem just to be silly, but I don’t think I should live in a color so lurid.
No writing has been done in the last couple of weeks, but I have touched nearly every book in the house at this point. Hahaha. It’s exciting around here, to say the least.
I don’t know if I mentioned my wacky word count project before or not, but I made a Google workbook that has a spreadsheet for every current writing project I’m working on, plus one for the blog, ETWG related writing, ODWG related writing, journaling, etc. It was insanely intricate and I nearly lost my mind making it, but it’s done and it’ll let me figure out my word count across all my projects in one glance of an Excel file, as long as I remember to update it every day. Which I totally will, right? *dies laughing* In any case, this weeks word count was a palty 954, mostly because I spent all that time making the workbook. Here’s to hoping next week’s word count is better!
Another exciting announcement for the week! The anthology who took my poem “The Last Family Vacation” just announced the cover graphic and told us that April 2022 will be the publication month. 🙂
I am so excited to announce that my first published short story is available as of today as a pre-order. You can click the link above to order from any of those fine establishments right now. Seeing the book here was really nice and pretty and I clicked each one of those links to see the book in each of the stores, because I’m extra like that.
This is the image that made me cry. I have been shelving books I read into Goodreads for 15 years now. Read a book, shelve it. Read a book, shelve it. All this time I’ve been scribbling away all these little stories of my own in the background, but I was too scared to do anything with them. Last year I decided that I wasn’t going to hide my words any more. And now one of my stories is there on Goodreads. Goodreads! I’m crying again, y’all. It is a wonderful feeling.
I’ve been working hard to get my writing business set up this week, since I have several pieces coming out later this year: a time travel story in a multi-genre beach themed anthology, a memoir-style essay in an anthology about parenting, and a couple poems in a literary journal. Today’s set-up involves getting my mailing list started. So, if you are interested in keeping up to date on where to find all my publications and to get a free short story, please visit this page: Lisa’s Literary Landings
I’ve spent literally every day in December feverishly trying to finish a) writing the time travel short story for the Unleashing the Next Chapter Anthology, b) editing some poetry for the Moms Who Write Anthology, and c) writing a new end for Caro’s Quest, which is why you haven’t seen me around here much. Everything is due tomorrow or the next day. To say I’m stressed is an understatement. I have slept, ate, wandered through words, and hugged my family, and that’s about it this month. Hope y’all have had a wonderful end of 2021! See you in 2022.
I am doing NaNoWriMo as a rebel this year. I am working on adding about 35000 words to the second draft of my current novel, writing a 3500 word short story, and restarting what I’d quit working on during last year’s NaNoWriMo. You can find my profile for NaNoWriMo here.
Today I felt exhausted after a super busy weekend chaperoning my kids band at Area Marching Contest and the whole Halloween extravaganza. I didn’t think I’d get much done.
I only opened the first file for editing just to let myself stare at it while I finished my tea. Then I was going to get up and reheat my breakfast burrito. I noticed a couple things to fix, then a couple more. Next thing I knew, my tea was gone, so I took my burrito out to warm it up and when I glanced at the clock on the microwave it was three hours later.
I ate some lunch with my husband, who came home about five minutes later and told him about my magical morning. Then I told him about my plan to go to the gym in the afternoon. He left for work and I went back to the bedroom (which is also my office) to use the restroom. While in there, the computer made a weird noise, so I stopped to investigate for a moment before leaving for the gym.
Next thing I knew, it was 3:30pm and time to pick my kids up from school. So I stopped to do that and went back to writing while they were working on homework.
In all, I wrote 2,200 words on the current WIP. Of course, I also edited out about 1500 not so great ones. So I’m at 684 for the day. This is the last editing day this week, so I should still be able to make it up with just a hundred extra words a day this week.
It was a good start to National Novel Writing Month.
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.
It’s not just Pin-Free February, it’s also my month to test out nearly full time work and see if I can really do it before making a big decision. I’m thinking about going back to school and getting my master’s degree in library science. I have a totally busy month planned out, filled with lots of days subbing up at the elementary school, lots of full days of volunteering (field trips! teacher appreciation!), lots of full days just trying to get caught up on laundry & cleaning, and then a few days I’ve scheduled as full writing days because that’s not getting done right now what with everything else going on. We will see if I can do all that and survive the month. Who knows?
Still having issues with novel course joy. I can see that further ahead I’ll have almost too much to do in one week, but right now there doesn’t seem to be enough, so I’ve been reading ahead each day and am up to the week five assignment now, which has me working on my setting. I know that my first setting is going to be real world stuff & they won’t be there long, so I’m not obsessing over that portion, but am obsessing over the place that the kids will travel to, which is hard to plan for because, well, I haven’t written it yet. I’m not good with this whole planning thing. On the other hand, I’m not good at finishing complete novels either, so this all about the learning, right? *sigh*
In other news, have managed to convince two other people to sign up for the course just by being excited about it. That’s good. Real life accountability weighs more than just nebulous online person accountability sometimes. I can’t just quit writing if there are people that can come to my door and sit on my couch & stare at me until I write. And they would do that, too. It would be unnerving. I’d have to write something, if only to get them off my couch. 😉
amused
