If we were having coffee….
Thanks for coming over to my house today. I hope Keurig coffee is okay today. Excuse the mess on the table, but I hosted my annual Halloween Crop at Casa de la Hirsch last night, Friday and Saturday, actually. Everyone was here late last night, but they left before the end of the Penn State football game.
When Penn State kicked the balls out of #2-ranked Ohio State–footballs, that is–my husband and I were pumped. With all the Starbucks closed that late hour–even the one in Arborland–we couldn’t get our traditional Celebratory Frappuccinos. We went out at 12:30am and got Celebratory Frappes at McDonald’s. Chocolate sugar rush, alumni pride and game replays of that awesome end of game quarterback sack doesn’t make for an early bedtime.
*Yawn* Nor does it make motivation to clean up after scrapbooking. My once neat pile of everything is tossed in that corner so you have room to sit. No, it’s no problem. I always have fun decorating the table, giving goodie bags, and all that. This year, I found black plastic roses at the dollar store. Some bouquets even had some dark purpley roses mixed in. Distinguished Death–love it!
My Deadwood Writers met again in the café. We’ve got one more meeting there before the annual holiday party, and then I don’t know where we’ll be. The Ann Arbor group is also moving at the end of the year. The bimonthly meetings are now the first and third Mondays at a different branch of the library system, newly remodeled. I work on Mondays, and missing that sucks. I love my Monday work shifts most of all, and I would never give them up. I’m bummed that the meetings are now more inconvenient.
I guess with all these changes, it’s a good time to be moving. I’ll miss this in-person writing interaction, because I don’t know if I’ll find anything like it wherever we end up in New Jersey. The scrapbook store Scrappy Chic is closing at the end of the month. The customer service there was terrible and the employees were snooty, but two art groups I was active in met there. They’ve disbanded because there’s no regular meeting space. I have the potential to gain as much or more as I’ve lost here with the move.
Speaking of, it’s a lot more exhausting to move than I thought. I expected that packing up the rooms would be a couple hours, a few trips to the storage unit and poof! All done. Going through my scrapbook room, I can’t work for more than an hour in there before becoming overwhelmed. How do I get rid of things? How do I have time to organize when so much needs vacuuming and cleaning. That’s not even counting the time packing up the stuff in closets and cabinets so things look spacious for potential buyers. Just when I think it’s under control, a new pile of stuff landslides into me.
I have had absolutely no progress on my ROW80 goals. That’s frustrating, but that is my reality. I wasn’t overshooting when I chose them. I didn’t realize how much I would sacrifice for this move.
1–Complete a good, polished manuscript of my memoir: Nope.
2–ePublish 1-2 shorter books: Again, nope. I said I’ll hold off on this until November, but I don’t know where I’ll find that time.
3–Get my email Inbox below 500 emails: Again, no time. I did have it down to 953 earlier this week, but then the weekend hit.
4–Get my phone photos below 10,000: Nope. Not even going there.
5–Pack/toss/donate a whole buncha stuff: Yes, actually. As time goes on, it’s easier and easier to let go of stuff. It’s either toss now or dump in a box now. Packing clutter to get it out of site is not necessarily the best use of my time on the other side.
On a final note, I signed up for NaNoWriMo this year. I’m really not sure what I’ll have time to do, but once everything’s packed up, I may surprise myself.
How was your week?
