Hermit weekend

This year for the 4th, I've decided to be a recluse. Why you ask? (you were thinking it) It's not that I
have anything against our country, or our independence. I like independence. Here's the thing: 1) I'm not really into crowds. Never have been, never will be. 2) I like fireworks and all, but to watch a public display here in Tacoma is like getting through a labyrinth. 3) I've never really had that 4th of July "tradition". Meaning, most of my friends and family have had their things they do set it place for eons. I was married for 18 years and we really just kind of winged it every year, so now that I'm single, I don't have a "thing" I do every 4th.

Put all those things together and when the 4th came around, I was kind of like, "meh." My bosses gave us today, Friday, off, so I decided to have myself a little staycation to catch up on all the stuff I'd put aside while I was working on my major marketing presentation for said day job. So, this is what I have planned:

• Deep clean the house. Seriously, my house is totally disgusting
• Shop for a new washing machine. I've been going to my parents house to do laundry for like a month now and I'm over it.
• Put together furniture that has been sitting in my garage for a year. Seriously.
• Frame prints a friend gave me over a year ago and find a more prominent spot to display them. I had them sitting on a window ledge, but they need to be in a better place.
• Print out pictures to fill frames that have been sitting on my mantel for 6 months. 
• Load music on iPod. I've had a gift card in my purse for about two months. This also include getting my besties country music OFF my iPod that inadvertently got synched on. I had it playing yesterday and wanted to tear my ears off.
• Walk the bridge. I slept through kickboxing this morning.
• Weed. Yeah, I have lots of weeding to do.
• Find all the typos in Dissected. Yep.
• Work on publishing house website. I'd like to get this done before the book come out.
  
• Find a box and finally put away those Cinco de Mayo decorations that have been sitting in my living room for two months.
• Handily avoid my children. Now, don't act like that. I love my children, but it's their dad's week. However, whenever they're with their dad, they always come over and end up staying for hours eating my food and messing up my house that I'd more than likely just cleaned. I told them about my hermit weekend and that the house was off-limits. Of course Thing Two already tried to come over last night with nine of her closest friends for a sleep over. I was like, "uh uh, no way." She was not pleased.
•  Find workout shorts that don't threaten to fall down revealing me in all my glory during kickboxing. Seriously, I don't know what it is. I guess I just have a weird body shape. I fear if I go down another size they will be so form fitting I won't be leaving much to the imagination. My body is shaped weird. Or maybe it's just that I have curves and usually what fits my hips falls off my waist. Who knows? I'm an anomaly.
• Organize my cupboards. Kind of. Not spending a lot of time on this one.
• Clean my office. You would think this would go along with cleaning the house, but my office is a whole 'nother dimension. I would take a picture and post, but honestly, it's too embarrassing. Imagine stacks of paperwork, computer programs, manuscripts, newspaper articles, book swag, office supplies...and I mean stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks.
• Write. I want to work on my contemporary. Because I love it.

I think that's it for the list. Enjoy your Friday, here are my Scribbles.

Next Pandora song (Imagine Dragons station):

Book of the Week: Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler

Netflix of the Week: Jeff, Who Lives at Home. Indie Flick with Jason Segel and Ed Helms. I really liked it.

Quote of the Week: The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one; or both. Usually both. ~ Susan Sontag

Millions of things to do so little time

Pretty sure I forgot to post a monkey this week.

I've not blogged in a couple days because I've been so scattered going this way and that way, I've not been able to focus on one task at a time. Here's what I've needed/wanted to do the last few days.

• Edit a 2k12 video
• Study and play with Adobe Creative Cloud
• Consolidate my bills
• Write book reviews
• Look for some contract work to make some extra money
• Practice my new Photoshop and InDesign skills
• Work on my rewrite
• Work on gathering more agents to query
• Clean my house
• Mow my lawn
• Weed my gardens
• Spray my blackberry bushes
• Pick up the box of books I ordered
• Clean out my inbox
• Probably some other crap I'm not remembering.

Instead of any of those things, this is what I worked on last night:

And just saw someone gave me a dislike!! >:(
Oh well. Chaos isn't for everyone.

Okay, I'm going to try to maybe do one of those things *points above*. Enjoy your Thursday night.

Sleep! Why hath you forsaken me?

I go through these bouts of sleeplessness, which isn't good for me because I always have too much to do. Plus, I'm trying to exercise consistently because we have a biggest lose contest going on at work, and I'd like to drop a few pounds before my release (which is 8 days away. gasp!).

I've been up since 2:30 this morning. Believe me, I laid there and tried to go back to sleep, but my mind, it wanders. I thought about all the things I have to do before my release. I thought about my manuscript and changes I'd still like to make before submitting to my agent. I thought about getting my house spotless before my out of town guests arrive.

Needless to say, I didn't fall back to sleep. So I got up, did pilates, vacuumed, showered, and now here I am blogging with still three hours before I have to leave for work. I suppose I can be even more productive this morning, but I'd rather be sleeping.

What do you do to help you sleep?

F³A: Roiling angst and where the day takes me

My angst is at its apogee (this is me and my new goal of using a new lesser used word every day).  It's the time of year, not only because of the season, but for personal reasons both from the way back machine and present day Tacoma, which I'm not going to bore you with at the moment.

I told today I was going to kick its ass, it's not going to go down without a fight.  Number one, thank god for LOL Cats.  Number two, do not look up "bad day" on Google images because lots of icky gross stuff comes up.

Anyhoo.  I said, "Hey, Day, bring it on.  Give me your worst!"

Day said, "Okay first of all, I'll let you have your coffee and do your stupid computer stuffs.  But after that, your ass is mine.  And you're lucky I'm letting you slide on the promise to get on the elliptical today."

Me: "Okay, fine, then what?"

Day: "Hmmm, what to throw at you first.  How about the kitchen."

Me: "Pfft.  Piece of cake."

Day: "Maybe I'll let you pick up your girls today, but then there's groceries, and perhaps some gift delivery."

Me: "Is that all you got?"

Day: "Cookies."

Me: "That may be work to you, but I call that fun."


Day: "Well, then I'll have you catch up on the laundry, wash, dry, fold, AND put away.  You have guests coming on Christmas you know."


Me: "Shit.  Shit.  Okay.  Okay.  I can do this.  Next?"

Day: "You sure you're ready for what comes next?"

I close my eyes, start jumping around, breathe in and out, shake it off like a boxer.  "Okay, yeah, I'm ready...wait.  No.  Yes."  My body calms, I get in my best I-can-take-it-stance.

Day: "Your office."

my office

I almost collapse, but I maintain my cool  I don't want the day to know that its, in a single two words, almost beat me.

Me: "You're on.  I'm kicking your ass Day.  You can't stop me."

Day: "I'm not worried.   I've always got tomorrow."

Okay, time for the Friday Scribbles:

Christmas Song of the Week: Jingle Bells by Sammy Davis Jr.  No one sings it like him.

Book of the Week: Still on Just Cause by my friend Ian Healy.  Christmas has taken away my ability to read in a timely manner, but hopefully will finish next week.

Christmas Movie of the Week: Going with The Family Stone.  I love it.  Luke Wilson is so cute and funny in it.  And I love Rachel McAdams in it too.

Quote of the Week: "As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December's bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same." ~Donald Westlake

Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Joyous Kwanzaa.  If you don't celebrate a holiday, celebrate you.

Author copies, Christmas, and good bfs

Totally unrelated things I know.

First off, I want to say that I received a box of author copies in the mail a couple days ago.  And SQUEEEEEEE!!!!  They are so beautiful.  The cover is metallic and everything seems to pop off of it.

I was asked by my co-prezzie of the Class of 2k12, Caroline Starr Rose if I would read it again now that it was in realsies book form.

I think I just might read it again, this book I've read a bazillion times and got so sick of I wanted to toss it from the Narrows Bridge.  It's kind of different with it's metallic blue cover and it's dedication and acknowledgments, and playlist in the back.  It's a bit surreal to look at it and know it's mine.  I created it.  The title stands out more on the metallic cover than it did on the other, and the car pops off the page.  If I were walking through a bookstore, I would pick it up for sure.  And on the back where the description starts the words I had the dream again are the same as the title, same font, each letter a different color.  I am so in love with this book, more than I've been in a long time.  So yeah, I may read it again.


Now that I've written all that, I can't remember what I was going to say about Christmas. hmmmm.  I'll get back to that when (if) I remember.


To good boyfriends.  I told you the other day, this is a stressful time of year for me, not just because of the holidays but for other reasons.  The other day I was panicking because there were presents to wrap,  Christmas cards to create and send, and gift baskets to make (57 to be exact), and baking to be done, and my house was a mess, and 18 videos and dvds to make and, and, and...

this is not my bf but you get the picture

...and I have a boyfriend who tells me to breathe.  A boyfriend who comes over and folds my laundry, and does my dishes, and vacuums my floors, and makes me dinner while I make videos.  He does allow this poor pathetic girl to breathe.  And I feel much better.  My videos are close to being done, I did some of my baking yesterday, gift baskets, done (just need to be delivered which is fun), my house is clean (outside my office which I just may clean today), I've printed out my Christmas cards, most important, I still have presents to wrap, baking to do, a few more videos to Lightscribe, but I'm also still breathing.


Now about Christmas.  Still don't remember, but I do love waking up to the Christmas lights, to hell with the light bill.

Oh, yeah, and catch me on Julia Karr's 2k12 Days of Christmas today.


Happy Thursday all.  Hope it's a great day.

Tuesday Writing Tips: Distractions

Here are some tips for keeping distractions at bay while writing.

Children: Go find a place and hole up.  If your kids are older, tell them you need an hour of no distractions (you tell them that means unless someone is bleeding to death, etc, STAY AWAY!).  For younger kids, hire a babysitter for an hour or two to bust some words out.  Another way to get some writing in without the kids nagging, write before they get up in the morning or after they go to bed at night. (this could also apply to your spouse if you have one).

Internet:  You know when you're writing, and you just need a few minute break, so you open Facebook and somehow two hours have passed?  Close it.  Shut it off.  Disconnect.  That's the only way to be sure you'll stay away from those status updates, Mafia Wars, Farmville and the like.

Phone calls/text messages:  Leave your phone in another room or simply turn it off.  Now, I'm talking about a cell phone of course, but I don't have a land line anymore.  Either way, let the voice mail take it or let your significant other or kids answer in case it's important.

Everything else: Take off for a weekend alone.  Let the hubby/wife/grandparents watch the kids for a weekend and get yourself a hotel room in a quiet place.  I've done this a few times (planning on doing it again in a couple weeks) and I'm always productive.  ALWAYS.

These are just my own ideas of course, you may find other things that work for you. (I haven't quite mastered the whole internet thing yet)  Everyone deserves an hour of quiet.  Take yours and write.

Oh, and one more thing the dishes, laundry, general cleaning will all be there when you get back.

Monday Morning Blahg: Procrastination = Missed Opportunities

Heeeeere's Megan

We finally had some nice (okay, decent) weather over the weekend.  The sun was shining, the birds were singing.  But guess what I was doing.  I was sitting in my living room working on my first pass pages.  Because I procrastinated and waited until the last minute. Sigh.  So I didn't get to finish this shoveling task I started, I didn't get my back patio cleaned up, or my planter boxes put in place.  I didn't get to go for a walk or a bike ride because literally from dawn til dusk (with a short Starbucks break) I was working. (All work and no play makes Megan a cranky butt)

Today it's raining again.

Monday Morning Blahg

If cleanliness is next to godliness, I should at least be in line for a canonization.  I spent yesterday picking up a place that looked like it had been ransacked by burglars.  AND put my kids to work as well.  I'm not sure how I did that.  I just said really excited, "SUNDAY IS MAJOR CLEANING DAY!!"
and they were all over it.

 Thing One folded a pile of laundry about the size of Mt. Fuji.  And she cleaned the downstairs.  I'm not sure what Thing two did, really, but she was downstairs and didn't resurface, whether she was cleaning or hiding I'm not sure.  I do know that they both cleaned their rooms and we all washed our sheets (which we probably don't do often enough)

I cleaned my own room, which was nothing but a pile of clothes covering every inch.  Cleaned the kitchen which had been pillaged and plundered by a five teenager sleepover.  I vacuumed the living room/kitchen (it's more like a great room without the great).  Most importantly, I cleaned my office.  I had months worth of filing to do, Christmas crap piled in there, my desk was cluttered with dvds and books and sticky notes.  I wanted to get back to writing in there and free up my kitchen table for stuff like, well, eating.  I used to pride myself as the Ultimate JFC (see picture above to figure out what it means), I think I need to channel her again.


Having the house uncluttered also makes me realize the important things that need to be done (ahem, like the bills paid that have been piled up in that stack of paperwork you've been meaning to go through), but it is also good for my mental health.  When my house is a cluttered mess, I get cranky.  I'm more Zen-like now, I've found an inner peace that can only come from having a tidy and sparkling sanctuary.


Now about that canonization . . . how about if I'm the patron saint of Scribing Servants.  I like it.

As always,

~Megan

Four reasons it will be difficult to blog this week.

See, I told you didn't I? I've skipped two days in a row. So, hmmmm, I guess I will only be giving you two reasons, and so I will now lump the rest together into one. Everything. Nanoing, soccer, writing, now planning a trip to NYC, yep that's right. Sick kids, holidays, cleaning, dinner guests, responsibilities, emails, facebook.

I could probably continue, but I won't. I think you get the picture. Life gets busy sometimes and doesn't allow you to stay with your normal routine. I'm okay with that. I thrive on chaos. Without it, I don't think I could survive. I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

So that's it. Sorry for slacking this week.

I will do the Friday Free For All tomorrow.

Love my peeps. Happy Thursday.