Balls in the Air

I'm a deadline person. As a due date approaches it draws my full attention like a beacon and I focus until I've met my goal. This process has worked well for me for 35 years, but I'm currently finding myself with quite a lot of beacons causing light pollution in my brain.

First and foremost, I'm a mother, now. And not just a mother, but a mother of children who have activities and responsibilities. School, classes, meetings, conferences, therapies, sports, commitments, stuff, junk, and above all, PAPERWORK. Keeping on top of all that could easily be a full-time job.

But it's not because there's no time for it to be!

There's the need to exercise. And eat right. I find focusing on those two activities much easier when I can let other things go. Like housework, which I can't let slide too far because it seems I'm having people over a lot lately. So there's hosting/event organizing for the list, too.

And editing my work in progress. And freelancing to pay the bills. And, oh, look at the date! November is National Novel Writing Month and I'm nearly 2000 words into my new novel.

Plus we have this influenza A/H1N1/swine flu joy, which hobbles us all. (Ellie's the one who's sickest at this point, but she's on Tamiflu and she's doing OK. I'm trying to embrace the required quarantine and see it as an excuse to loosen the schedule a bit.)

Despite all the more immediate activities, I can't forget that Christmas is coming and homemade gifts don't make themselves the week of December 20th.

So forget fun things like reading novels and watching television and playing Nintendo. Perhaps I'll work them back into the rotation in January!