Of Calendars and Keys

So, I’ve been lucky enough to be home this last month, and the subject of ‘word count’ came up. How many words can you write in a certain space of time.

Well, I was appalled, because novel wise, I’d only written around 55K–and usually, even with the EDJ and soccer/dance/karate oh-my, my word count is higher than that.

But, I’ve got these handy day-calendars now (okay– I tried this a couple of years ago, and they worked, but when things got REALLY hectic, with the four kids, I settled for writing stuff on the back of my hand because the day calendar was just too darned much trouble) and I started looking back at my month to figure how it could have gotten away from me.

First of all, remember that the more kids around, the less chance I actually have to write, and we’ll start from there:

One week of Christmas vacation
One four-day weekend
Three dentist appointments
Two doctor’s appointments
Two kid-shrink appointments
Four ADHD classes
Back to school night
Guitar Recital
Teacher’s conference
Two sick kids (on different days)
Final edits on Talker 2
Two edits on Yearning
Two book releases w/guest blogs
One manuscript submission (and acceptance)
Gathering Squish’s Kindergarden submission
One failed meeting to register her (not my fault)

And…

Losing my keys.

Now, Losing My Keys (and, yes, it deserves to be capitalized) didn’t happen until Friday afternoon, but it managed to completely fuck up Mate’s weekend. Mine, yes, but my devastation was emotional–his was actual.

I lost my keys on Friday–literally, got home on Thursday night with them and spent all of FRiday looking for them–and after two days of Mate telling me that he HAD TO WORK on Friday and even on Saturday, my complete idiocy resulted in:

* Three hours Friday, spent bringing kids home, and taking Big T to a radio station. (That last was sort of cool– T submitted his favorite songs to the radio station, they picked his playlist and he had to come in and record his intro. Like I said, cool– but *I* was the one who was supposed to take him!) He went back to work after all of that and stayed until almost nine, and I felt like crap.

* All of yesterday (when, remember, he was going to work) during which he spent the day getting the car towed to the dealership and getting the keys replaced.

*My neck deep weepy guilt, because there was no WAY he wasn’t mad at me, and he had every right to be, and he was trying not to be because I felt like crap.

*sigh* And then he reminded me that the reason we had to get the car towed was because I had already lost the first set of keys in August. So that’s two sets in a year.

I’ve been flaky like this my whole life, right? It’s just that some times it seems like more of a burden than others.

Of course, the bright spot is, as it always was, Mate–

“I have no idea where they are! Damn, I may as well read the damned cards to find them!”

“You do that!”

“Okay, fine.”

“What do the cards say?”

“The cards say that the kids made me lose them.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah– five of staves. Staves are responsibility, the kids are playing with them in the picture–I say it means the kids made me lose them!” (Yes–I did just pull that out of my ass– but I swear that was the picture!)

“Was it really the kids, or was it the five people playing in your head that made you lose them?”

*crickets* “Uhm, probably option B.”

“I thought so.”

So there was that–how a life of leisure can really be so full and so weird that ‘leisure’ is a dirty word.

And, I must confess, I just acted very badly, not an hour ago.

Big T’s alarm went off–it’s REALLY LOUD and he was sleeping right through it. (I mean, it IS Sunday morning!) Anyway, it woke me up in the next room, and so when I stumbled over to his room to turn it off, I was, well, peeved. So I stood at his doorway and surveyed the single-serving sized version of the apocalypse that is his room and decided to just get his attention. I called his name (loud enough to wake Mate in the next room) a couple of times, and no dice. Wasn’t moving. So I took my life in both hands and tried to take the four steps that would let me turn off the damned alarm.

I stumbled twice, almost broke my neck, turned off the alarm, and smacked my sleeping giant of a son on the shoulder.

“WHHHHAAAAA!!!”

“Could you turn off your own alarm! Jesus Christ, T–you can hear that thing in the next block!”

“Wha?”

“Go back to sleep. Just turn the damned thing off next time!”

And he has now gone back to sleep–but I think I owe him big when he wakes up. Like I told Mate, I was just going to turn it off for him until I realized my life was at stake walking across the damned room!

Anyway– that’s tricks. I think today I might get to catch up on some of your blogs… I sure have missed you in my life of leisure!