Sunday's Shit List

Aha! I just discovered Block#1: it's impossible to write on the PC in the dining/kitchen area when my sons are hunting for breakfast and hovering over my shoulders like gnats, wanting to see what I'm doing on a blog site.

Mothers aren't supposed to have anything interesting to say, right?

I can't tell you how many times I reduced the page, feigned interest in the toasting bagels and jumped from my seat for more than one hug to steer prying eyes away from the few words I was trying to write.

That's when Block#2 reared it's happy head and lured me into my back garden to pick blackberries, over thirty of them, and two small but perfectly round tomatoes. Now I have to soak the berries, for at least an hour, because last week I found a tick walking around my cereal bowl - big yeuch!

It's a gorgeous day. Perfect blue sky and a slight ocean breeze, although the weather woman is promising horrendous humidity later on - that could be Block#3 - too hot to write...

I gave up the PC and skulked into my study to see if my 5 year old iBook could handle the blog site. So far so good.

Resolution#1 Don't try to write on the PC when the boys are home.
Resolotuion#2 Head outside AFTER scheduled writing has been done, unless I'm taking the iBook with me.
Resoltion#3 Write in front of or beneath a fan, on full power if necessary.

Okay, so those excuses have been neutralized. But what about the really big ones?

Here's my shit list for today:

1. Finish editing the manuscript I've been carrying around with me for months - I only have one chapter to go and, to be honest, I am quite hooked to see how it all wraps up.

2. Begin editing and formating the manuscript I received a week ago (it's only 50 pages) and get it back to the author so I can have room in my head to think about my own novel.

Hmm. Something stinks. My attitude perhaps? Why am I putting everyone else's manuscript before my own? I wonder which button is being pressed here - why is my work less important than "what is expected" of me? Could this be Catholic guilt still steering the ship after how many years? I've not been to church in decades...go figure!

The list continues:

3. I have to begin designing the pages of my online magazine so the web princess can start building the new issue - scheduled to upload September 1st. Nothing like a little deadline to fuel the fires of total panic after weeks of, you guessed it, procrastination.

4. Did I mention the house hasn't been cleaned in two weeks? (Except for the toilets, which need a good scrub almost every day - teenage boys have exploding bottoms on a daily basis!)

5. Then there's the laundry to finish - the whites have been awaiting the Ping of the Start button since Friday morning.

6. I must get all those winter clothes off of the floor of my closet before the weather cools down and I need to wear them again.

7. Despite my goal to have all my magazine articles submitted by July 15th I am missing a few lead stories...writers! Oh, did I mention that one of those stories was the one I'm writing about how the Catholic church recently labeled Reiki as mere "superstition" and has no validation in the scientific or medical fields? I'll be sure to write about my experience doing Reiki on a client in the operating room with a renowned New England sports surgeon. What was it he said after the surgery? "I don't know what you were doing in there, but that Reiki made me look good. I've never seen a patient so stable, especially once we started grinding the bone ."

So you see my list is long, and each item is important, in its own way. I just reviewed it and guess what? I forgot something:

8. Write at least one sentence of MY NOVEL!!!