Time for the Neglect to End!

I have been neglecting The Erotic Writers Group and our #WritingChallenges for two weeks now. I hate it and I’m ready for the neglect to end!

I’m blaming it on a few different things. First, the massive amount of graveyard shifts The Boyfriend has been working lately. I think he’s up to four so far. I guess it’s part of preparing him for full-time graveyards or something, since he’ll be going to that sometime near his birthday. I cannot tell you how unhappy I am about it and yet, how happy I am for him about it.

I know he really liked working graveyards. He also seemed to be able to progress through the ranks faster when he was working graveyards, whereas on days, he’s been stuck for a really long time. I know that for him, graveyards is a better deal. So, I’m happy for him but I’m dreading the whole graveyard thing…

It screws with my sleep so much. I stay up later on nights before he works, getting ready for the shift with him. I sleep later because as long as he’s still in bed, I stay in bed. I need to get to a place where I can just carry on as if he’s not working graveyards… Maybe that will come after the first 3 months or so…

I’ve also been busy offline, trying to keep the house clean. It is not being an easy task at all. Now that we’re cleaning more often it seems like the house is getting dirtier so much faster. It’s truly exhausting and I have officially decided that when I win the lottery (after I start playing), my first mission is to get a housemaid, because I’d like to retire from the duty of cleaning altogether.

I made the boys cleaning out the toy box yesterday and you cannot believe how much that seemed to cheer me up. Getting rid of all the broken and mismatched toys was just about the best thing ever. However, now they’ve discovered toys they haven’t seen in months from the bottom of the toybox and so toys are strewn everywhere right now. It’s a bit of a pain, but it’s one of those ones that you end up being grateful for.

So, my goal this weekend is to get back to our #WritingChallenges for #EroticWriters, complete a project that I’ve been working on for about a week (and that I’m keeping mum about it until it’s done) and keep my living room clean for the whole weekend! Plus, I’ve got dinner down at my Mom’s, where I plan to play guitar for at least 2 hours. So, YAY for the weekend!!

Anyone got any big plans for Valentine’s Day?

Submissions, Cleaning and Reading

Even though I had the hardest time getting out of bed this morning and even though it took me forever and a day to stop feeling groggy (even though, I’m still not sure that I entirely do…) and even though I had planned to just veg in front of my computer all day, today ended up being a super great get-things-done day.

Tonight is the last night to get your submissions in for The Erotic Writers Group #WritingChallenges for #EroticWriters. I was determined, no matter what, I was going to put in at least one submission. And, I did!!

I was inspired by one of the #WritingPrompts (this one) and although I totally hadn’t intended this entire piece to be about what it is, I spent 1000 words on Mary’s Nails – the first piece on my writing blog that isn’t technically for a submission to the challenges. Then, I wrote my first song since “The Tree” and have plans to eventually put some music to it and maybe make it a real thing, but for now, it’s just the lyrics. Deeper Into Me was a submission for this week’s #SaturdaySerenade.

Then, I suddenly decided we were going to completely clean the upstairs of our house. Generally, the upstairs stays really clean all the time. The Boyfriend and I have been spending more awake time in our room, so our room was needing a cleaning. The kids started off being pretty terrible but by the end of it, they were working so well that I even got them to do some extra cleaning downstairs.

Now my entire upstairs and living room are clean!

Then, I came back on the computer and got tons more done than I had expected to get done and it all seemed ridiculously easy. I’m hashing out stuff like crazy and I am loving it! It always feels good to get the bulk of your work done in less time than you expected to, especially being that it means I get to spend so much more time doing other things.

At some point tonight, I plan on getting some reading done because I’m very close to done my first book of 2015, Mary Wood-Allens’s What Young Women Ought to Know. It’s being quite the interesting read and more than once have I interrupted The Boyfriend’s gaming to read him passages from the book. My favorite rule presented by Mary is that girls should never run up and down the stairs. It’s been a running joke this week between The Boyfriend and I.

I always hate that he never reads any of the books that I read. But at least he pays enough attention to what I’m reading to be able to have running jokes with me!

Well, that’s my day in a nutshell. What was your day like? Do anything special this week?

Phew!

I have been having a fairly productive week. Even my house is cleaner than it normally is by a Thursday and I am all caught up on what was an insanely long to-do list, at least for a day or two. It’s been pretty nice!

On Monday, my brother, who I haven’t seen for some time, came back into town. He is doing splendidly living out in BC and it’s been great getting to spend some time with him. The only thing that would make it even better is if I got to spend some time with my sister too! It’s been really nice having him around, I missed him so much.

I’ve been working really hard on The Erotic Writers Group stuff and have managed to publish three blog posts and keep up on all our #WritingChallenges for #EroticWriters and generally, I’m getting tons done where that is concerned. I’m feeling really good about that. I was so worried that I wouldn’t get anything done when I said I would and that I would be so bogged down by it all that I wouldn’t want to do it. But, I’ve actually been surprising myself frequently with my dedication and motivation right now.

The Boyfriend went back to work today after a great three days off. He has a couple overnight shifts this week too which should be interesting. He used to work graveyards all the time and it was the worst thing in the world. I absolutely hated him working graveyards, specifically because of the kids, but also because I used to sketch out really bad at night.

He quit graveyards sometime after Carter was born, after I basically told him, “You quit or we’re done”. Then, when he got promoted, it was part of the promotion that every couple of months he has to do a couple nights of graveyards. I always forget how much I hated it until the day before it happens, and then I remember how nervous being alone at night makes me. Don’t even know why for sure, it just does. But, he loves the graveyards, so I guess it all works out 😉

Tonight, I plan on vegging on Netflix for the night. I’ve got so many shows underway right now, plus they’re bringing out tons of new stuff that I really want to see, so I gotta get down to watching and removing stuff from my list. I’ve got 2 seasons left of Nip/Tuck, probably 8 or so of Grey’s Anatomy (both shows that I never watched on TV). They just added the 3rd season of Call the Midwife, which I’m watching with Kaeidyn. Then The Boyfriend and I are currently working our way through House and The X-Files. I’m absolutely looking forward to new seasons of Orange is the New Black and The Fall and that doesn’t even take into consideration the 30 or so movies I have saved and the massive amount of documentaries I’m holding onto.

There just isn’t enough time at all for everything!