Reprieve! Reprieve!

Today in Mommyland…

Finally got a bit of a break! Goldbug seems to have settled down a bit after two incredibly fussy days of off-and-on feeding and short, fragmented naps. He still isn’t napping as much as usual (oh no! is it the dreaded shift in napping?!), but I did successfully get him down for a nap around 11am, thank goodness! That gave me some time to write, at long last. And because he’s been less generally fussy (I suspect teething now, for sure: he’s become a little fountain of drool and seems to very much enjoy chewing on his refrigerated pacifiers), I was actually able to get B-Bug to do some much-delayed school work. I tell you, never in my life have I considered homeschooling an easy job, but my admiration for those who actually homeschool their kids full-time has gone through the roof these last few weeks.

Meanwhile, packing at Chez Slater has become “Craigslist Free central” as Andy got rid of a TON of things we didn’t want to have to move, and found a place to recycle both some old, broken TVs and a couple of busted microwaves we’ve been holding onto for years, AND a place that takes and recycles old mattresses. I was worried, I’ll admit, when we learned that the local dump was closed, but this is so, so much better. I’m much happier recycling if possible, and it’s been great handing off old things that still have some good life left in them to folks who actually want them, rather than just dumping them at a vague donations place. And we’ve been able to social distance well with this, usually by putting a desired item out on the front step just as they arrive. We’ve gotten rid of a bunch of really great baby things Goldbug outgrew entirely too fast, as well as a few other baby things we no longer need. It’s kind of a nice community thing, too, to wave to folks from your doorstep as they pick up something. It almost feels social!

T-minus 11 days until the POD arrives! EEK! Things are moving so fast! There’s still so much to do!

Today in Writerland…

Life’s been kind here in Writerland. If yesterday was like a pipe clogged with word-leaves suddenly bursting loose and sputtering nasty, brackish water all over my shoes, today was a new summer hose spurting cold, fresh well-water into the grass. As expected, I cut everything I wrote yesterday and threw it into the SCRAP document (I rarely throw anything more than a few lines out completely: I tend to packrat them in a separate document, just in case I need it later), and using a trick I learned from way, way back in the old days, I wrote the next scene in a new document using a different font. (If that hadn’t helped, I would have then put in headphones and listened to some mood-setting music, and if THAT hadn’t helped, welp, probably means there’s something deeper wrong with the scene I’m about to write, so maybe I’d have skipped over it and either written the scene AFTER that, or more likely jumped to some part that seemed interesting and pre-written that.) But didn’t need to take drastic measures, and managed to execute what I feel like is a pretty solid 1,000 words to replace the garbled ones from yesterday. Phew! Can I tell you how much I prefer leaving a draft feeling like I haven’t completely bunged everything up?