We’ve moved. Twice. The first time from Montana to Wyoming and into Geek Husband’s grandma’s tiny house. Okay, the house isn’t really tiny (except the kitchen – there is no denying that the kitchen is tiny) – it was just still filled with Geek Grandma’s stuff, making it impossible to Baby Caveman-proof. He’s an active boy. Real active. So the one room we were able to make useable was pretty tiny.
We intended to stay there for only a handful of weeks, but due to a lot of things out of our control (and mostly in Fannie Mae’s lack-of-control) it took half of eternity to close on and move into our (fabulous) new house. But we did; one fine Saturday, while I was off playing with friends and bands (and bands who are friends) in Idaho, Geek Husband and Geek Brother-in-law moved everything into my new house. It was the perfect set-up: everything got moved in and I didn’t have to lift a finger.
But moving in and unpacking are two very different things, and I was left with the unpacking. Seriously, how did we acquire so much stuff? I thought I would never finish unpacking. But then, miraculously, I did. Kinda. There were still boxes to be unpacked in the soon-to-be-a-library bonus room (or FROG, for those in the know). But all the living areas were unpacked, organized, and livable.
Finally, things were settling down. Forget the herd of alpacas and two very large puppies we just added to our lives; never mind the new (fabulous, wonderful, amazing) editor job I just took at Month 9; ignore the fact that Geek Husband and I are positioning ourselves to launch a new business. Yes, all those things added more responsibility to my life and took away more of my time. But my house was finally in order so I was able to carve away time for writing – I thing I can’t seem to make myself do when I can see all that needs done around the house.
Hurray! It’d been way too long.
Then, this morning, this happened:
That wonderful black stuff all over the stairs, my intrepid readers, is glaze. More specifically it is the glaze I bought to finish of the old stereo cabinet I painted a fabulous shade of yellow just before we moved. It’s the glaze I have been looking for ever since we got into this house.
Baby Caveman found it before I did. And Baby Caveman has an obsession with trowing things down the stairs to watch them go boom. You do the math.
The good new is: we were planning on pulling the carpeting off the stair anyway. I want finished platforms with painted risers. And when we pull the stairway carpet, we’ll pull the carpet in the future library as well. Without carpeting in that room, we no longer have anything stopping us from constructing our built-in bookshelves and window seat. And while I’m at it, I better go ahead and paint all the surrounding walls, because I would hate to do so after finishing the stairs only to have a paint mishap while doing it.
Baby Caveman threw the canister of glaze that launched a total remodel.
Now I’m back to having a ton of things around the house pulling at my attention. And back to having said things fighting for my writing time. As I told the empty staircase, however, I wasn’t going to let it keep my completely from my writing. Because, let’s face it: when one starts talking to the stairs, it’s time for one to get to the computer and release the psychosis into a novel.
I started my rewrite of 99 Days of Laney McGuire last week, and I am determined to finish it (I considered joining Pam and Quita in their quest to have a new WIP – or in my case, a new version of an old WIP – completed by the end of May, but I also have some major edits for Month 9 this month, so that’s not a feasible goal). I find myself carving time out of the day whenever I can find it: between chores during Baby Caveman’s nap, in the wee hours of the morning before I have to trudge out to feed alpacas, late into the evening after even the cat’s stopped being annoying, in spare moments between tasks when making dinner . . .
Okay, that’s a lie. The cat’s never not annoying. But you get what I’m saying.
Life never really slows down. If anything, it gets busier and busier, despite the number of things you cross off your to-do list. There’s no waiting for it to calm down enough to write, because that day will never come. Search the time out, find it in the dark corners, and steal it away from lesser pursuits. That’s what I’m doing.
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