Snow Day

This is a picture of my new back yard. The snow is beautiful, isn't it? Blech. I hate it. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for snow I just believe it should be on mountain tops and not where I need to walk or drive. Double blech.

Since the roads are too treacherous for driving, I expect to spend the day unpacking boxes. However, the kidlets are all home from school. They expect me to dress them to play in the snow. Then undress them and dry their clothes. Then dress them again. Then dry their clothes again. Somebody shoot me!

I'm hoping for the Northwest rains to start again tomorrow.

Ten Things I hate about moving

1. Strangers touching my stuff.

2. Strangers breaking my stuff.

3. Strangers losing my stuff. Where is my favorite, ancient Random House dictionary?!

4. Moving men who wear low-rise jeans that have no right to wear low-rise jeans.

5. Kids asking, “Mom, where is my (insert name of stupid toy that could be in any one of a hundred boxes marked ‘toys’)”

6. Not knowing which box holds the cutlery and dishes even though there should be boxes labled ‘cutlery / dishes’

7. Not remembering that it would be a good idea to have toilet paper available for the bathrooms.

8. Hearing the words ‘oops’ when boxes marked ‘fragile’ are carried into the house.

9. Seeing the new neighbors are popping in ‘just to say hi’ at the moment I’m about to lose my mind.

10. Being too exhausted to unpack the linens and knowing I'll end up sleeping under thin Pooh Bear sheets.

A day in my life

6:00 a.m. – Alarm goes off and I stumble downstairs to make coffee.

6:10 – Coffee at my side, I check my emails. Read two digests, reply to one fan letter and delete three spam.

6:15 – Open Word and read a few paragraphs of what I wrote yesterday. Resist urge to delete everything and, instead, get more coffee.

6:30 – Kidlets wake up and make grumbling demands for food and attention. I make breakfasts and school lunches then drive them to school.

8:15 – I’m sitting in my car with my Alphasmart typing while listening to the weather report. It’ll be cold and raining. Again. I get two pages written.

9:00 – Back home. More coffee. More email. Read my favorite blogs.

9:15 – Upload the two pages from my Alphasmart and find it’s three pages – yay! I settle in and write more.

10:15 – More coffee. Online shopping (Oh good! Son number 2’s birthday gift is in stock.)

10:30 – Back to writing.

11:30 – Go grocery shopping. I hate grocery shopping. I grumble the entire time and complain to the produce clerk they should do home delivery. He doesn’t care.

12:30 – return and read what I’ve written. Decide it’s garbage and delete half. Agonize. Then decide it was better than I thought and re-insert the scene (luckily it was only temporarily suspended in a wait-and-see file).

1:30 – I have a small epiphany about how to make a particularly gruesome scene more tasteful. The scene practically writes itself and I’m pleased.

2:45 – Where has the day gone? I hustle out the door to pick up kidlets from school. Then spend hours doing mommy stuff (homework, dinner, driving to piano, Taekwondo and dance lessons)

9:00 – Kidlets are tucked in. I spend an hour packing boxes (8 days until I move!) while watching My Name is Earl and The Office.

11:00 – Open Word and make a couple notes about what I want to write tomorrow.

11:30 – Off to bed with Jane Porter’s fabulous book Flirting With Forty (Buy it. You'll love it.). I dream of Hawaii . . .