I came on here with the intention of recording my day, thinking that this “journal” hadn’t been used in far too long, only to discover a delightful entry from Lady Rissa from last month! That pretty much made my day. While I cannot compete with her way with words, I will nonetheless still contribute by recording today’s activities.

I awoke briefly after a late night as my husband got up for work at 8:00 AM. But, typically for me these days, I was unable to open my eyes more than a fraction of an inch, so rolled over, fell back asleep, and continued to dream about going back to my last job…or something like that (why would I dream about that? I was miserable at that job – I quit for a reason! Apparently even in my dreams, I require a successful career to survive).

I finally actually woke with the ability to open my eyes around 9:00 or 9:30, sat up in bed, and, deciding I did NOT want to face a day in which I was supposed to clean the house, catch up on my NaNoWriMo word count, prepare for tomorrow’s Operation Christmas Packing Party, or do anything else, proceeded to lay in bed and play Candy Crush while contemplating how much of my life my phone games take up. And, yes, I am well aware of how ironic that is. Nonetheless, I continued to crush (hehe) levels (approximately) 986, 987, 988, etc. as I returned to thoughts I’ve been having the previous week about just deleting all four of the games that take my time and attention in an attempt to get a portion of my life back. I decided I would reach level 1,000 and then delete the games. Well, 1,000 came and went, and then I decided I would wait until I went through all five of my lives and then delete the games. I immediately started having a stellar run of it, as 10:00 AM came and passed me by. I even stopped to google how many levels there were in Candy Crush, and my mouth dropped open at the information there are over 10,000 levels. I then continued to play as I told myself how completely fruitless this was.

It was only after my husband came up and caught me for the second morning in the row completely wasting my life that I…okay, fine, played up to like level 1017, ran through all my lives, and promptly uninstalled the game before I could overthink it. Then I went to my other three games, apologized to my “clans/townships/whatever they are called where other people count on you to play, thereby suckering you in further because you feel like you are failing all these people you’ve never met when you don’t play enough/well enough/or dare to leave”, and uninstalled those as well. At the moment I am writing this, it is 11:45 AM, and I have picked up my phone no less than five times and tapped through all my icons in a futile attempt to select a game to play that no longer exists on my phone. Probably the best thing I’ve done for myself in ages.

So, that done, I finally set my phone down and took a shower, coming downstairs just in time for my husband to pour me some French press coffee, eggs, toast, and bacon for a late breakfast (and no, I’m not telling you how many times I began to reach for my phone while we ate). Then Daniel went back to work, and I sat down to write. So far, I’ve managed to look at my email, catch up on FB messages, text a few people I’ve avoided texting for the last few weeks, listen to a chapter of the book I’m currently reading, contemplate my failure to get published, and begin writing this post. What? I am not avoiding writing. What on earth gives you that idea?

I am currently reading (that is, listening to) a book that’s been on my to-read list for like a year called Ordering Your Private World, and I have to say it has been pretty convicting. It discusses the necessity of making sure you are all right spiritually/internally in order to have a firm foundation so that when things fall apart on the “outside”, you don’t collapse. Which I’m pretty sure is exactly what happened to me over the past year or so. Even now, many of the things the author has mentioned hit far too close to home–such as the driven person letting results give them a false sense of satisfaction and thereby missing the benefits of the journey toward the results completely. Anyway.

It is now 1:20 and I’ve been employing one of my favorite methods to force myself to write when I don’t feel like it. Watch one minute of a (usually cheesy, hallmark or hallmarky romance) movie and then write 100 words. It is surprisingly effective for me because I get the feeling of a reward, and 100 words seems doable. Thus far, I’ve managed 1700 words (most of which will probably be deleted in the editing of this book, but who’s counting?), and then I took a break because my characters have decided to make money via gardening, and I know basically nothing about gardening, so I actually have to do some research while writing so I can even talk about what they are doing. I was surprised to learn that there are actually vegetables you can grow in September, and apparently there is work to do in the garden in the fall–I thought I was making that up when I wrote it. Now that I have a few veggie names, let’s see if I can keep going as my main characters begin their work.

3:50 and I finished 5,000 words! It was super easy. I just sat and wrote. It all came naturally. The characters talked to me, the plot flowed, there was no hesitation….ha. Yeah. No. There was a whole lot of write-a-few-words. Stop. Be angsty. Collapse dramatically on couch and complain that everything I was writing was complete crap, reject all my husband’s suggestions, and then keep writing. It was painful. Drawn out. The worst. But I still got it done, and there was something satisfying about that, whether I think these words will be in my final document or not.

I followed my very productive 5k word sprint (okay, marathon) by sitting on the couch, finishing the hallmark movie, staring at my phone and thinking about re-downloading games, and generally contemplating what I should do next vs what I was going to actually do next. But despite my desires to do absolutely nothing, I did eventually force myself off the couch and begin setting up for tomorrow’s party. What goes into the set-up you asked? Ah, I’m so glad you asked.

So, it means rearranging the family room, dining room, and living room into stations, setting up all the folding tables and chairs, and setting out all the toys, as well as any food that doesn’t need to be refrigerated, and pre-staging platters for additional food. In other words, our living room now has a food table set up, a dessert table, a station for folding the cardboard shoeboxes that we order in packs of 50 (we have four of them, just in case) from Samaritan’s Purse, and a station for labeling the boxes. The dining room has rows of chairs with larger toys on them, and a table stacked to the brim with “essentials” (washcloths, soap, toothbrushes, etc.). Our kitchen counters have, respectively, a cold drink station, hot drink station, clothing, hair, and art supplies, and our family room has lots more toys and a finishing station for the boxes. Basically, our house now looks like a black market toy store.

All that remains tomorrow is to pick up the tray of tortillas wraps and a few more paper plates.

Yup, I said pick up tortilla wraps. For the first time in the history of party throwing, I have purchased all my food this year. I’ve never not made the food for a party. And I feel kind of guilty for not doing it this time. But I’ve been so…not on top of things lately, we decided it was worth just buying the food in exchange for peace of mind and significantly less anxiety. We’ll see how much criticism we get tomorrow, hmm?

So, it is now just about midnight and I am avoiding going to bed by finishing typing this up. And that has been my day.