The title for this post comes from a Douglas Adams quote that came to me by way of my friend Jamie….
“I love deadlines… I love that “whooshing” sound as they go by.”
The story is this: One of my day jobs is writing for a local community news paper. The New York Times this ain’t.
And that’s really OK by me.
It’s a very small, very local, free community paper that comes out monthly. I typically write anywhere from three to six articles a month, and the articles are anywhere from 300-500 words. MAYBE something is really juicy and I’ll write 600-800 words on it.
It’s a great gig because most of what I do is talk to people about things that are happening in MY community- and mostly it’s good stuff. So I get to talk to cool people doing cool things. And then I get to tell everyone else about the cool things that cool people are doing.
You would think that writing 3-6 articles a month would be no big deal. They’re not long, and generally don’t involve ridiculous amounts of research.
A whole month to write these articles- that’s barely 1 a week.
Except that of course I don’t write one a week.
I write none for 3 weeks and then scramble like mad the last week.
So here we are again- deadline day and I’m about an article and a half away from being done.
Never mind the blog post that I’ve committed myself to doing EVERY friday…
AAAGUUGHHHH! Will I ever learn not to leave EVERYTHING to the last minute?
With that I give you
Do-Overs:
Just for my own edification, here are some of the consequences of my procrastination:
1. I’m missing a great yarn sale tonight because I’m here writing instead of drinking wine and ooh-ing and ah-ing over gorgeous yarn at bargain basement prices.
2. I’m really tired and would love nothing better than to snuggle up and watch a movie with my sweetie before falling asleep. That’s not gonna happen. He’ll probably be crashed hours before I’m done!
3. Lots of other fairly high priority items didn’t get done this week because all I could do was work on articles. This may make next week fairly ‘interesting’ as well.
4. I had to pass on accompanying the third graders on a field trip this week. Ordinarily, I’m all over this kind of thing.
I’m trying to think of other do-overs this week- but they pretty much all are connected to this issue…. So- enough said. Will I learn my lesson? Stay tuned til next month!
In the meantime, there are definitely some
High Fives:
Violin Recital!
Remember that recital we were working so hard on last week? It happened Saturday and all the effort and agony paid off. My son totally rocked his piece. I was so proud of him.
Mother’s Day!
I gave some fairly serious thought to writing a post for Mother’s Day (seems only appropriate for a mommy blog after all!) but it was too beautiful a day and I was having too much fun to sit in front of a computer. Besides all I would have written was this:
Moms ROCK! YOU in particular ROCK! ’nough said…
Had I actually sat at my computer, I’m sure I would have used lots more words to get the basic point across- so really it’s probably a win for everyone!
My Mother’s day started with a parade through Niwot with the newly formed Niwot chapter of Mothers Acting Up. If you don’t know this group- check them out. I dig their mission.
Since we’ve lived in Colorado, my boys have started a tradition of giving me flowers for Mother’s Day. Not the kind you put in a vase- the kind you put in the ground.
It’s just about past frost date around here so Mother’s day is the unofficial ‘safe’ date for warm weather plants. We went out and bought a couple of flats of flowers for our whisky barrels out front. I spent part of the afternoon with my hands in the dirt…. big fun!
I love the instant gratification of annuals!
Networking!
Before Wednesday, I had never been to a ‘networking’ event- and to tell you the truth- the thought of it always kind of gave me hives. I never really wanted to be in a room of people trying to sell me things- nor did it sound like much fun to spend an hour or so trying to sell other people my thing. ICK!
But then my friend Joelle organized a group of women business owners. You have to know Joelle- but if you do- you would know that whatever this turned out to be- it would NOT be icky. And it was most certainly not icky! We met at this totally funky salon that has a ton of props from “The Grinch” movie and I met a bunch of super cool women who do awesome stuff. And I can’t wait to do it again!
Teaching my class
I love my class and today we did something especially fun. I called it “Working with Lists,” but at some point I may make it sexier and call it something like, “Taming your To-Do List.” I’ll write it up for the blog sometime soon- but suffice to say- there were definitely a few a-ha moments. I love it when that happens!
I’m giving myself a mini- high five for taking a little while away from writing articles to get this posted… it’s still Friday here in CO!
And one I almost forgot…. I had a friend who reads this blog call me up last week to tell me a do-over. She didn’t want to go public, and I totally respect that- but I really loved that she called to share. It just reinforced my view that as moms, we’re always learning, always trying to do better next time. It always helps to know that you’re not out there alone doing this amazing and challenging job.
So how about you? What are your do-overs and high fives from this week? Post a comment- I dare ya!
Have a GREAT weekend!
