Monday, November 3, 2014

Sleep and Slums

Whirlwind writing weekend...and hey, say that three times really fast.

I wanted to establish a routine for November, though the time change pretty much screwed that up from the get-go.  I had a great beginning on Saturday with my first installment of the NaNo challenge and a good word count, then that fall back hour threw everything out the window.

It also didn't help that Max has developed this weird fear of the house creaking. Seriously. I have no idea why--after three+ years--the sound has suddenly become his new scary monster.  The house creaks quite a bit in the fall and winter months as things cool outside and heat up inside.  This is nothing new, though apparently for Max, it is.  He woke me up several times in the night all fraught and wild, then both dogs got me up at 6:30 on Sunday.  What?  Can't they tell time?  Is it too much to ask that they sleep until it's really time to get up?

So I started Sunday with a handicap: restless, disturbed sleep and up too early.  It was also BFF Sunday; we kept the talk under an hour for a change and by 1:00, I was back at the keyboard, madly trying to write through the fog of sleep deprivation.  Then, at the end of the day, I tried to post my numbers and NaNo was out of commission.  This has happened in the past, mostly in the first week as everyone who signed up is participating and posting and feeling all fresh and excited.  My count wasn't as good as Saturday's but still, I wanted to see those damn numbers!

This morning everything at NaNo worked just fine.  Numbers posted.  I'm good.

My schedule--assuming I recover from the time change and the dogs quit waking me up at 6:30 in the bloody morning--is to write in the afternoons.  That gives me all morning to walk the dogs, run errands and have lunch, freeing up the rest of the day to write until it's time for the mailbox walk and dinner.  Good plan, in theory.  Time will tell.

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Remember my birdhouse?  This shot was accepted for a photo contest a few years back...


I loved that little house, but time and weather finally took its toll and this summer the roof collapsed and the top floor crumbled into the bottom.  It was screwed onto a tall pole that stands in the lower portion of the back slope and last month Jack, my ever helpful gardener/handy guy, climbed a ladder and took the old decrepit house down.

Then he totally surprised me on Friday with this...


Turns out, he builds bird houses along with his other handy guy skills.  It was very cool of him to do this, and it's wonderful to look out the back and see a brand new house waiting for new occupants next spring.

It's nice to no longer be a slum lord...

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