This week . . . I really wish I could explain this life event thing, but I can’t.  That really colored the whole week.  The event is still going on with not much change.  I was left emotionally drained afterwards too.  Being on Halloween, it forced me to miss the holiday with my students too.  They did superheroes including one who wore his inflatable dinosaur costume from last year with a cape attached to it.  Missing that fun really felt like salt on an already aching wound.  So, my week had this permanent gray cloud that I’m still nursing.

My son had his quarterlies, but we realized on Monday that he also had an American Sign Language field trip that day.  Oops.  So, things got changed around and I really didn’t get to help him study for one of them.  I barely got to help with the other one too since I used the little time I had with him to get regular homework done.  Never comfortable when he has big tests and I can’t help.  The best I could do for the math one is go over test behaviors like not rushing, checking his work, and focusing on one step at a time.  He says he feels confident about both of them, but we’ll see what happens.

A big positive thing that happened is that my son got chosen for All County chorus.  This is a county-wide group who perform a concert in January.  So, we got his forms in and he’ll have to start practicing.  He’s one of four students picked from his school, which really caught us off-guard.  His friend who also got chosen told him that they are going to practice together.  Good to see he has some help because he’s a good singer, but can get shaky at times.  Doesn’t help that his voice is starting to crack, which throws him off at times.

I did manage to finish a chapter of Darwin & the Beast Collector.  It took me longer than I’d hoped.  The lunch with a friend kept getting delayed until it was a late dinner, so I didn’t write as much as I wanted that Saturday.  On Sunday, I tried to focus on writing, but the life event looming distracted me.  It took me all day to write a single chapter section, so I couldn’t get to the last one until Halloween.  Since I had to take the day off for the life event and my son spent the holiday with his mom, I had the time to work on it after cheering myself up with pizza.  This leaves me with 3 chapters (10 sections) to go.  I might be able to get the next 4-parter done next weekend and then I’ll complete the last two before the end of the month.

Something I haven’t decided on is if I’m going to dive right into outlining the next book in Darwin’s series.  That would be Darwin & the Joy Path, which should be fun with a returning friend.  Maybe I’ll just outline it and then save it for the Holiday Break period to start the writing.  This will give me time to finish the December blog posts and begin working on January and maybe February to clear time.  I should do more notebook work too.  I’ve been ignoring the ‘Phi Beta Files’ for a while and I’m still on characters.  At least I’m on supporting characters though.  Once I write up the support team (13-18 characters), I should be able to dive into the 6 book breakdowns.  Still leaning towards . . . Eh, I’ll just set up another Sunday post in a week or so about this one.

This coming week is going to be busy, so I don’t expect to get any writing done until Saturday hits.  Every Election Day, I have to go through training at work, so I don’t get the day off.  We get Friday off and I’ll have my son for that.  Monday night is Parent-Teacher conferences for him, so that night is out.  I’d try to write on Wednesday night, but I think I’d be pushing it.  It’ll get done, especially since I just realized that how I finished the previous chapter of Darwin & the Beast Collector undoes the start of the next one, so I might have to junk it.  Eh, I’ll do a combination . . . Down to 9 chapter sections until this one is done!

This weekend my only plans are to enjoy time with my son and my niece is coming by this afternoon to jump in our leaf piles.  Maybe have lunch too, but we know the priorities of 3-year-olds.  There’s that annoying clock change though. That’s going to throw my system off for a bit.

Speaking of my system, the CPAP machine is really helping me sleep and I’m getting used to the mask.  Drooling is an issue because of how the mask keeps my mouth open, but that should go away at some point.  I think I’m getting a deeper, more restful sleep too, which is resulting in me feeling more tired by the end of the day.  Maybe my body is so used to functioning on fumes that it doesn’t know what to do with actual sleep.  I don’t wake up feeling like I’m sick though, so something good is happening.

So, what are the goals of the week?

1. Time with family this weekend.
2. Parent-teacher conferences.
3. Training.
4. Write more Darwin & the Beast Collector.
5. Finish the December posts.
6. Play some Pokemon Snap 2.
7. Exercise.
8. Take a break from salads due to schedule.
9. Hydrate.
10. Finish watching ‘Bungo Stray Dogs’.