The title pretty much sums it all up.  Students at my school started on Tuesday and my son started on Wednesday.  I got a little time with him Tuesday night after 10 days of not seeing him, but I get real time with him this weekend.  Think that absence weighed on me a lot and added to the stress.

Thankfully, the students had a good week and only a few blips, but nothing major.  My biggest challenge is having lunch at 1:30 PM since I have breakfast at 6 AM.  Snacking between resulted in the vending machine, so I need to get better snacks to stash in the classroom.  Stuff that the kids and a few coworkers won’t eat, which is why I’m going with apples.  I’m trying to do mostly zero sugar protein drinks for lunch as well in the hopes of losing some weight.  Not every day, but maybe 3 of them.  Probably a good thing that lunch is my biggest challenge for now, which means our students are taking to the new schedule and classroom really well.

School starting later and ending later has thrown me off.  I end up having an hour and 15 minutes between dropping my son off and needing to start.  No point in going home, so I went in thinking I could rest in the faculty lounge with a notebook.  Seems a lot of people show up their old time anyway, which means I can’t find a place to write or read.  Might go into the classroom next week.  Another thing I started doing was Pokemon Go in the park on the days I didn’t have to bring my son into school.  I leave at 6:30 instead of sitting around the house and get exercise in.  20-30 minutes is a pretty good time to get a few things done in the game, but this will have to stop once it gets cold or the weather isn’t agreeable.  Malls don’t open until 10 AM, which means winter is going to pose a problem.

Honestly, I really tired and appointments being added on top of the start of school/work didn’t help.  Getting twitchy since I can’t get to my notebooks or Darwin & the Demon Game.  That book has been printed out and sitting on a table since June, but time has not been on my side.  Determined to start it next weekend at least since I’ll have the house to myself for a while.  We’ll see how that goes since cooking, mowing the lawn, and various errands will have to get done first.  The new school hours combined with the appointments don’t give me much time in the afternoon/evening.  If I can get most of the food shopping done this weekend then I should be in a good place for writing.  That should be the overall goal this month.

I was about to say that I made no progress this week, but I almost forgot that last weekend wasn’t about writing.  Knowing that time would be limited, I put a lot of time and money into making my son’s Halloween costume.  Only the gloves remain to be put together while the wig and belt are on the way.  The shirt was the hardest part because it was first and I’m not good at sewing. So, I had to keep failing and trying again.  By the time I reached the jacket, I had a better idea of what I was doing.  Thankful for that since that required turning it from a long sleeve into a short sleeve, which was daunting.  The fur collar was an unexpected creation to counter the original plan’s removable collar.  Here are some pictures of the character and finished products:

Rimuru Tempest

At least I got some creative outlet.  This school year is going to make writing difficult, so it might take me the entire year to finish editing Darwin & the Demon Game and Darwin & the Beast Collector.  My hope is to get the first one edited before holiday break and I can type it in during that time.  Then, I’ll get the second one edited before spring break and type it in then.  This would me I tackle Darwin & the Joy Path by next summer.  Not ideal or anything close to great, but it looks like my author time is going to get less and less.  Feel like I’m in a position where it’s time to either give up for a few years or continue suffering.  The blog is getting harder to maintain as well, which means this is going to be a dangerous year in terms of my creative outlets.  Really hope I can utilize the mornings at some point to at least get notebook and editing done.  I might set up blog posts while my son does homework too.

That’s pretty much it.  Next week is a full one of school and living.  What are the goals?

1. Spend time with son.
2. Errands to make sure we have food for dinners.
3. Cook dinners.
4. Start editing Darwin & the Demon Game.
5. Tinker with ‘Phi Beta Files’ if possible.
6. Set up more November blog posts.
7. Maintain 7+ hours of sleep a night.
8. Play Pokemon Go to get some exercise every day.
9. Hydrate!  Didn’t do this well and my guts were killing me by Friday.