The last time I wrote anything new was late August/early September.  I’m talking stories and not blog posts.  This school year has been really busy both as a TA and as a parent, so time and energy weren’t there.  Now, I’m hoping that can start changing and I can pull off writing two books before the next school year.  That’s the plan and I’m sure people have already rushed to the comments to say good luck.

The problem is that I’m still getting life thrown at me.  I factored in my son’s Lego Robotics competition today.  I didn’t expect to be getting new air conditioners installed today, which means I can’t work on the book before I meet him for the competition.  This also meant that my room had to get rearranged to a point where the energy is so off that I’m simply uncomfortable.  So, I couldn’t start last night and will have to start tonight once I put everything back.  This means I’ll come one section short of finishing 3 of 19 chapters before things get busy again.  Hopefully, nothing else comes up and brings that number down.

Then again, I might be writing slow because I’m not feeling very confident.  It’s been so long and my stress is still high.  Feels like people throw things at me every time I try to get close to writing too.  Guilt trips for not doing other stuff even though I haven’t touched my books in 9 months.  So, I’m mentally battered.  It doesn’t look like that’s going to change any year soon either.  After all, I’ve been pushing the whole ‘I can write when the chaos is done’ timeline for months and it keeps getting longer.  With my son’s extracurricular events and the AP proctoring done, I shouldn’t be crashing before nighttime.  That’s a good step towards the physical thing, but the mental and emotional state are going to be the hurdles.  It’s far too easy to shove me into a melancholy and there are too many people in my life who see that as a hobby.

So . . . what happened this week?  It’s a smattering of stuff.  I finished all of the October posts. Work was busy since we were heading for a 3-day weekend.  For obvious reasons, there was some tension.  My son had his chorus concert on Tuesday and we celebrated with Friendly’s ice cream afterwards.  The usual schoolwork was going on too.  Last weekend had my niece joining us for Saturday and part of Sunday.  My son cooked my mom’s chili recipe for both dinner and a Home & Careers final project.  Worked out well and then . . . we found out the refrigerator had died.  Yeah, that threw a chaotic monkey wrench into the whole week until we got a new one.  At least I have space in this one and the ice maker works.

Only other big thing is that my son is back to drawing and is now attempting to do stuff by eye.  No more step-by-step videos.  He’s going to take a picture and try to draw it on his own.  Here’s his first attempt:

Princess Peach

He plans on drawing Princess Peach multiple times and with different dresses.  This is how he’s going to practice and he wants to cover all of her Super Smash costumes.  At least he’s back to this and not just playing video games.

Can’t think of much else to talk about here.  I’m not feeling entirely on the ball, which has me nervous about attempting to write tonight.  The idea of trying to get back into it and failing miserably keeps running through my mind because I don’t have it in me to handle that scenario.  Waited so long to try again and I’m doing it after taking such an emotional beating.  I’ll just be honest.  There is no real support system for me doing this any more and that hurts.  People see it as a useless hobby that I need to put away because I tried and failed already.  Nobody wants to hear about my ideas or give me real time and space to write unless they have no use for me.  So, for the first time in my life, I really do feel like I’m walking this path in total isolation from this side of the computer.  It’s not sitting well with me and makes accessing the Darwin Slepsnor part of my brain more difficult.  At least I won’t get to writing him until tomorrow after lunch.

So, goals of the week:

1. Start writing Darwin & the Halfling Hunt.  Hoping to get 3 chapters done before next weekend.
2. Work as usual.
3. Parenting as usual.
4. Continue biking 3-4 times a week.
5. Hydrate because I need it.
6. Put my room back together after the new AC installed.
7. Work on ‘Lego Globe’ a bit.  Can’t now because the work desk is covered in stuff moved away from AC area.
8. Finish watching ‘Outlaw Star’ and start watching ‘The Pentaverate’.
9. Continue making list of healthier foods to start eating over the summer.