#301 - Too Much To Do

We slept in until noon and it was glorious.

I went down and made us a cup of tea. Robyn had her girlfriends coming over to go for lunch and a walk through the park. I wanted to get at least one meal made for our cottage week as I don’t want to spend much of my vacation cooking for other people.

I started by gathering all the ingredients needed to make makhani sauce for Chicken Ruby. The idea of getting to eat that on my vacation is very exciting. It’s just the kind of treat that is perfect for the cottage. I still have to make the chicken portion of the meal, but I’ll save that for later this week. The house smells great as well.

We had all the ingredients to make a healthy meatloaf, so while I was still energized, I got to mixing everything together. While the makhani sauce bubbled away on the stove, I put the meatloaf into the oven.

That’s two dinners finished for the cottage vacation. A third dinner will be handled by Robyn when she makes her seafood boil. That only leaves a few more dinners to figure out. The others will likely be baked salmon, tacos and spaghetti and meatballs. I even have some pulled pork for lunch if needs be.

I played a game of chess out on the deck while I waited for the meatloaf to finish. The weather was warm and humid agin and I found it unpleasant to sit out there for too long.

By the time the meatloaf was finished, the makhani sauce was cool enough to put into a Ziplock bag and then into the freezer to keep fresh for the cottage. I left the meatloaf on the stove to cool and went upstairs to watch some television.

I took an Advil; my headache was still there and put on an episode of Star City. I’m enjoying this show so far. The oddness of living under strict communism while striving to achieve greatness in space travel is depicted well. The level of surveillance is off the charts but also depicted in a realistic way.

As a spinoff of For All Mankind which showed the American experience in this alternate history story, it nice to see a non-American viewpoint even though it is made by an American production company. Of course, one of the main figures in these productions is Ronald. D. Moore, who also did the new Battlestar Galactica series.

The show is part hard science fiction and also contains a mystery within it. There is international espionage, internal jousting, and various love interests. It has a bit of something for everyone. And Rhys Ifans is one of the main characters and who doesn’t love him as an actor?

I haven’t heard if they are going to get another season but based on what I am seeing it seems like they probably will. Apple TV seems to commit to the franchises they partner with.

Robyn and two of the ladies came back to the house for a chat. I went out into our backyard with Laura to do a tour of our garden and while we were looking around we noticed all the ripe tomatoes on two of the plants. We picked some cherry tomatoes and the little, tiny tomatoes and got a cereal bowl’s worth. Not a bad little haul. The cherry tomatoes were my favourite as they had the best flavour and the nicer skin thickness than the mini ones.

Robyn left to do her service work and so I ordered a medium Cold Drink/Hot Girl pizza from Blondies. Not sure where they get their names from. The pizza hit the spot even though I probably should have had something with vegetables in it. It’s the pepperoni, jalapeño and hot honey pizza I have mentioned in the past. Very tasty.

I grabbed my laptop and took a seat in the living room, a place I rarely sit, usually only when guests are over.

I watched some more Star City while writing in spurts, occasionally chomping on a slice of pizza. Robyn returned from her job and went upstairs to chat with Kiddo #1, who had returned from a date and apparently it hadn’t gone well.

Soon after she and Kiddo #2 left to take a walk. The kid has been walking to his old high school and running a lap around the track. This was brought on when he played a game of soccer with some friends and found out he was in the worst shape out of all of them. Although, he did bring back a half-eaten bag of M & M’s which he offered to me. I was just happy he thought to offer them to me. As a stepdad that feels like a win.

My teachers are putting on a new seminar about all the different ways you can sell your writing to make forty thousand dollars per year. I am very interested in this seminar, but for financial reasons, I can’t afford the fee at this time. Life is full of too many variables at the moment, and I have spent more than I thought I would on writing this year with my mentorship and the lifetime subscription to their courses.

I am aware of some of the ways to do this and I keep a list of them, adding to it as I become aware of new paths for sales and income streams. But it sure would be nice to have the information from the course at my fingertips even if I am still some years and months away from needing it. My focus remains on learning about storytelling.

Luckily, their blog offers many interesting insights throughout the year on all topics related to writers and I since I read it most days, any information is likely to be found there as well. Maybe not all of it, but enough.

I missed my last deadline for my mentor assignment and not for the first time. This one felt like a kick to the stomach. It made me really disappointed in myself, and I’ve missed to many now to miss again.

Some of this is a symptom of being a little burned out, both from work and from striving to become a writer. The effort can seem too much somedays, particularly after the rough start we had to the beginning of the show we work are working on. The startup stress has diminished a bit and the workday isn’t as bad, but now that I am close to getting a vacation break it is staring to intensify again. The best way I can think of is when you need to use the washroom while travelling in acar. The closer you get to home the more you have to go. The feeling intensifies with each step. Your body knows it’s close, so it begins to prepare, it’s been holding off for so long.

It’s like that for my vacation to the cottage. My mind and soul are desperate and at their wits end. This next week will be a grueling one for me for that reason and more. I often find that work senses I’ll be away and dumps extra work on me to make up for it.

I have some more meal prep and packing to do this weekend as well. Tomorrow the car is going in for an oil change. And of course, I have to write my mentor assignment as well as complete about twenty-two thousand words by end of day Friday. And then wake up early to drive for hours to get to the cottage. And I forgot that I need to mount the cargo carrier onto the roof as well.

So much to do and so little time.

Kiddo #2’s hamster has to be dropped off at our friends before we leave as well. And it’s likely that I’ll need to give the grass a trim before we leave.

Yeah, too much to do.

I’m sure there are things I haven’t even thought of yet.

Even now at twelve thirty in the morning, I am taking short five-minute breaks to run down to the basement and flip the laundry from the washer to the dryer. This is the kind of efficiency I am going to need for the rest of this week. I’ll be a dead man walking by Saturday morning.

This month is the first month is the word challenge where I am not sure if I am going to make it. I don’t know if I have the energy to make it happen this time. I do have my mentor assignment to work on and in theory that could make up some of the numbers, but I tend to write slower when its fiction.

One the plus side, I will have all day Sunday to work on my assignment in the comfort of the cottage. But I am not foolish enough to wait until then to write. That was me last time and it just didn’t work out, did it?

I still need to implement the writing sprints throughout the day. My most active writing days are the ones when I write on the train, at lunch and then again on the ride home. Sometimes I write again in the evening to achieve the word quota I am after.

And yet, on any normal day, I wait until the late evening to get started and ultimately, I am too tired to achieve what I needed to do. If I can manage it tomorrow, I will try writing first thing in the morning. Then at least fifteen minutes at lunch and then and after work session out on the back deck for an hour. That way by the time I get to my late-night session a good chunk of the work will have been done.

It looks like we got a bit of rain today. The plants and grass could certainly use it. I’m hoping that it takes a little of the humidity out of the air as well. One of the other things I need to check on is the watering of our plants while we are away. I haven’t even checked to see if Robyn had arranged anything. Usually one of kiddo #2’s friends took care of it for us while we are away, but I don’t thing they are available this time around.

I’ve been trying out some of the new flavours made by Perrier over the last few months. I think Lime is the winner overall. Today I received three cases of Blackberry Perrier and it is pretty good as well. I think lime is the closest to tasting like the reall thing. The others, including brands like Bubbly, all taste like they extracted the best part of the fruit and left the ghost of them in the drink. A friend has mentioned a new brand out of the states called Alani which she claims tastes really good. I haven’t been able to find that brand. Apparently, it can be purchased at Walmart in Canada, but the brand has yet to really infiltrate this part of the world. For my part, I wasn’t able to locate them at my local Walmart thus far.

I did look into it further today and noticed that they are energy drinks and that’s not something I am interested in. I mistakenly thought they were like Perrier or Bubbly. The whole point of my drinking these carbonated mineral waters was to cut down on drinking sugar free sodas and to reduce the amount of caffeine I intake in a day.

The pina colada Perrier are amazing, but they cost a lot more and only come in four packs. At that price it would be more economical to but some colada mix and pour it into the can. It’s nice to have them as a treat now and again. They make a good substitute too if you find yourself in a position where you are the only one not drinking at a social gathering.

Ah, I just remembered that we are hosting my family the day after we get back from the cottage to celebrate my father’s birthday. I asked him what he wanted to eat for his special day and he threw it back at me to decide. I swear, these days I have the hardest time getting a straight answer out of anyone.

I think I’ll order something in just to save me the hassle of cooking for everyone the day after my holidays. Not sure if I’ll have the drive to make something for that many people or not.

Alright, I think I have done as much as I can for today. Time to pop and Advil, brus me teeth and hop into bed.

Until tomorrow.