My life is chaos and distraction at the moment.

As many of you know, my daughter and her husband and two boys are living with us while we build an addition, after which my hub and I will move into that space and they will take over the main house. As if living with a seven-year-old poised to take over the world and a three-year-old ready to become a pirate is not chaos enough, having construction work going on is also a distraction. To put it mildly.

The addition is framed and roofed and the plumbers have done most of their work, though the city says they have to put in a bigger connector pipe. The day the plumbers were here I thought I’d go out of my mind trying to keep the indoor cats from getting out and my daughter’s dog from killing them. Or vice versa. We still have choices to make for bathroom finishing (who knew there were so many different kinds of bathroom vanities and medicine cabinets, not to mention lights to go over them).

Fast forward to Friday morning:

–Wake at 5 (I know, I wake up naturally at that time, no alarm), start writing, fight the urge to look again at bathroom vanities.
–Write a few words, take a quick hop over to Wayfair to, you guessed it, look at bathroom vanities.
–Write a few hundred words, take a quick break and realize that ETSY HAS BATHROOM VANITIES. Must investigate.
–Write a few hundred more words, discover that CRAIG’S LIST HAS BATHROOM VANITIES. Must research.
–Proceed like this for the better part of a couple hours and get almost to 1,000 words when daughter knocks on office door at 7 AM and says the electrician is coming.
–Close computer and tell myself I’ll finish my word count later in the day.
–Electrician arrives. “Good morning, I hope it is not too early!” Despite the fact that I’m in my awful looking jammies, no.
–Electrician requests meeting in the addition. Daughter and husband comply, leaving guess-who-yes-me with the boys.
–I fix their breakfast, repeatedly asking the seven-year-old to please quit reading and get dressed for school, secretly pleased that he loves reading so much.
–Eye on the clock. I have a 9 AM meeting with a client. And another meeting after that and several manuscripts to finish reading. Plus those random 200 words on the novel that didn’t get done first thing.
–Seven-year-old is still reading.
–Three-year-old is refusing to eat anything I fix him for breakfast. He’s been sick, but insists he wants to go to pre-school anyway. Will he get dressed, then? No.
–Daughter and husband are still in conference with electrician! Clock is ticking. Soon it will be time to leave for school!
–Manage to get seven-year-old dressed. But he’s got homework to finish! Which involves noting which books he has read all week—so he has to finish the book he’s reading in order to complete it.
–I need more coffee.
–Miracle occurs. Daughter and husband finish meeting, boys get to school on time, I’m able to shower. And get some work done! Except I never did get back to those elusive 200 words.

That’s my life these days. Of course, it is not always that crazy, and I do have the sanctuary of my office where I retire and lock the door (because it is the favorite space of all four of my grandchildren). The thing is, though, even when all is calm, there’s a lot pulling on my brain. I can feel it—I’m not at my sharpest. Just now I struggled to remember how to spell miracle. I could easily throw up my hands and decide not to write for a while.

But I don’t want to, because writing is the one thing that keeps me sane. It keeps me connected to the world. Without it, I’m unmoored—and I don’t need to be any more unmoored than I already am. So here’s what I’m trying to remember:

–It’s okay to take a break. When life gets chaotic and it is hard to accomplish everything on the to-do list, my inclination is to push myself to work harder. Often, the opposite tack is more effective. If I give myself a few minutes to sit down and knit or close my eyes, I’m more efficient.

–Self-care is a cliché for a reason. Because it helps you carry on through life! Keeping up with the things that keep me sane is vital. Things like drinking water, going on walks, doing my physical therapy exercises, eating right. And haircuts and pedicures and massages are good, too.

–It really is okay not to write for a while. The world is not going to quit turning on its axis if I don’t.

–It’s also okay to write if I want to! Because doing things that make me happy during chaotic times is important. And writing makes me happy.

–And….um….er….I forgot. I really did. Had something brilliant in mind to finish off this list and it just flew out of my mind. Because, chaos and distraction.

I hope your life is less chaotic and distracting than mine at the moment!

Leave a comment and tell me how you handle distraction!

Prompt

Here is your prompt of the week:

Lightning flashed and all around them was the sound of thunder.

Something New

Here’s my ko-fi, where you can buy me a cup of coffee or any kind of drink you’d like (so far it has been running toward wine). Thank you in advance for the treat!

Happenings

France 2019—Would you like to study writing in the south of France with me? You can! Find all the details here. Space is filling up fast so hop on over and check it out!

Novel-Writing Workshop—I’m also teaching at the Sitka center on the Oregon coast this June. This is a beautiful location conducive to learning and writing. Click here for more info.

Facebook Group--And of course, don’t forget to join the Facebook group if you haven’t already. I post lots of good links and often we get some good conversation going.