What I'm Not Doing

So yesterday I listed the books I've read, which, looking back, are pretty embarrassingly fluffy. I could list the books I have on my shelf to read which I haven't because they require too much mental engagement (Kite Runner, Drowning Ruth, A Million Little Pieces, among others).

Instead, lets look today at what I'm NOT doing, because I'm reading and writing.

I'm not getting laundry folded and put away. I will wash several loads of laundry and leave them in the basket or the dryer until I do more laundry and absolutely need the space. At which time I dump them on my bed, where the necessity to put them away become much greater.

I am not returning phone calls. I am the worst at this. I will keep a message blinking on my machine for a week. I will write the number down and hang it on the fridge. But I don't get around to actually picking up the phone and calling.

I am not scrapbooking. Yeah, I started. I think I am caught up to about the year 2000. I started in the year 1998. It's pathetic.

I am not mending clothes. They can sit at the bottom of that laundry basket until two children have outgrown them, but getting a needle and thread out to sew on a missing button or sew up a seam is apparently beyond my capabilities.

I am not cleaning bathrooms. Unless it becomes a health hazard or my in-laws are coming over. I do the quick swish when necessary, but my scrubbing powers are going to complete waste.

I am not watching TV. Okay, sometimes. Mostly on Friday nights when I try to catch up on the DVR shows and my husband and I try to put away our respective electronics and reconnect to each other by engaging conversations over how TV has gone to pot in the last decade. Otherwise, I'm plugged in to the laptop.

I am not gardening. I do not have a green thumb. I have given up trying to make it green. Or to keep the weeds at bay. We have no garden, the rose bushes are eaten down, the flower beds are wild.

I am not shopping. Two stops a week, if I can spare that. Especially in the summer with three kids in tow. Corralling them through a store? No thanks!

I am not getting dinner to the table on time. Although I am making dinner every night, and lunch, and breakfast, and I do clean dishes, so I'm not a total washup on that front.

I am not going to the gym, training for a triathlon, or riding horses every day. I am, however swimming laps when I go to the pool with my kids, but it's a pretty pathetic kind of swimming.

I am not responding to emails fast enough.

I am not critiquing my writer's group submissions in a timely manner.

I am not going to movies. Although I have been known to take in the local baseball game on dollar night now and then.

I am not sleeping.... which is what I should be doing right now. The majority of the writing I do these days is after ten at night. Sometimes until three if I am having trouble getting my word count in.

Today's word count: 1,431
The word-a-thon grand total: 17,066
34% complete.

Slow but steady. I feel like the proverbial turtle in the race against the hare. Still, I'm getting there.