It's Friday; It's a Good Thing

Well, it's Friday again and I find myself in the same place as last week - having spent an entire week nursing another child with the flu. I'm typically selfish with my time, but I'd be lying to say it hasn't been a little nice getting to spend a lot of concentrated time with one kid at a time. I spent the majority of the day Thursday playing Old Maid, Crazy 8s, Concentration, and Go Fish, and reading a stack of amazing children's books, and the rest of the time just holding my daughter as we watched her favorite movies.

Life gets busy. I get busy. And distracted. But when my kids are sick, the world stops a little bit. and I get to do nothing but love them. And that's not an entirely bad thing.

My good things today are few but huge.

1. I decided I couldn't split my day between marketing and writing. The writing always lost out. And the marketing was getting frustrating beyond belief. Not so much frustrating, even, as just heartbreaking. And totally time consuming.

So my husband suggested I designate certain days as just marketing days, and others as just writing. And I did that. Wednesday was JUST WRITING. And I loved it so much, I made Thursday a writing day too. And after some days of heartache, I got back to what I really loved.

I didn't write thousands upon thousands of words. But I wrote. And I'm loving what I write. And I love writing. I love my new book - or the idea of what I want that book to be. I love the potential it has. It seems like a long time since I've looked at something I'm writing as something with a future - something that holds great dreams and hopes.

Writing? a good thing.
Making some boundaries on my time? a good thing.
Writing groups who listen when I come crying? definitely great things!
My husband? an awesome thing!

2. The goldfish... well, one has died. It lasted nearly 2 and a half weeks. That's two and a half weeks longer than I expected. But I worried for my daughter, who loved those cheap pets like they were her new babies.

But as we as a family stood solemnly over the toilet, Gilligan motionless in the tiny net waiting for his burial, and as we tried to all say something nice about him ("you were really pretty, Gilligan, until you were floating sideways on the bottom not breathing...then you looked kinda gross..."), I looked at my daughter -who was tearless - and realized that in life and goldfish, - like queries and agents and publishers and cover blurbs - sometimes one is all you need.

I'm always so encouraged by y'all's good things too, so if you think of one or two this week, leave it in the comment section. We can all be thankful together!

Have a great Friday, and a great weekend! See ya back here on Monday!