When Chocolate Goes Bad

Time is what prevents everything from happening at once. ~ John Archibald
Wheeler, The American Journal of Physics, 1978

I would totally disagree with Mr. Wheeler on that point. I'm pretty sure everything has been happening at once around here because I've spent the last month scrambling like a madwoman trying to get it all done. Don't ask me how I'm doing on that...

One thing I have been successful at, however, is eating about 10 lbs of chocolate a day. I'd like to blame it on Halloween, but I actually started the process about a week previous...okay, maybe two. Either way, by the time the kids showed up at the door trick or treating, I was in a full blown milk chocolate addictive meltdown. By the way, did you know chocolate can irritate the bejesus out of heartburn. I do. Now.

Needless to say, I am on a no chocolate hiatus. Just to add insult to injury, I'm also cutting out my one cup of coffee a day and adding 7 days of workouts to my schedule. Some days are just walking, which the dog will appreciate, but there's about 3 days of strength-training and 3 days of internal training and another 3 days of 30 min moderate/high cardio. Which, for those of you who are good at the whole math thing, equals more days than there are in a week, but I'm doubling up. And hoping to do a spin class and yoga class on top of that. I've noticed a softness creeping up where muscle used to be. Then I heard on the radio a week after my wedding that marriage makes people gain weight. I considered an annulment, but I kinda like this guy I married so figured maybe working out was a better option.

On top of that, I need to develop a solid marketing plan for my writing to boost my profile, sales, etc, as well as a workable writing plan for maximum output of manuscripts over the next 18 months.

All on no coffee and minimal amounts of chocolate.

Please have the rubber room standing by...

This is me exploring the gardens on Petrin Hill in Prague. I'm still trying to get my pixs up on Facebook.

Which reminds me...stay tuned on Facebook. Next week I'm looking at doing a book giveaway and visit to a blog where they're asking me lots of fun questions.

One More Thing

Because I didn't feel I had enough on my plate, I decided to add a little more. The psychic I visit once a year, a woman I have a great amount of respect for given the freakish accuracy of her predictions and knowledge, called me yesterday. She is giving a four week course on intuitive development she thought I would be interested in. Naturally she was right - hey, she's psychic after all. I had known of this course and been very interested in it, but kept forgetting to ask her about it. So when she called out of the blue and said she thought of me with respect to this and the first class started this week I decided to jump in and give it a go.

So now we have: the book edits, the day job, the new relationship, the guitar lessons and the intuitive development courses. This of course does not even begin to touch upon the piles of books to be read, the research I want to do, visiting my blog buddies and seeing what's new with all of you, the housework that likes to pile up, family and friends...sigh...

If I could figure out the cloning process and could sit the Kelly Clone at my desk for eight hours a day, I think I might be able to put a dent in all the other stuff. At least my edits are on track this week and I'm keeping up with the page count I wanted to accomplish.

In other news - I registered for the RWA conference yesterday. I am cleared for take off. Well, at least after I figure out where the money for the airfare from Nova Scotia to San Fran is coming from.

And, to top things off, my brother and his wife popped out Baby #3 last night at 11:23 pm. Baby Boy (name was still being decided upon between contractions - word is they have a short list) weighing in at 7 lbs and 18 oz, all fingers, toes and other necessary appendages intact and functional.

It's been a busy week.

Time, My Nemesis

You would think that someone with the time management skills I possess would be a better friend to the clock. But it is becoming glaringly apparent that no matter how much time I have, it is never enough. There are never enough minutes in an hour and never enough hours in a day to jam everything in it that I want to accomplish. I feel as if I am constantly playing catch up and never going fast enough to grab the carrot of completion dangling in front of me.

Now if I could just get back those eight hours from the day job...but alas, doing that would constitute living in a cardboard box, wearing rags, and driving...shudder...mass transit. The horror.

As things stand right now, I am squeezing about 1.5 hours in the morning to write. Not enough. I would love to get another hour in there, but that would mean getting up at 4:45 am, and I'm not sure my brain could function at that hour in the morning, at least not well enough to put together a cohesive sentence, let alone an entire paragraph. I would like to get in more workout time, but right now I have upped my walk to a run just to fit in a solid workout into the 40 minutes I do have. I wish I could find time to write here more too, but the workload at the day job has increased and I rarely have time on my hands like I used to.

Time with friends is limited, time with a new relationship is never enough, practicing the guitar every night is a pipe dream, and putting a dent in my TBR pile has become laughable.

When it becomes too much, I often close my eyes and mentally structure my days around the dream of writing full time. It reminds me of what I'm aiming for and what I'll do when I get there. Unfortunately, then I open my eyes, and my time is up and I wonder how the heck I'm going to make that a reality when it feels I'm running on the spot and getting nowhere.

Luckily even when my time management skills don't feel they're working at par, my 'never say die' attitude is still operating at full blast. I will get there. Somehow, some way I will find all the minutes I need, make the most of the ones I have, and make it to the top.

I'm a Capricorn after all. The mountain goat. It's in our nature to scale to the highest peak, even if we have to go around the rocky crags to get there.