As you may or may not have known, I’ve been ankle deep, knee deep, waist high, drowning in a deadline this month. So much of life pressed in this summer from illness to job changes, to kid issues, house problems, other work projects, etc…that I found myself literally underwater. Well, I guess not literally, because then I’d be wet. You know what I mean.
So, as my deadline approaches this coming Tuesday, I thought I’d record some of the details of what it’s like.
1. The house. I put that first in the list because it’s the first to go. I think there might be a load in the washer that’s been there, wet, for three days. Will probably have to rewash it. Some of the food in the refrigerator is leftover from the the 4th of July. Note to self: serve that for dinner or throw it away! One good thing, the floor doesn’t need to be cleaned since I can’t see it for all the toys strewn around.
2. The Family. I must say Iappreciate that everyone has pitched in to help out, but the stopwatches the older kids carry when I ask them to babysit the littles for an hour are kind of distracting. And the text messages sent from the far flung regions of the house: When is someone coming down???
3. The Checkbook. Pizza. Carryout. Babysitters. Bribes. You get the point.
4. Adverbs. Words like really and very make a resurgence as word count levels must rise.
5. Contractions. Converse to the aforementioned, contractions take two perfectly good words and turn them into one. What kind of crazy is that? They must be destroyed.
6. Nicole. Looks like the old woman who lived in a shoe. Hasn’t had on clothes that button or snap in anyway in over a week. Hasn’t bothered with makeup because…really? And has actually lost weight on this deadline. You know it’s tight when that happens.
7. I forgot. Can’t remember this one. I have deadline brain.
8. Emails. I believe I have over 1000 unread emails in my inbox. If you know me, call me instead. Not that I’ll answer. 
9. Diapers. My three-year-olds still wear them. HELP!
10. Book. At least it’s coming out unscathed. My critique partner says The Embittered Ruby is awesome and worthy of following The Wishing Pearl. I’ll leave the final verdict up to you though.
If there are typos in this post, please forgive and see the above for an explanation.
I could really use some new writing music. What inspires you?
[...] under some serious deadline, and have barely lifted my face above water the past two weeks. Here’s today’s blog post to give you a general idea of what things are like in my house [...]