Weekly Writing Intentions: July 8, 2023

Daily Diary, Day 1042:

Again, a week that didn’t go exactly how I expected. Seems par for the course (wow a golf metaphor, where did that come from?) Maybe from all those Saturday and Sunday afternoons when I watched golf tournaments with my dad while my mother sensibly took a nap. Actually, now that I think about it, my dad usually dozed off and on in his chair beside me, while I read a book and followed what was going just enough to report to him when he came awake. Really lovely memories, although I’ve absolutely no interest in golf, and have never played it in my life.

But let’s start with what I achieved this week with exercise, since I did better at fulfilling my intentions. I maintained slightly more than 90 minutes a day in exercise, five of those days I got in at least one walk, but I never got in any more PT exercises, so I will put that out as something to do at least 4 times next week, in addition to keeping the amount of exercise steady.

In terms of writing, I did get one scene completed and posted, and I have made a little progress on the next-to-last scene. But that's all I did on the story this past week. Last Saturday because of the workshop I didn’t get any writing done and Sunday I was operating on way too little sleep to do more than catch up on emails and reading. Monday I wrote about 100 words but I had decided to do a Historical Tidbit post for the next day, which was July Fourth, so that took up most of Monday.

Tuesday I got a good deal written, which is why I was able to post that scene on Wednesday. However, Thursday and Friday the landscaping intruded, in terms of noise and interruptions, so again I found myself working on other parts of my to-do list.

Which brings us to this coming week. I don’t know if you all remember, but one of the reasons I started writing these weekly intention posts on Saturday is because Saturdays and Sundays I had fewer scheduled activities. This meant I could get the week started off with a good number of words written, so whatever else happened in the week, I would be moving forward. Well, that strategy is definitely didn't work last week and it's not going to work this week either.

First of all, tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. Our niece and her husband are in town visiting their daughter and her fiancé to finalize wedding plans for this fall, and all four of them are coming over in the late mornin for a visit. Before that I will do the usual thorough cleaning in the downstairs, (with the added pleasure that someone other than my husband will get to enjoy the very brief interlude of there being no dog hairs scattered about!)

Then I have a late afternoon phone call scheduled. So, I know I won’t get anything written tomorrow. Today, I had planned on getting some writing done, but the landscapers finished their work late yesterday afternoon, and this left the planter (we call it the heron garden), with a few salvaged succulents and not much else in it. I will write another post about why I was committed to re-establishing the planter as it had been before the rains and weeds of this winter, but again, knowing my relatives would be here tomorrow, I decided to see if I could get it in good shape today.

This entailed washing the pile of decorative rocks that had been in the planter and needed to be put back in, and recreating the dry stream bed my friend had created alongside the succulents. Because some of the rocks were heavy, and I could only move the smaller ones in batches from where they had been dumped, this took all morning, with occasional rests to rehydrate. Then a much needed shower, laundry, and lunch, and now its mid-afternoon!

So, no writing, and Monday, in addition to Rio the border collie coming over, there are groceries to be put away and a mid-afternoon scheduled phone call…and I hope tIo walks, and In addition the people who regularly keep our back yard mowed are supposed to come and cut down overgrown bushes that are volunteers from the next-door neighbors, trim hedges, and get rid of all the weeds in the strip of land on the other side of the driveway. In short, I can pretty much assume that there will be no substantive progress on the story Monday either.

However, keeping fingers crossed, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday I have no scheduled interruptions, so I am going to commit to getting this scene I am working on written and posted by Friday afternoon.

Meanwhile, I am going to leave you with photos of what the front yard looked like after the landscapers came in and dismantled the wall that held up the planter and stripped out all the weeds in the front of the house. The after pictures are what the front yard and planter (with new wall) looks like today. Big difference!