You know in those movies when they ask a character why he/she didn’t do some youthful dream and they say, “Life got in the way.” Well, Â life does tend to do that, and around this time of year, it happens a lot.
I’m reminded of this because, for some reason, I had planned on getting a lot of writing stuff done this week. Â Only I realized this weekend that wasn’t going to happen. Thanksgiving is Thursday and the kids are off school three days this week, and I have stuff I need to order online, and my son has Science Bowl practice this week and I realized there’s a school fundraiser at a restaurant tonight that my kids want to go to, and that manuscript I agreed to beta read and forgot about just popped up on my calendar with the reminder note to “finish by Friday.” So, umm, yeah, life is getting in the way.
And you just have to go with it, because this time of year, it’s a good thing. School restaurant night will be fun. On the kids’ days off, my daughter wants to sew a giant holiday stocking. I had planned to sew the stocking myself (it’s for our holiday card; it’s going to be about 4 feet tall). However, when I mentioned I wouldn’t have time to do it until next week, my daughter volunteered to do it on her day off, but that means I have to supervise (because she’s not sewn enough to do it by herself), so it’s going to probably take longer than if I did it myself. But, that’s OK. It will be fun.
I’ve decided to accept that there’s no time to do all the stuff I wanted to get done. My goal is to finish the two most important things I had on my To Do list for this week.
Next week, I’ll be able to hunker down and knock off a realistic list. But, I imagine, the latter part of December will be filled with regular life, not writing life, and I’ll just go with it, because sometimes it’s great when life gets in the way. 🙂
How about you — do you ever bite off more than you can chew during the busy holiday season?
Oh, yeah, pretty much always. But I’ve learned not to take myself and my plans so seriously and can usually go with the flow…
Have a great Thanksgiving!
Go with the flow is a great attitude. You have a happy Thanksgiving, too!
This happens to me all the time – so much so that i think I must not be a good planner. It’s one of the reasons I don’t publish more often. Sometimes I get frustrated – others I do as you suggest – go with the flow.
I hear you. I’m horrible with the planning because I don’t look at my calendar often enough. I input everything; I just forget to look and see what’s coming up. So, then I feel swamped. But, I just have to go with it during the holidays, or else I’ll spend the entire time an anxiety-filled mess.
Looks like we have things in common. lol