Monday, July 28, 2014

How I Spent the Weekend

I worked, yes, but overall, despite being on call, it was a relatively quiet weekend.

Friday night was probably the busiest. Three nights a week, I work out in the fitness center with Daniel. Yes, five years after pledging to start lifting weights, I'm finally doing it (I can hear the cheers in the background). Once upon a time, when I was lifting babies and toddlers all day, along with wearing them in slings, backpacks, etc., good muscle tone came naturally. Now that I'm advanced in age and don't engage in the above activities on any sort of regularity, and am prone to losing, rather than gaining, muscle mass, I need to be proactive. This is it. Also, those three nights are my "catch up with what's going on in Daniel's life," as we walk several times around the complex when I'm done, and we discuss stuff.

Before I switch to fiction, Friday nights are also the time I watch movies with Daniel, which he already has picked out and loaded before I ever get home. This past Friday I was lucky. Besides having a few extra duties given to me that morning on an already overly filled day ("O Lord, thank you for the opportunity to once again stretch my limits, tackle a challenge, and grow in skill and knowledge"), I had completed all my work through Tuesday's budget by 5:40 that afternoon. Most Friday nights, I don't leave work until far (far, far, far) later than that. Quite the nice bonus on a working weekend. I even sneaked in a little fiction before flopping into my sleeping bag.

On Saturday morning, Rebekah surprised me with coffee, quite the nice surprise considering she detests the smell of coffee. After completing the social media postings for two newspapers, I had several hours before my appointments in the afternoon. As long as the Saturday reporter needed nothing from me (which she never did), the time was my mine, so I worked on the chapter five portion of John's story in Before the Blood, a wonderful treat I was not expecting on a working weekend.

After running to the bank, I donned a skirt, hat, etc., and it was off to two appointments, both for upcomnig food stories. Then I headed back to The Herald-News, where I stayed for four hours, writing three stories. No, I didn't have to check in, but if I'd gone back to the apartment, said chapter five probably would have sucked me in. Timothy and Daniel walked over at 8:30, carrying a surprise dinner for me, to walk me back. Talk about fast food! I munched chicken strips all the way. (The baked potato had to wait until I was actually inside the apartment).

I then caught up on email, did some preliminary Sunday postings and went to sleep. I finished the postings before church and after church, enjoyed a wonderful and much needed fellowship hour with my pastor. I was then off to two interviews (a summer camp for foster kids, where I reconnected with one of the families from our former Higher Ark youth group, and a fundraising luau for dogs) before heading home, visiting with the kids, finishing some posts, catching up on email, discussing a story with one of my writers, and yes, even outling my next moves on chapter five, for next weekend. I won't be on call again until Labor Day, a nice reward for several weeks of nearly non-stop work.

Oh, yes, and amongst that weekend, I read and wrote a short critique on a 60,000 word, very enjoyable novel from one of the members of WriteOn Joliet.

Sarah was busy on Friday night, so she and Rebekah reviewed the formatting issues on Staked! We have a back cover issue, so I'm sending a photo to Cal Graphics this morning to see if she can fix it. Then we'll upload the files AGAIN and order another proof.

Cross those fingers!

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