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| Scheduling is a necessary evil in my life. I'm not sure I could be without a firm agenda any more. |
1) Wake up at 3:15 am and take a quick shower. Dress and start working on checking on-line orders, answering and reading emails, gathering the laundry together, putting the trash into the container and the recycling into the bucket and taking them to the curb for pickup. At 6:00 am I leave the house.
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| I'm adamant about recycling everything I can. |
2) Breakfast. Most days I go to my local Caribou Coffee Shop for a classic oatmeal and a cup of brewed coffee where I read my latest e-book or work on my computer. Today I decide to go to Perkins instead and have a lovely Roma Bella Fritata - very healthy with roma tomatoes, wilted spinach, egg whites, chicken sausages, fresh fruit and a piece of whole grain bread.
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| Because it was my 10th visit, I got a text coupon that let me have 1/2 off my breakfast entree. SCORE! |
3) Heading for Home Depot. A cabinet light burned out at the shop on Monday and I'm out of those bulbs. I can pick up new bulbs at Home Depot along with a fastener for my holiday lighting plan. In and out in 20 minutes.
4) Go to the shop and get things turned on. Replace the burned out light bulb, get the cash register and computers up and running, and collect the on-line orders that I'm shipping later when the post office has opened.
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| I have the main floor and the basement. We tried to get the upstairs but it isn't up to code and cannot be occupied. |
5) Head to the bank with a deposit. The bank used to be five minutes away from me, but they closed that branch and now they are twenty minutes away from the shop. It is MUCH less convenient.
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| Banks are a bit more sophisticated now, but the idea is the same. |
6) Get to the Post Office and mail the orders. I usually don't go to this branch, but it's on my way so I put up with a long line *sigh*.
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| The first floor rotunda floor of the State Capitol building as seen from the third floor balcony. |
7) I need my picture for my LJ Picture of the Week group. I had decided to photograph the interior of the State Capitol building - a beautiful building of marble and opulent fixtures where the legislature and supreme court meet. After a hunt for a parking space and just enough spare change to be legal for 45 minutes, I walk a few blocks to get to the building and roam the hallways taking photos for a half hour or so.
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| Goodwill has store locations throughout town. It's a great place to spend time shopping, but I rarely have the time to indulge. |
8) Stop by my father-by-marriage's home to pick up the final load of donations for Goodwill. Put everything into the car and drive the items to the charity's pickup. A relief to have it over and done with. Everything else is trash except two things that my DH will keep.
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| Source Comics and Games moved to a much larger location a bit more than a year ago. It was a huge gamble for them, but it's been paying off. The left wall is comics all the way down the long wall. The opposite wall is games and collectibles. |
9) Source Comics and Games. It's always pleasant to walk into a place where they know me by name, and I've known some of the staff of Source for more than ten years. I've been painting miniatures as well as collecting comics and collectible trading cards for a long time. I have two comics on subscription that they gather and keep for me. I drop by one or two times a month to collect whatever issues they have saved for me.
10 ) Staples Office Supply - A coupon for a free ream of paper pulls me into Staples. After a quick look at some electronic equipment, I gather my paper, present my documentation, and leave with my paper. The check is in the mail.
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| Our state issues annual tabs that need to be put onto the auto license plates to be legal. |
11) Department of Motor Vehicles - My car license tabs are due for renewal. I have the check all made out so it will be fast, but it's one more errand on a long list. I leave with new tabs which need to be on my car before the end of November.
12) Continuing north to Target, I notice that my gas is low. I add that to my list but continue on my way. I spend 45 minutes in Target getting paper necessities for the shop as well as a few basics for home. It's only a single bag and some bottled water, but it's still more than $60 *sigh*.
13 ) On the way to drop off the frozen items from the store in my freezer at home, I stop by and get gas. It won't be good to run out of gas in the middle of things. While at the pump I field a call from the Realtor and get an appointment set with her for Friday afternoon when DH and Mary will go over the final documents to be able to list my father-by-marriage's home on the market.
14 ) Drop by home and unload the groceries. The paper products can stay in the car and go to the shop on Thursday morning, but I have some frozen vegetables and dinners that need to be labeled and put into the freezer.
15) Head out to my local grocery for salad fixings, fresh fruit, a couple of deli salads for my lunch and some sliced honey roasted turkey breast for DH. I pick up a couple of gourmet cupcakes for an evening treat and head home again.
16) After I return the trash containers to their places in the garage I put the groceries away and start the first load of laundry. I eat lunch and pull out three repairs for the shop that I need to have completed by the 31st. An hour later my second load is in the washer and two of the repairs are complete with the third underway.
17) When I pull the first load out of the dryer and fold/hang the clothing appropriately, I put things together and start the third load of laundry in the washer. The third repair is complete but it's almost 4:00 pm - time for Aearwen's weekly chat.
18) One of the highlights of my Wednesdays - Aearwen's phone call. We talk about writing, plot development, music and general life while I wash grapes and cut veggies for my salads. I get the chicken breasts ready for the oven and after an hour, we hang up and go on to our separate lives once more.
19) I start the last dryer load. Going upstairs I make the beds with clean sheets and hang the clothes in the closet. I have a bit of time available before DH gets home from work, so I polish off the weekly drabble. I wanted to do some editing for Lai but just ran out of time. I'll try to get to that before NaNo starts.
So...there you have it. Within a half hour, DH is home and we're eating dinner - salads and the chicken breasts that I had prepped and baked. I admit that this day was a bit more heavily scheduled than most, but it wasn't that out of the ordinary either.
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| After all of this, I'm exhausted! |
Why did I bring this up today? Because NaNoWriMo started today and my scheduling will be all that will allow me to have success in my writing goals. I flip my schedule around for NaNo, handle all of the work related emails, etc at night instead of first thing in the morning. When I wake up, right after my shower I settle down at my keyboard and start writing. Nothing else happens until my word count is complete for the day. Then the world can intrude again.
I wish success in your personal goals to each and every one of you...
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