Jenyfer Matthews

I had a very good day yesterday. Not only did I do my dishes and multiple loads of laundry, but I sat down and wrote. And wrote and wrote. Phew – did it feel good to get that part of the story out of my head.

After I wrote, I worked for a couple of hours on a quilt that my neighbor has commissioned me to make. It’s going well – only one more corner to go. Before I have to sew all the blocks together and get busy on the hand-quilting that is.

I admit that I fell down on the job when it came to dinner however. I used up all my creativity writing and quilting so in the end I fell back on pizza for dinner. Oh well – it was at least homemade. And better yet, my husband made it.

One thing I really have wanted to do this year is write a couple of children’s stories. Not for publication but for my own children, as a Christmas gift. You might think it would be easy. They aren’t long after all. But somehow I’m having trouble getting in the proper mindset and finding a hook.

I really admire people who can write *good* children’s stories. Personally, there are very few contemporary stories that I enjoy reading to my daughter. Most of the books she brings home from the library or that I peruse in the book stores strike me as too pedantic, too obnoxious or just flat out boring. Don’t get me wrong, I like a story with a moral – I just don’t like to be hit over the head with it or for the lesson to be so obviously the whole reason for the story.

I can live with Junie B. Jones, but keep Captain Underpants away from me. Same goes for Horrid Henry (I live for the day when he gets his comeuppance!) The Magic Treehouse has a good premise but disappoints me over all. They lack any real drama and there are a few questions I have: why can’t Jordan the magic librarian go get the books herself if she’s so great? Why does Jake carry around a notebook and take notes if the notebook doesn’t really serve any other purpose other than to break up the text with glimpses of his handwriting? How do these kids speak every known language through space and time yet no one is every overly concerned about where it is they magically appeared from?

I could be over-analyzing though.

My husband suggested that I didn’t need to think of a lesson to teach and build a story around it, instead I just needed to think of a conflict. Like a little girl who is afraid of dogs…and then??? That’s just an example but it has got my brain working. I only have a little over a month to come up with something passable. Somehow I think I’ll just be cruising Amazon again.

I cook because I have to. I enjoy eating tasty, healthy meals but I don’t always enjoy being the creator of said meals. I do it from necessity. If not me, who? Because I’m hyper-organized but also looking for the easy way out, I usually try to come up with three nice meals a week. The other days are covered by leftovers, take out, and a few in-a-pinch sort of meals (burritos and pizza in our house)

I’ve done my three nice meals this week (Thai inspired peanut sauce pasta, stir fry green beans with garlic sauce, and cheese and broccoli quesadillas if you are curious) and I’m happy to say that tonight is leftover night. Tomorrow we do Chinese take-out (it’s a Thursday night tradition) I’m going to try and get hubby to cook one night over the weekend so I won’t have to actually come up with anything of my own creation until Sunday if I play my cards right.

Nope, not in the mood to cook.

I am however in the mood to bake – carrot cake to be exact. I went out this morning for bread and came back with carrots and cream cheese too. It’s really the only thing that could tempt me into kitchen right now.

Just so you know, I have been writing and am happy to report that I’m keeping up with my own personal goals, modest though they are. Can’t complain about that.

I haven’t mentioned it lately, but I have actually been working pretty steadily on my current project. Only you know how that goes – all work and no play… Or maybe that’s just an excuse because I feel like taking a break for a few days.

I’m in a Martha-Stewart-sort-of-mood. I want to cook and catch up on little chores around the house that I’ve been letting slide. And I want to sew. Playing with my fabric is usually helpful when I’m at a stopping point in a project and need to collect my thoughts and let things stew. So that’s what I’m doing.

Yesterday I made fresh pesto from a pot of basil I have and banana muffins. Today I plan to make what my mother-in-law affectionately calls “junk” soup – you throw in whatever you have around the kitchen – along with some biscuits.

And I decided to whip up some Halloween pillow cases for my children using a simple pattern I ran across on the internet. Quick and easy but they should score me big mommy-points, don’t you think?

Everyone is off next week for the Eid-Al-Fitr holiday (the end of Ramadan) But when the children go back to school, my youngest will start going a full day. I’ll have two extra hours to myself and NO excuse not to get more done in a day!!

I had high hopes for yesterday. The youngest had a play date after school which meant that I had from 8am-3pm for to myself – no chores, no errands, just me-time. Yes, I normally have my mornings free but there are usually other things competing for my time and ordinarily youngest comes home at 1pm. Yesterday’s schedule was blessedly open.

I had big plans. I was going to be incredibly productive and get all sorts of writing, sewing and cooking done. And I was going to glide through my day doing it all in a lovely serene, unhurried way.

Everything started out well enough. I came in and had my breakfast and tea while I checked email and looked at a few blogs that I visit regularly. Took my time exploring Romance Divas – now there’s a place you can really lose yourself in. Found and read some educational writer’s workshop posts. (I know I said I wasn’t going to read about writing anymore – what can I say? I’m weak) Before I knew it, it was lunchtime.

I completely treated myself by ordering out for lunch. You can get just about anything delivered in Egypt, including McD’s if you want it. It’s an ever present temptation.

I couldn’t eat and write at the same time so I turned on the TV. Mistake. I ran across the last part of “A Lot Like Love”. I’m a sucker for a love story – go figure. I had to watch the end. Now I want to watch the whole thing from the beginning.

By then it was nearly 1pm. I hadn’t done any writing or sewing – or cooking.

I finally did get a bit of writing done – Aurora is begrudgingly talking to me again. I did some rewriting and I met my word count goal. But I got no more done than usual. No sewing and a hurry-and-catch-up-to-cook-dinner scenario.

I was kind of bummed out by the end of the day, though perhaps my expectations were just a little too high. At the pace that I write did I really think that I was going to make *that* much progress yesterday, just because I had a few more hours available to me? I’m normally a very organized and productive person. It just goes to show you won’t necessarily get more done if you have more time – you’ll just take longer to do it.