Mopping the Ceiling

I'm really tired tonight. Had a big day, with lots of things in it. I had to do my morning routine, including arm exercises, then get in some writing time, then more arm exercises, so I could leave at 11:30 to get the car washed and then take my mother and sister to an art show. From there it was off to my physical therapy appointment, hurry home to walk around the park and get back in time for Bible class... With little time to spare between activities.

I had it all mapped out. Not surprisingly, God had other plans. I'd just finished my routine, was on the verge of going to the office to start writing when I accidentally dislodged a bottle of root beer from its six-pack carton in the laundry room and it fell to the floor. Amazingly it didn't break, but the fall built so much internal pressure it popped the lid off and sprayed the kitchen. Root beer shot across the floor to the opposite side of the room, doused the stove, the fridge, the cabinets, the walls... It also puddled into the doormat beneath the bottle and spattered the carpet in the adjoining bedroom. what a mess!

I cleaned it up, hosed off the mat, then found root beer on TOP of the microwave. How did it get up there? I wondered. Then I looked up. My white kitchen ceiling had transformed itself into something out of Carlsbad Caverns -- a brown wash, gathering itself into an array of stalagtite drops, which looked as if they'd fall to my newly cleaned floor/microwave, etc, at any moment. Aaack! I grabbed the mop I'd just used on the floor, rinsed out the head and mopped my ceiling. I've never done that before. It works rather well.

Since I had to move the dog crate to get the mat out so I could take it outside to hose it down, I decided I should use the opportunity to clean under that as well, even though it was root beer free. Then about two hours later, when the mat had dried, I had to put it all back.

I lost about an hour to all that, but the rest of the day went more or less as scheduled. I'm starting not to be so bothered by things like that. Even though it undoes a lot of what I'd just done, or puts me back on my schedule, I'm realizing that it doesn't matter what kind of obstacles come up. The system is solid and if I just keep with it, all will get back to normal eventually.

And as it turned out, I did get in some work on chapter 10, despite it all. I'm doing revisions right now, changing the direction I was going with the scene, and got about half way through it before I had to stop. And I have the next few scenes after this outlined. The 15 minutes on the timer method is working well (for writing and decluttering!). In addition to getting me started I use the timer to remind myself to get up, stretch a bit, walk around, and then come back -- which is good for my hands. I don't always do that after the first 15 minutes, but always after the second.

Sometimes I even use it to write a blog post! And now, the time is nearly up and I need to get ready for bed. I have high hopes that tomorrow morning will proceed more smoothly than today, and I will get at least 2 hours of work in. Maybe even three. But I don't want to get unrealistic in my goal-setting. LOL.

Grace,
Karen