Happy Wednesday! I’m just dropping in with a personal post. It’s pretty #firstworldproblems, but it’s my blog, so…you know…

In the time since I’ve been taking my writing seriously, a lot of stuff has changed around here. I used to be pretty much available to go out and do whatever with no notice. Well, schedule-wise at least. My social anxiety wasn’t always as agreeable, but in terms of time available to me, sure. I could go and do whatever, whenever.

Since the beginning of 2016, when writing took over my life, I haven’t been as able to do that. Especially since Lex and I started working as a team to treat my writing life as work. Fun random trips to the store for junk food, sudden impulses to go to the movies, kindly-met random visits with friends–all this stuff has dropped way, way back.

I don’t really mind it because it’s easy to focus on the fact that I’m working diligently toward some major goals.

We didn’t have any trouble taking vacations last year, but we haven’t gone out and done nearly as much as we had been used to doing in the past.

This year, though, I want to be able to do more. Of course, I’ve also ramped up with the goal of getting two books out. More writing…and more vacation days… Yeah, that’s starting to lead to a calendar balancing act.

We just booked our anniversary trip. Our fifth anniversary trip. Pause to note two things:

1. I cannot believe I’m lucky enough to have been married to my wonderful husband for nearly five years. It doesn’t seem like that much time can have passed, but I’m so grateful for every moment I get to spend with him as my teammate.
2. Instead of going all-out with gifts at Christmas and birthdays, we travel. I’m grateful to have found a partner who feels the same way I do–I’d so much rather make amazing memories with him than get a bunch of stuff.

Anyway, we normally try to take our anniversary trip as close to our actual anniversary as possible. This year, sadly, too many scheduling conflicts fall right around that time. Fortunately, the time bump set us up to schedule a trip we couldn’t have otherwise taken! (Also fortunately: this means we’ll be home when our Kickstarted MST3K episodes arrive, and we’ve already got a date to binge-watch them in celebration.)

The tough part, though, is that the trip we booked falls at a time when I previously expected to be home and busting my ass to hit the final deadlines for Book Two.

Uh oh.

So I’m going to have to somehow come up with about two extra weeks between now and the trip to accomplish the things I won’t get done around here in the time we’re gone.

No big deal (she says as she wrings nervous sweat out of her cardigan and chews off all her fingernails).

I may not sleep again until we’re on vacation, but I’m totally determined to get it all done–wish me luck!!