Though today didn’t involve anything more strenuous than getting my nails done and walking over to Subway for one of their egg wraps, it was a whole lot better in a lot of ways.
First, I set the alarm so I’d get up with enough time to eat breakfast and otherwise get ready to leave the house. Second, I had a sort of coffee instead of tea today. (Trader Joe’s instant mocha latte). But best of all, I set up the coffee pot for tomorrow when I cleaned up the kitchen! (I know that doesn’t sound like much to most people, but for the last few days, I’ve had no interest in coffee, much less, setting up the pot the night before.)
I also haven’t needed to take a swig of cough syrup to keep from coughing up a lung or my spleen or other rather useful organs.
I’ve even decided to set the alarm again for tomorrow so I won’t sleep as late as I have for the last couple of weeks. But the best part is, I didn’t have to play musical beds last night in order to sleep! My cats were extremely grateful that they didn’t have to follow me all over the house, yet again! That’s not to say that I didn’t still wake up several times during the night. A habit which Toby has learned to take advantage of, by the way. (You’re awake? Good! Let me lie on top of you while you stroke my back, skritch my face and tell me what a beautiful boy I am! Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr)
Although I had hoped to restart my gym routine today, common sense stepped in and insisted I give it another couple of days. (darn that thing anyway!) I’m still hacking when I get overheated, and for some reason, people take issue with you coughing all over the equipment. I just don’t get it! I don’t know about you, but the first thing I do when I get home from the gym is to wash my hands! I don’t care how much of that shpritzy stuff you use before and after you pick up a set of weights or grab the handles on one of the free motion machines, you’re not going to eliminate every germ.
I say, just see to your own hygiene and don’t waste so much energy worrying about what people leave on shopping cart handles and gym equipment. If you keep your own hands clean, (and don’t even get me started on that nasty hand sanitizer crap!) and stand clear of people coughing and sneezing all over the place (hand in front of mouth, PLEASE!), you know. All of those things Mom used to nag you about? In other words, the lost art called “using your common sense”.
And it seems I’ve gone off on a tangent. Another good sign that things are getting back to normal (or as normal as it gets around here as I sit at my desk, typing, while Dylan chases a toy around my feet, managing to whack my feet as often as he does the toy), and my goal to finish the editing of my book by the end of June is still in the realm of possibility. That is, of course, unless I decide that I simply must revisit the last 8 chapters or so which fell into the last week or so. I don’t feel too bad about the ones from earlier in the week. Maybe just the last 3 or 4, then.
Then comes the scary part. I have to let other people read it and give me critiques. It really is a lot like sending your baby out into the world. Of course, the number of willing readers will probably be small due to the overall length of my first masterpiece. It’s one thing to ask someone to read a 1500 word short story, but to say “Hey, I just wrote a 110,000 word novel. Would you mind reading and critiquing it for me?” I suspect that the average person will look at me like I’m speaking a foreign language, then run for the hills before I can ask for their email address!
I get a lot of emails about services for writers. One of them wanted $3.00 a page to edit. I added that up and decided I needed to find a less pricey option, at least for my first effort! I’m thinking, though, that if I do send it out to people, I need to either pdf it (which folks seem to hate) or find a way to lock the file down so nobody can mess with it. One more thing to research before I need to start putting it out to the world at large (or probably at small, for my purposes).
But I’ve dragged you from hither to yon long enough tonight, so I’ll spare you any more of my brain running amok, and just share tonight’s gratitudes.
1. I am grateful to be returning to my normal, joyful, productive self.
2. I am grateful that I am regaining my desire for the elixir of life, aka, coffee.
3. I am grateful for less coughing and more breathing and sleeping. I am especially grateful that my internal organs have, once again, survived a malady involving heavy coughing, and remain in their natural places.
4. I am grateful for my nurse kitties who have been extremely attentive during my series of illnesses.
5. I am grateful that I feel well enough to keep from missing yet another Thursday night of dancing. I fear my friends would be demanding a note from my doctor should I fail to appear tomorrow night.
Love and light.
