Dear Diary: How Did I Ever Fit a Job Into This Life?

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Back in the day, TGIF used to be one of my favorite sayings. I was always thanking God for Friday. These days, every day is Friday because the next day, I get to do what I most want to do: WRITE! Happy dancing all around! As the third week of "new life" comes to an end, I'm already wondering how I ever managed to fit a day job into my hectic schedule. Here's how yesterday went...

7 a.m. Wake up and see off the kids and hubby, snuggle with Brandy, take care of some e-mail, write a blog, do some Facebooking and tweeting.

8 a.m. Plug in the backup hard drive I bought last week to fully back up my hard drive for the very first time. As 1.3 million items made their way onto this tiny device, I gave some considerable thought to producing a TV show for computer horders. For surely I must be one with 1.3 MILLION items on my laptop.

9 a.m. Talk to my dad, who is in Florida for two months, for half an hour. As my self-appointed director of productivity, he wants daily reports on what we're up to in the office. At the moment he called, Brandy and I were having our second snuggle of the day. Shhhh, don't tell him! He'll be so jealous. Brandy is the one he misses most when he's away.

9:30 am Open HOPING FOR LOVE and get to work. Wrote 2,500 words over the course of the day that came rather easily, which is always nice. Things are heating up between Evan and Grace!

10:30 am Admitted the carpet guy, who was back for a third day to do the upstairs. Had a freakout when I saw the carpet going in because, as feared, it's way too light for the high-traffic area. Reminded myself that it's really a very small area we carpeted (hallway and dining room), so if it doesn't work, we'll live with it for a while and then redo it. Why sweat the small stuff, right?

Moved downstairs with Brandy and her food for the rest of the day. The new carpet smell from the recently installed basement carpet gave me a headache, but I kept working as the hard drive kept moving 1.3 MILLION files. The laptop got kinda hot during the big transfer, which made me hot as I toiled away in the COLD basement.

11 am Call from a close friend who just realized HER boat is on the cover of my book READY FOR LOVE. Now how crazy is that? Seriously....

Noon Got a text from a friend that led to a 90-minute catch-up lunch with many laughs. We sat in the sun at lunch so I would get some photosynthesis. You gotta kill two birds whenever you can.

2 pm Rushed home to be here when the high school girl got home since there was a guy working in the house. Now I've got a dog and a teenager in the room with me while I'm trying to work. She buried herself in the iPad for a while, so that was great until the carpet guy started on the basement stairs, quickly driving us out of the room with the banging. Upstairs we go with computers, backup hard drives, backpacks, dog bowls. Are you getting the picture? We were refugees in our own house! Yet I still wrote 2,500 words. (Just needed to get that in there again in case you were thinking TOTAL SLACKER at this point...)

3 pm Wondering where the boy is. No bus, no call from him that he is staying after school for something. At 3:10 I call the school to see if he stayed after. They haven't seen him. The heart begins to do that funny little pounding thing it does whenever something isn't right with one of my kids. I wait on hold while the school pages him to see if he is in the school, never realizing that the WHOLE TIME I AM ON THE PHONE I AM LOOKING AT HIS BACKPACK sitting on my kitchen table with the ballcap he wears every day resting on top of it. Being the good boy he is, he scooted around the carpet guy, into his room and out of the way. He missed the, "Hey, Mom, I'm home" part of the program. He was in his room the whole time I was organizing a search party. Mother of the Year nominee, at your service! Apparently, he called downstairs to tell me he was home RIGHT at the exact moment his sister and I were walking around the house to come in the front door. You gotta laugh. After you find the kid, that is...

4 pm Phone call from an old friend, lots of laughs.

5 pm Hubby is home, time to move all the dining room furniture back to where it belongs. Sweat, grunt, sweat, argue a little...

6 pm Get everyone fed. Decided the carpet doesn't suck after all. Phew. Carpet guy tells me he handles a customer freakout at least once a week. Apparently, buyer's remorse is common in the carpet business. Who knew?

7 pm Leave for daughter's swim meet one town over. Pools are insanely loud, hot and smelly during swim meets. Bleachers make you back and butt scream for mercy. Seeing your kid whipping down that lane, graceful and smooth through the water: Priceless.

10 pm Return home from swim meet, watch American Idol, Grey's Anatomy (the scene between Richard and Adele was one of the most moving things I've ever seen on that show) and go to bed to read How the Marquess Was Won by Julie Anne Long, which I am absolutely LOVING.

11:30 pm Lights out.

How did I fit a job into this life? Can you tell me that? The morale of the story is this: MORE writing. LESS of everything else.

I forgot to mention one other really cool thing that happened earlier this week. Years ago, when I was first writing books, I started referring to my writing journey as the "House That Jack Built." You've probably read the story on my website (if not, here it is). I always said that if I ever incorporated a business around my writing, it would be HTJB, Inc. Well, this week, HTJB, Inc. is becoming a reality at the advice of my accountant and attorney. While it may seem like a big pile of paperwork, which it is, underneath it all it's another bit of the dream coming true, and it needs to be celebrated as such. So, here's to HTJB, Inc. You've been a long time coming!