I have more irons in the fire, as the old cowboys used to say, with a move in a couple of months, the sale of three properties (well, two, the third one hasn't been listed yet.), and now with Wayne having issues related to his health taking up a lot of oxygen. And so naturally, an idea for a book has been trying to crowd out all this other stuff. I'm already stretched, and I'm not that flexible anymore. I promise (hope) that will be my last cliche in this post. They have been rolling over me like surf lately. Here's what has been going on around here:
The sale of Wayne's family land is pending. He has 60 years worth of crap—oh I meant to say stuff, I really did—out there, and he has been bringing a lot of it home, by the pickup truckload, to add to the 15 years worth of crap/stuff already piled high in the garage, or what once was the garage before we closed it in to store things. There are boxes of samples in there from Wayne's years on the road. (He retired during the pandemic.) There's enough bedding to outfit a homeless shelter. There's luggage galore, we could go to Europe for six months and never have to do laundry with all the clothes we could pack. Why, pray tell, so we have so much luggage? And this is not to count all the tools, painting supplies, bric-a-brac and just plain old junk. No sooner do I get some of it boxed up and donated than here comes Wayne with a whole lot more.
The sale of the coast house is also pending, both are due to close in a couple of weeks. And we have brought stuff/crap home from there as well. Thank goodness we sold it furnished or I would have so much more furniture to sell than I'm going to have already. We have said our goodbyes to both these places, a little teary-eyed at times, but now we face this mountain of crap (there I've SAID it) to claw through.
We are moving to Kerrville, did I tell you that? Maybe I did. And we are downsizing. Again! We did this once already when we moved to New Mexico. But here we are again, back in that same situation with all this additional stuff from the other two properties. We also have some work to do on this 100-year-old house. The deck needs painting. The garden-beds need weeding. There's a bit of carpentry work to have done. And on top of all that, Wayne just had some major, MAJOR oral surgery done, and needs special food to eat right now. And he's scheduled next week for MOHS surgery on a small skin cancer. All this and all that. And so.....
New characters start running around in my head, new situations, a new time period. An old unpublished/unfinished novel has been playing in there, too. And I focus on that while I'm supposed to be focused on this other stuff, and can you just imagine what happens next? I lose my sunglasses. I have to turn around and drive back to the dentist's office when I realize I don't have my purse in the car. I forget to set the dishwasher and wake up to no clean coffee cups. I forget to call back people who have left messages. So far I haven't forgotten to pay a bill but I sense that coming. Why now? Why is this story idea pestering me now, when I'm up to my eyeballs with these big life changes?
Maybe it's because it's the only thing I really would like to be doing right now. How great it would be if I could hire someone, trust someone, to do all this other drudgery for me over the next few weeks, nay months. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Too bad I've written all these books and none of them have been bestsellers or gotten made into movies (although one did come close one time). But even if that had happened, I wonder if I wouldn't still be in this situation. Because, alas dear follower, I confess I am a control-freak. Who can't seem to control her imagination. Any tips on that?
Onward....
