Four Pretty Whole Days

A three-day weekend is a real gift to a writer with a day job. A four-dayer is a windfall. My outstanding boss announced yesterday that we get an extra day in addition to Memorial Day. Huzzah! I'm taking Tuesday.

The day before one of these weekends is a bit strange. Usually, I'm swamped. But since I'm covering upstairs for Giovanna today, I did all my last minutes yesterday. So I'm here basically to answer the phone and check emails. And the day before a holiday weekend is notoriously slow. Lots of free time to ponder 96 hours and what to do with them. Of course, I'll clean the house. And mow the lawn. Not too much time there--5 to 6 hours if get really picky and wash windows and trim around the edges. Maybe check out Territory Days in Old Colorado City. That's a few hours. Run to Home Depot for a new screen door for the patio. An hour. Sunday dinner with the gang. Let's face it--that can take 6 hours if they finish early with critiques. Maybe a movie. Three hours total. 32 hours for sleep, if I'm lucky. That leaves 45 hours. Wow. 5 pages an hour if I'm cooking, say 2 if I'm having to dig for it. At worst that's 90. At best it's a really short novel.

Now we all know that ain't gonna happen because I'm going to watch television and check everyone's blogs and email and call my aunt and talk for who knows how long (our record is over three hours), but there's still a big possibility to knock out a lot of revisions.

I'm psyched.

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful

Hate me because I have a whole week off next week. Since I already had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off because of our very generous boss, I decided to use up my last two vacation days and make it a whole week. I'm not really planning to go anywhere or do anything particularly special. Here are some of the ideas that have floated by:

--Write, of course.
--Sit in on the Sunday CSFWG meeting and see what everyone is working on.
--Absolutely go to Sunday dinner with the gang.
--Get together with the usual suspects for New Year's Night (not Eve) tradition.
--Movies, movies, movies. I'm really behind on my movie viewing for the year.
--Hike. Garden of the Gods should be lovely right now. And I've never hiked Garden of the Goddess.
--Finish piecing a quilt I started for Miss Elizabeth.
--Read.
--Take in the Impressionist and Modern Art exhibit at the Fine Art Center.

Any other suggestions? Must be something that requires minimal funds.

Great Weekend

The dreaded glug notwithstanding, I had a great weekend. Spent Thursday with my non-writer friends--I do have a few. We had a delicious meal and a lot of laughs. The way you're supposed to spend Thanksgiving.

The rest of the weekend was a nice melange of writing, reading, doing housework (not a lot, just enough) and watching television. Not a bad way to spend three days. Especially since I managed to avoid stores altogether.

Last night was the last Sunday dinner with Pirates plus. Again, good food and lots of laughs, although on different topics than those discussed Thursday. I had to leave early to pick up my sister from the airport. It would have been much more fun staying around with the gang, but I guess I needed to do one family-related thing this weekend.

So, back at work this morning. It's still very quiet. Four coworkers are off today, because they covered on Wednesday. D.B. is off so no one to talk writing with. Bummer. But also not many to interrupt me if I should decide to write a bit while here. Groovy. Think I'll do just that. And maybe find a place in Vesta to use "melange."