I am afraid my regular blogging efforts are going to be sparse this month. I am engaged in Camp NaNoWriMo for August. Adding that to my routine obligations is pushing other things off the grid. I rearranged my editorial calendar to, supposedly, allow for it. It just seems my “live” calendar keeps expanding into the space. I have not spent an entire day at my desk since I got home on the 3rd. It’s not as though there have been major emergencies to account for it, just one small fire after another demanding my extinguishing skills.
Joys to be taken:
→A new great-grandson to get acquainted with and his rather nervous, 19 year old, mom who hasn’t spent much time with infants to reassure.
Her: “Why is he spitting up so much? He must be sick, he never used to spit up at all.” (note: He’s only three weeks old. “Never used to,” has a very limited time frame.)
Me: “All babies spit up. It’s normal. When they burp, a little milk comes up with the air bubble. As long as he’s not actually vomiting his whole feeding, don’t worry.”
Her: “But, the book says he doesn’t get air when he nurses. Only bottle fed babies do that.”
Me: “People, including babies, swallow air in many ways. It’s normal. He’s fine.”
Her: “I don’t know…maybe I should call the doctor.”
Me: “He eats normally, he doesn’t cry much, he doesn’t have a fever, he’s sleeping peacefully. He’s fine. ;-). “
→Help out with the first great-grandson when he comes to spend the night (Come here boy, you don’t need to go back there, stay where we can see you. 
Don’t put that in your mouth! Phone charger cords are not good to eat.”) He’s nine months old, just starting to pull up, full of energy and curiosity. When we left, he was barely starting to crawl. It’s time to baby proof the rest of the house. Keeping him contained in the living room is no longer possible.
Family needs:
→A rental property that has been abandoned by the tenants in a very nasty state that requires cleaning and repair before it can be put back on the market.
(Note to the grandson who owns it, but is currently in the Air Force: Never again rent to teenaged boys, even if one of them is a relative.)
→Re-install the printer for the family desktop computer, shop for groceries.
Personal chores:
→Library books to return, meals to prepare (The brother I live with had been doing all the cooking for himself and the above granddaughter while I was gone. He needed a break.), unpack and catch up on laundry, troubleshoot the webcam and printer attached to my own desktop (They were fine when I left, but mysteriously quit working in the meantime.), go through accumulated mail (shred credit card applications, file bank statements, pay bills, put magazines and books aside for later, trash everything else.)
Business tasks:
→Touch base with clients who had small problems to be sure everything is resolved, software updates that need to be done on several websites, an elderly church member with a new laptop that needs to be set up.
Writing tasks:
→Finish research and development of character backgrounds for Camp project. Catch up on what’s been happening with WordSmith Studio group on Facebook and on the website. Start reading “Self-editing for Fiction Writers” for the GoodReads reading group.
The sad thing is that most of this is part of my normal routine. It seems that a month of vacation has given me a case of Uber Jet lag, even though I never set foot on a plane. Days of having no agenda or set schedule have damaged my mental controls. I’ve lost my ability to keep myself organized. I’ve felt like I’m a week behind and day ahead ever since I got home. I can’t keep track of what day of the week it is much less the date of the month. In fact, mostly I have to double check to be sure of the time. I’ve gotten so used to bypassing the reminders on my phone, it has become a habit.
On the bright side, I did remember my youngest grandson’s 15th birthday today. I’ve managed to read two chapters of the Goodreads assignment and start the third. I made the Steering Committee meeting, more or less, on time Friday and I’m maintaining my patience with the 80 year old first time computer user who has called me three times in the two days since I spent two hours setting up her computer and explaining to her how to check her email, etc.
They say that staying active physically, mentally, and socially are necessary for staving off Alzheimer’s. I’d say I have a good chance of staying alert into my 10th decade if I don’t simply implode before then.
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