Kind of hopping around and got things to do so I'll try to make this short and sweet.

The roads are getting pretty slippery with the weird 20 degrees but steadily falling snow melting to slick wet stuff on the roads. Glad I got prescriptions and went to the post office before it got to bad and/or real rush hour started. This is the second time this winter - last was when we went downtown Chicago on Saturday for Colin's soccer game and to hang out at Shaheli's but there was a huge load of snow that got dumped on us so it was pretty and fun. Also tried an interesting restaurant called Lokal which served Shaheli and me bottomless mimosas. For lunch.

I've written 5k words since the end of nanowrimo, which makes me both happy and disgruntled. But mostly, I am surprised that it seems I garnered so much boost from the nanowrimo craze. Though I suspect there are three reasons that have greater impact: 1) It's not November anymore. No more buffer (excuse) for not doing other things. 2) So much stuff needs to get done now, because it's not November anymore. You know, real life stuff. 3) I've been trying to force myself to find a stopping point which is making me freeze up because "ACK I have no clue how to 'end' this." So, instead of stressing out trying to basically do nanowrimo and real life and getting ready for Spain all at once, writing has downshifted in my list of priorities. This lets me not freak out whenever I don't write in a day or feel like I should have written more. I'm aiming for a "wimpy" 500 words a day which will get me another 5k or so words before leaving for Spain. If the story ends by then, awesome. If not, something else to do in January when we get back. 500 words is a lot harder to come by now that I'm so far into the story and don't have a clear end in mind, but I refuse to let it collect dust until January. The creative juices must keep flowing.

As for "the rest of life," I've been really tackling things. You might remember me mentioning my on and off interest in productivity and organization tricks and tips. I had been dancing around the idea of reading the Getting Things Done book and I finally checked it out of the library Monday. I'm trying really hard not to become some crazy fan of it. Definitely need to test it out for awhile, but wow I'm actually feeling real relief and control and seeing results already ... I'll be sure to blog more specifically about it later, but you can find a good summary of the GTD ideas here. The best thing to do is read the book, though. I will refrain - for now - from raving and shouting that everyone should do this.

Okay, that was a bit longer than I thought it'd be but it has been a few days. Back to ruling the world now.