Half gone

How is it that the first month of the year is already half gone? How did that happen? Time keeps slipping away from me (and now, great, I'll have that song stuck in my head ALL DAY). I've got to grab on to it before this whole year gets away from me like last year did. Yes, there was a lot going on last year which I'm not going to recap now because FUTURE, people, the FUTURE, need to look ahead...but I can't let it all get away from me again.

This week has definitely been slipping through my fingers. It's an excuse, but it's partly because I've been sick off and on and off and on since before Christmas. I'm tired of the cough. Tired of the phlegm. Even tired of the word "phlegm" -- I mean, yuck. It's a disgusting word. But it's also that I've been feeling for a long while like a turtle that just wants to retreat into its shell. Or maybe like a groundhog gone underground. I don't know. Like I want to hide.

I've also stayed home this week because I'm feeling really broke. Between Christmas and sending money every month to the family and Tony's new train ticket expenses and me not making any money in eons, I'm feeling strapped. Don't even want to fork out the money for a pricey latte. Been drinking Nescafe. Which, okay, I usually keep around for emergencies, but it's not something I'd choose on a normal basis.

Anyway. I'm digressing. Which is what I do. I need to get organised (as a side note, GAH, I still hate British spellings of things...they don't look right). I did get a filing cabinet as a birthday present to myself. Need to buy another pack of hanging files (British: suspension files) but am going to wait until after the next paycheque (US: paycheck) for Tony before I splurge on those. Would it be weird to ask for office supplies for my birthday?

Because it is, indeed, my birthday this month wherein I will be 42. Which is the answer to everything (though, sadly, also the year that Douglas Adams died during, which is just wrong, really...).

I did have a long sleepless bit last night where I was thinking about an idea for a series of kid's books using some of the half-completed ideas I've already got. Not sure if I should waste my time on those or not as my agent won't handle them. They are cute though. But maybe it's just a distraction.

I did also recently lob an idea at an author friend of mine for a joint project. We'll see if anything comes of it. It was really just the bare kernel of an idea, not anything fully formed or anything like that. A nugget. A little tiny nugget of nutcaseness.

I'm going to try and blog here once a day, just for myself. And today I need to do laundry, do some grocery shopping, do more laundry, and get my to-do list digitised and organised. (Progress! I typed that with the "s" the first time!)

Tomorrow will be meeting with my writing group and working on the book I need to finish this year. First step is going back to the outline and finishing it and no more of the half-assed do-nothingness I've been doing for the last year. I know this about me. I know it. I know if I don't have a real outline that it never gets done. But there were reasons, I know. I know. But no more excuses and no more burying my head in the sand.

What I really need is a deadline.