The Perfect Day

When is the ideal time to write? Morning? Afternoon? Evening? I guess it all depends on whether you're a morning person or a night owl, and when you are the most productive and energetic. Don't forget your work schedule, that also affects your writing time, and after all, you've got to eat!

In a perfect world, my day would go something like this: after getting the kids out the door at 6:45 for school, I would curl up on the couch or snuggle down in my rocking chair with my pencil and notebook and write for an hour. Yes, I write longhand. If you want to know why I choose that over the computer, check out my previous post. Then I'd fix breakfast for myself. No, I don't eat with the kids, that's just too early in the morning for my stomach to deal with food. Then comes exercise and showers and another two hours of writing. Next is lunch and doing the household chores: picking up around the house, laundry, errands, work a bit, plan and fix dinner etc. No writing in the afternoon for me, because honestly, if I sit down for any reason, I lose all energy and would probably fall asleep. If that happened, because of my insomnia, I'd be awake all night and the next day I couldn't function properly. (Though on those nights, I do take advantage and write for most of the night)

After dinner at 6:00, while the kids are doing homework, I'd write some more before and after my t.v. shows. I admit there are some shows I like to watch and I schedule my time accordingly. Then at about 10:30 I'd brush my teeth and get ready for bed.

But this is not a perfect world and things rarely go as planned. For one thing, my husband and I run our own business from home and our work schedule is never the same one day to the next. Some days our appointments start at 7:00am and on those days I do have to eat breakfast early. YUCK!!! When I meet with clients, I work around their schedule and location, though sometimes they do come to my place.On production days we are in the shop for hours at a time, sometimes days at a time, until all orders are completed. Some days that goes until bedtime, or later, breaking only for meals and family obligations.

My husband is such a sweetie that he takes the brunt of the workload, allowing me to squeeze in more writing time. (It also helps that he doesn't mind the computer, and you KNOW how computers and I get along - not very well!). He does all the lay-out of artwork for products and apparel and runs the embroidery machines, which are controlled by computers, whereas I do all the trimming and work the heat press for the heat applied graphics.

On days where it's a heavy workload - with either appointments or production - I feel lucky to squeeze in 15 minutes of writing time. Please don't think that I am complaining, because I'm not. I love my life and feel very fortunate that I am able to work with my husband. I'm finding out that most people couldn't work with their spouses and I find that very sad. I love the time I'm able to spend with John, working side by side, because we have so much fun and get along so well.

Besides work, there is family and church time: carpools, music lessons, band concerts (between my two kids in band, there are 7 bands/orchestras they are part of), grocery shopping, cooking and church work (I work with the teenagers so I meet with them for lessons on Sundays and have a weekly activity with them). Forget about cleaning, I gave that up long ago; the kids are responsible for that. Plus throw in a writer's meeting/conference once or twice a month, and you have an average life for yours truly.

With all that going on, it's hard to have that "perfect/ideal" day that the schedule just falls into place. But when it happens, wow! Those are the days to make the most of.

So whether it's the morning, evening or the occasional afternoon that I can work on my craft, I feel is the ideal time to write. Because let's face it - if it's writing time, it's the perfect time. Life doesn't get much better than that!