camp « Robin Writes

At deadlines. Of course, they’re self-imposed, so I guess I could be flexible, right?

Quick story: once upon a time, I used to be very anal about cleaning my house. I did certain chores on certain days and if I ran out of time or skipped it for any reason, I’d get all discombobulated. Someone asked me, “What’s the big deal?” Well, the big deal was that I liked having a schedule and getting things accomplished—the problem, however, was my state of mind if it wasn’t done. So I changed. If I didn’t, say, dust the house on Tuesday, or on Wednesday playing catch-up, I’d give myself a pass.

It was a struggle.

Now, I know you’re waiting for this next book—quite frankly, I’m touched and honored and a host of other positive things—but as I said a while back, it’s a little different than the first three. So I’m struggling with that.

All I can do is apologize, again, for being late.

I know how it is—especially with a series. I’m a reader, too, after all.

Would you feel better if I said my publisher had delayed the release? Oh, wait . . .

Or I could give a list of excuses like I do when I have a doctor’s visit and he asks why my blood pressure is still up or why I refused to get on the scale . . .

OR—I could just set this post to go live and get the heck offline here and get crackin’.

Good Lord, this is overwhelming! It doesn’t help that I’m trying to finish a new novel and run a business, as well as keep the home fires burning and all that, but every time I think of the new farm, I get a little panicky over everything that needs to be done. Not much, but a little.

The problem, of course, is that when that happens, I tend to freeze up and just sit with my thoughts jumping all over the place.

The solution, on the other hand, is that I’m a compulsive list-maker and super-efficient. I guess it balances out . . .

On Friday, we closed on the farm. Easiest and shortest closing EVER. We each signed in two places, I handed them a check, and we were done!

Then we drove out there—our agent had never seen the place, except in pictures, and we needed to see how large a dumpster to have delivered. Conclusion: a really BIG one.

Having been out there, once, we knew there was a lot of stuff. A lot. But we were hoping the auctioneer would have gotten rid of a lot more than he did. Starting to wonder if he actually sold anything at all.

Went back into town and checked out the local lumberyard. Have a ton of stuff to order, and here’s the beauty of small towns: the guy said, oh, no, we don’t like to take credit cards over the phone, you just wait until the order comes in, so you can make sure it’s what you really want. Wow!

He sent us out to a farm store, which we never found, but we did come across a tool and heavy equipment rental place. Nice! So the guy’s two brothers-in-law live near our new place, and he grew up there too, and he went to school with the listing agent . . . and on and on! Plus, he gave us a couple names for small engine repair, and I’m sure he’ll have a lot of other info for us too, down the line.

We’re still going ‘round and ‘round with the electric co-op. Sheesh. Slow. The dumpster should be delivered in a few days. Still waiting for the insurance agent to call me back—he’d said Thursday, but no. Not Friday either. Sigh.

So, the lists. We have to call the lumberyard by 4:00 p.m. Tuesday, in order for our stuff to be in by Thursday; otherwise, we have to wait another week. We’re trying, of course, to buy local as much as we can, but today we made a run to our now-local Home Depot. Naturally, a second trip will commence tomorrow—that’s how we roll.

What it comes down to, for our 4-day work weekend, is all the stuff to clean up the place and the building materials for our campsite outhouse. And the gate. And the “POSTED” signs, for sure!

Next week, Prep Monday might be a day late, but you can look forward to some before and after pics and a rundown of the completed part of this project . . .