I have made a few decisions. The hardest decision is to give up my night time White Russian made with home made Coffee Liquer and raw milk. We will not discuss the Vodka as it is against the law in America to have a Still. I will only drink tea in the evenings in November. Though I will still have a wine with dinner. That is a good decision.
Decisions themselves take up a lot of time and imagination so I will also give up decision making itself for anyone other than my animals and myself for the month of November.
I won’t tell anyone else how to be. Or say ‘I hate to say this however..’, or ‘I don’t mean to interfere but..’or ‘well in my opinion…’ because I will be floating about in my own little bubble and I will allow the family to empower themselves by working this stuff out by themselves. 
I won’t nag about ‘homework’ or ‘you’ve been gone for hours what have you been up to’, or ‘You are going to drown in one of those potholes, one day, if you don’t fix the lane.’ 
Everyone can do their own laundry and I will not nag them to ‘get on with it or do you want to go to school/work naked.’ Something I do not want to see. I will not harp on about boys cleaning the boys bathroom, and ‘why is the grout a funny colour’ I will not whine on about how if they want to ‘leave water and soap all over and slip and wack their stupid heads that is their own choice’.
You see how easy this is going to be. In fact My life will be nicer as long as I do not have to actually go into the boys bathroom.
However I have been making very strict decisions for myself. Every Sunday I shall arrange a weeks worth of my own clothes into daily bundles, stacked neatly in piles. Farm pants, tops, warmie, knickers and bra all folded together. Seven of them. Then I do not need to make decisions about what to wear.
Every Sunday I shall write a menu of dinners and create the grocery list accordingly. Then I will not need to make decisions about food. In fact I should do this for the rest of my life -I always have trouble deciding what to cook for the ungrateful masses.
I will ask the Matriarch to feed the teenager in town once or twice a week and monitor his homework from there. I will ask John to cook me those fabulous Thai soups more often.
Someone else can do the grocery shopping and go to the feed store. Can I give away all the jobs I hate? Just so I can write a book? Thinking deeply. Um. Yes.
I don’t want to make too many decisive changes because I might forget what they are and then I will spend time and brainpower trying to remember what I have decided. But I will use the fridge doors to write lists as I think of things so I don’t have to think about remembering things. And I am going to rename myself The Little Red Hen. I like her attitude. 
Mostly I am clearing space in my head but I also need to clear space in my day. So here is the TimeTable. I have a timetable of sorts anyway but this one will be in stone for a month. What do you think?
- 5am -6 am – Get out of bed and stumble to computer then Write to you and post the blog.
- 6am. – Milk the cow, feed the animals, take photos and all that stuff.
- 8 – 9am – Breakfast. Hang out in the Lounge of Comments and do a wee bit of visiting; I would hate to miss out on what you are up to so drop me a line if i miss an important post.
- 9am – 10 Fast forward housework. (I do this already) I love to do housework in fast forward. I do everything once and as quickly as possible.
- 10 – 11 am -Visit the old people, write to children, correspondence: my people cannot be neglected just because I am writing a book.
- 11 – 1 pm- Prepare dinner. Take pictures. Farm work. Load pictures onto tomorrows Weblog page. Read yesterdays writing. Block out todays writing.
- 1 – 4 pm- NaNoWriMo – two thousand legible words a day minimum. Though in the first week I want to give myself a five thousand word buffer in case of emergencies. Always stop in the middle of a sentence or action so it is easy to pick up the next day.
- 5 – 6.30pm- Milking, feeding out, farm work.
- 7 – 7.30pm- Finish dinner and feed dinner to family.
- 7.30 – 8.30 – Load photos onto tomorrows blog, shuffle about the blog world a little. Shower, bed!
Good morning. In fact the only real change to my normal timetable is writing The Book, which is called Potatoes are Your Best Friend by the way, from 1 – 4 pm each day. Usually this time is spent in the gardens, watering, weeding, taking photos and playing with the animals, with a little writing thrown in. Now that the gardens have been handed over to the Shush Sisters I have more time.
That all makes a certain amount of sense to me. Have you any ideas? We have a week to make any changes.
Now it is 6 am and I must get moving..
You all have a lovely day.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
101 responses to “Decisions: Managing the household and farm during NanoWriMo”
Now I am inspired to work out my own schedule. I’m chief cook here, but the dishes can be handed off for sure. And I need a plan for my laundry, too… Plotting and planning. Plotting and planning…
Make it an easy one. The thing with schedules is that YOU have to work with them so make it easy to do.. c
Hmmmm….. I wonder if I can give away all the jobs I hate too?
BTW, you really caught me at that first paragraph. I well know about the still thing…. I come from a family of opportunists, and one opportunity taken in the past was the running of whiskey 🙂
WOW! Do you have pictures, the still? old stories, what history! . c
Wait! Stills are illegal? Someone better tell East Texas. I remember several time growing up we kids would notice small groups of unfamiliar rough looking men in the woods and some cars parked along red dirt roads. Dad or uncles would go investigate and chat with them and then come back and tell us not to go in this area or that in the woods because a still was set up back there. It didn’t seem strange to us. Many counties had been voted “dry” and alcohol of any kind could’t be sold.
The Plot thickens! c
Real scares in the woods! (oh, want a short scary story? might be interested in “beside her” on the blog – you can zoom through and might get a chuckle)
I’m so excited that you are writing a book. I do hope you are successful in passing on those jobs that others are capable of doing so you can free up your time to write xx
very sensibly i am only passing on jobs that do not affect me if they are undone. Except for the feed run and John can do that easily on his way home from work. I don’t want to have to check and see if stuff gets done.. c
My only idea after reading that is that I had no idea..I signed up, jumped in too quickly without thought and planning. I probably didn’t need to add another thing to my addled brain at this time let alone a 2000 word a day thing.. 😉
You are well prepared methinks!
Maybe just write the addle out of your brain, no-one said the novel had to make sense! It is not that many words if you write every day. I think you can do it. And i do believe that preparation of your time and space is important to any undertaking. First decide when and where and for how long you will write every day. c
Thank you c 🙂 great and helpful advice.
I’m a fan of schedules…even if things don’t always go according to plan, you have something to pick you up back onto your feet and help move you forward. Good luck next month! It will be a challenge, but if anyone can master it, it will be you!! And letting everyone else worry about their own things is an excellent plan 🙂 I’m off to get kids off to school and such…happy day to you!
Schedules are a must with kids. they are tied into Mama Sanity! c
Phewww, no pressure or anything! Good Luck. Laura
I work well under pressure, it is one of my bestests! morning laura.. c
You are inspiring me!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Back the the tele and pizza for you missy.. someone has to keep up with home and away! c
Ernest Hemingway said: write drunk, edit sober. I offer this quote only as a way for you to justify your nightly beverage intake. Otherwise, I feel that your plan is sound. Best of luck with your novel.
Hmm… well, certainly worth considering! Is there a drink called the Ernest Hemingway? maybe we should invent one.. c
I wish I had a dollar for every time I’d written out a schedule for myself…and then promptly fallen off it. The difference in you and me, is that you actually keep up with them! Love that you reached back into your past and used that title – I remember you talking about it in one of the Stories.
Much Luck to you in the next month….as always!
I have had this story in mind for years and also I have made notes though i cannot find them!! It is those notes I lose. My schedules are old, all i did was replace the middle bit with writing! c
Good luck!
Thank you darling.. c
I was honestly wondering how you would achieve such an enormous workload. Your timetable still seems rather full however; I shall watch with cautious optimism.. I don’t have any suggestions for you however; I do have hopes for you… All the best with this; game on…! 😉
My timetable has always been pretty full though i think clearing my Mind will be the hardest bit, as opposed to clearing my schedule.. c
A three-hour block is a long time to write 1667 words per day, which is all you need. My suggestion? Don’t edit, just write. Don’t reread either, except to reread your last sentence to get you going again. You’ll be rereading as you count your words unless your computer counts them for you. What many people do is just write during NaNoWriMo, put the manuscript aside for the month of December and begin revising in January — the 50,000 words is just a draft.
Clever of you to give away your loathsome chores and give up minding other people!
My problem is that I am a really terrible typist, especially when i try to go fast. so there will be a certain amount of editing just to make sense of the words.. just a tiny bit though I promise. My goal is actually 2200 words a day.
You know how when you are singing, the first set is always the long one, i am going to go harder in the first week, so that I am fully committed, make good use of the beginners energy, and have a buffer in case of emergencies. I always start the big work on january 1st, so this feels like a monumental leg up. Imagine having a draft to actually work on! So you and I are certainly on the same page. Are you feeling excited – writing buddy? c
I’m in dread, actually, because my best writing time is in the early morning. Because I don’t want to give up my Monday through Friday early busking shift I will have to get up even earlier, 4:00 or 4:30 to get my writing time in before leaving at 7:15 to play (Things like getting dressed and cooking breakfast have to come after writing and before busking). That means I’ll have to be in bed by 9 PM — it will be an adjustment, but weekends will feel like a piece of cake (I don’t busk on weekends in November, except for one two and a half hour shift at the Farmers’ Market.
Sounds like a good, solid plan…although I’m confused why you have to give up the white russians…
because one is never enough!! hic.. c
I’m excited for you. And inspired to work on our schedule as it’s fallen by the wayside since moving. We all work better when we know what’s next on the list. We are very warm here this week. Mid to upper 70’s! Love the pic of the Shush Sisters.
Morning darling I can’t seem to navigate my way back to your farm since my history was wiped, i will try again today but i only end up at the gravatar page.. I bet your trees are beautiful now… can you leave me a link so i can reconnect? thank you.. c
I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t navigate there except by typing http://www.ourlittleacres.wordpress.com in the address bar. I’ll try working on it but I’m pretty illiterate when it comes to computer stuff!
I bet the boys will be glad when November is over! I think that I’m too much of a control freak to be able to hand over any of my daily chores. Although the mere thought of you schedule exhausts me, Im sure that you’ll deal with it admirably as usual, possibly meeting yourself coming back at some point! Giving up on the White Russian? A step too far perhaps!
Christine
When November is over i leave the country for most of December taking you all to New Zealand, so they may as well get used to it now!! c