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”
A schedule is only as good as the person who pens it. I’ve no doubt, Celi, that you will make this schedule work — or modify where needed — because it will afford you the time to do something that you’re meant to be doing and do very well: to write. And I’ve no doubt that your family will support you in every way possible. 🙂
Johns job is to ask how many words have i written today and if it is not enough.. send me to my room without any dinner!!
One of the NANO rules is No Editing, remember! And you have loading pictures into tomorrows blog on your schedule twice. Some days three hours is plenty of time to write, when the words are flowing and other days I recall it not being nearly enough. I’m still toying with the idea of jumping in again this year…
Oopps too many pics, i will correct that thank you. I heard that rule. but surely that means commas and capitals, I like the idea of the linear writing though, just letting the characters walk and talk and see where they lead, I have my life carefully sorted so that i am relaxed when i write, so the actual story line may be a bit looser.. c
Freemind is a free down loadable program for leaving notes, building blocks and generally organizing your writing….I used it a lot whilst writing a 120 000 word technical document which is at the printers as I speak/write this… I just found it most useful for adding things as I thought of them so that forgetfulness would not hound me later… I just found whilst pounding out between 3000 and 4000 words a day, I would think of something that needed to go into a future portion of the book… I merely added it into the main back bone of the freemind so that when I got there I would remember… found it very useful… you might not … but then I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it to you…
Ah, now that is good advice.. thank you.. I shall look into it as it is true while you write often you are thinking.. weird I know.. maybe this would be good for when I rewrite it!! Thank you.. c
I love how your mind works :-). I too love schedules and lists. However, the only thing that kept flashing through my mind as I read your well thought-out plan was, “but wait, she has animals….”
As someone who also has livestock, you know how this works. You settle down to get some serious writing done, glance out the window, and see the group that has decided to go walkabout. Or is behaving mysteriously in the pasture. Or the weather makes the livestock plans not quite feasible or requires massive amount of time to get the simplest chore done.
But I know your great sense of humor will see you through. And as Red Green would say, “we’re all pulling for you.”
Off to have a chat with my own livestock about planning and scheduling for the days work (as if they listen)
Jan in Illinois
You are absolutely right, in fact this happened to me yesterday when the teenager walked through the fields in a smarmy mood and left TWO gates unlatched. So the cows got to play with the calf then take him for a walk in the garden! hmm.. This is one of the reasons for me writing more words than i need each day .. in case of emergencies! c
I was tired by the time I only read your schedule to 9am… now what? You are just full of energy and that is why we love you so much. Kitties are adorable. Take care, BAM
Morning bam, I must drop over to hong kong this morning and see how you are all doing! c
I bet the boys are dreading November! Ha! Good luck with your schedule. I need one too! Seems life has gotten unbelievably crazy around here with the move, things are spinning in every direction. 🙂
Oh I can just imagine.. eat well!! c
Morning, c! Morning farmy! I’m doing the equivilent NaPoWriMo challenge with a poem a day, plus I have that UPenn course going full-blast, so….erm….may I please borrow your boys for my chores, too?
I am sure how thrilled they will be when they see the list, i will train them for you first! c
Oooooh yea; trained men….
oops, i believe that may be an oxymoron!! he he c
I love the idea of “no decisions” once the new schedule is in place. I completely concur with you that life as a whole would be better, for me, too, if I took off my administrator’s hat. I will try, too. I think you may have better incentive than I, so I’m already feeling a little anxious about a shift. 🙂 You exhibit amazing discipline, so I have no doubt but that your schedule is a good one for your writing project. Let’s hope the universe works with you. It’s those “unanticipateds” that get me every time! You’ll be fine…your soul has built-in flexibility! D
It is a huge relief not to have to be the boss for a month. And cross our fingers that all the things that could go wrong and will go wrong, wait until january. it is a big ask isn’t it! c
OH! FUN! FUN! FUN!!! I am so excited for you and hope you are picked up by a publisher!!! You can do it…I chat for you several times a day!!!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
It will be fun.. I am looking forward to it.. it will be great to get at least the first draft under my belt! c
MAN. i try not to schedule, I’ve learned from the past years of NaNoWriMo kicking my ass that sometimes I just have a crap writing day, and sometimes i can get almost 10000 words out. i commend you BIGTIME though, I don’t think my brain could handle that much going on at once. whew.
I run a pretty tight schedule as it is so fingers crossed.
oh also, i started a forum for nanowrimo, mostly for motivation and ideas when i (we – everyone in the forum) get stuck. i’d like to invite you to be a contributor on it if you’d like. yr schedule seems pretty tight but i’m looking to get some new minds into my nanowrimo world.
How do i do that? I would love to but how do i join? c
hey! just send me yr email and i’ll send you the approval and then you can blog on the forum whenever you want! and i’ll make sure to link yr blog to the blogroll as well!
My mother says I came out of the womb making a list. And, being the granddaughter of a dairy farmer, I well know there’s not much you can do about those 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. slots. Good luck on your project!
You are right Michelle those milking slots are the pins that hold it all together.. Daisy is my pivot. c
Dear Miss L.R.H. Your schedule sounds brilliant to me, especially the passing off the bathroom chores to the men of the household…I should do that…there are 3 of them here, they should be able to manage a bathroom, couldn’t they? Only one glitch I see here though…I too am wondering why you need to give up your nightly White Russian?? Just call it something else! 🙂
What an excellent idea, I shall call it the .. um.. little milk drink! c
Are you ready for this? Thanks to you, I have registered to write in November as well! Note, I said registered. It may be the ticket to writing that book I have kept safely in my heart/mind for many years. I get giddy just thinking of the possibility. He he he. Have I told you lately that I love the parts of me that have been reignited through your blogging?
Now, just how am I going to pull this off with my full time job? Well, I may have to say goodbye to my evening companions; tele and snacking. What?! Some proper grieving time and then on with it!!!! I am pumped.
Oh you are a star. Good for you. We will have a grand time. I am so excited that you have joined. And there is nothing on television anyway. Start practising tonight! c
Only one suggestion (although I’ve never done it..) plan meals that can turn into a second meal the next night through leftovers:) eg.. roasting a chicken gives you leftovers for a pot pie the next night. I thought you were going to tell us you’d be blogging less frequently, which I’d completely understand! xx Smidge
And a very good suggestion that is too .. thank you Smidge darling and no i will not be blogging less frequently however you will know when the writing is going well because some of the days may have less content. I may have to stay out of the comments lounge though and that will be terrible! c