There’s a bit in McCaffrey’s Dragonsinger when Menolly, having arrived in a safe place after a long, exhausting period of trial, is told by the sympathetic Silvina to ‘sleep herself out.’ I’ve always liked that phrase — it feels different than to simply ‘sleep in,’ even if the end results looks the same. Sleep until you don’t even want to stay in the bed for another minute. SLEEP. And then sleep some more.
I’m not actually good at staying in bed, but I managed to sleep myself out this morning (until 9, after staying up ’til 12:30 a.m. roasting spices and cleaning the kitchen so I’d have a clean place to work today, so yes, we’re talking an extra 30 minutes of sleep, but hush…).
I feel actually properly rested for the first time in weeks; I think staying mostly in bed after yesterday’s anesthesia (ah, the drowsiness does help me stay in bed) was also restful.
Even if I did get stir-crazy around 5 p.m., and after dinner ended up spending two hours washing and changing our bedroom sheets to the autumn set (I made Kevin leave his own urgent work to lift the heavy bedding as I’m not supposed to lift more than 10 pounds for a week), and cleaning off the bathroom countertop and re-organizing it, taking away a plant that was too big for the space, adding a different one (which yes, I actually ran over to Trader Joe’s to get, but in my defense I also picked up ice cream as a post-procedure treat, which somehow makes going to TJ’s at 8:50 p.m. on a Friday night ten minutes before it closes just slightly less ridiculous in my head. Hush.), having Kevin move a big plant up to that room too, and the bathroom is looking quite spiffy now; I’ll post a picture sometime.
I’ve lost the thread. What was I saying? Oh, right. Mostly I lay in bed and watched Interior Design Masters all day, including a nice hour snuggled up with Kavi watching it just before bed. And I needed the rest.
***
The last three weeks have been a confluence of
a) my students’ BIG paper project and consequent MUCH in-class and office hours extra scaffolding work, and now the BIG paper grading — pause for obligatory shout-out here to the adjunct comp. instructors who instead of having one class of papers to grade at a time, often have four (!); I did that for one year, and it was brutal —
b) a month-long string of stupid colds making my whole family slower and less competent than usual; I have trouble working when the house is messy, and they haven’t been able to do as much as usual either, so that’s slowed us all down
c) this procedure yesterday knocking out a whole day from normal work; I was so fuzzy-headed from the anesthesia that I didn’t even try to do any computer work that needed thinking — roasting spices was just about what I could manage, along with sharing random things on FB
d) a series of evening events this week (Mon / Tues / Wed), which ate up time I’d normally spend doing computer work
e) the run up to shipping out the Kickstarter rewards. I still haven’t written up the recipe cards (though at least I have Pamudu’s illustrations for the front, and I know which ones I’m writing, but I get a little stalled out on the physical aspect (do I write it on a blank sheet of paper, scan it, and then print that as a JPG? I think so, but I can’t write in straight lines. Also, will I get the size right that way? Maybe I should write them on actual index cards, but then they’ll have lines — will that be charming, or irritating, visually? I don’t think I have the tech skills or time / bandwith to try to remove those lines).
e continued) And there’s still much stuff to make — soaps and sweets and curry powder — I’ve done three batches out of ten, and yes, the deadline is somewhat arbitrary, but a half dozen people are coming over Wednesday evening to help me pack whatever I have, so the more I have done, the better. We’re going to make it fun, too — I’m going to put a Bollywood movie up on the the big screen in the living room next to the kitchen / dining room where the actual packing will be happening. And there will be curry dinner of some kind, though I’m reserving the right to order Indian if I get too busy to cook Sri Lankan, which is sort of funny. 
***
It was a lot. So I’ve slept myself out, and I think I can manage one more week of getting everything done, esp. since the family seems healthy now and can be enlisted into more tasks. Yay. If I can get Kevin and Kavi grinding and packing curry powder, then maybe I can sit and actually make myself go through some more backlogged e-mail. I am particularly behind on SLF and writer stuff, and there are a host of deadlines coming up. (Or speeding past. Sigh.)
I’m traveling this coming weekend to World Fantasy in Los Angeles, and next weekend to Columbus to appear at Scott Woods’s writing conference, and THEN — I think I’m going to try to basically be unscheduled for big events until March, when we kick into high gear for book launch. We’re not even traveling for the holidays; just puttering around the house (apparently redesigning everything).
What? Unscheduled? Surely that’s not possible, Mary Anne?
Well, we’ll see.