Mindy McGinnis

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The Power of Procrastination

There are two things I'm good at.

1) Writing
2) Not Writing

Seriously. I am so awesome at not writing I could write a book about it. Which would be really freaking ironic, wouldn't it?

Today I said I would start the new manuscript, writing at least 1k words, which is my minimum daily word count goal. There were other things I needed to do today too, but since writing is my actual job I needed to consider doing it.

And I would.

After I changed the bedsheets.
Also I needed to write a blog post.
And defrost a whole ham.
And coffee would be good.

I sat down with the coffee and the laptop, the sound of the washer tossing my bedding around in the background. I answered some emails, did some tweeting, realized I didn't brush my teeth yet, and then my dad called.

A tree fell down and he needed another chainsaw handler to get the job done. The tree in question was in my grandpa's yard, and if I didn't go over there, Grandpa (who is 94) would pick up the extra chainsaw himself. Now, honestly, I think that would've worked out just fine (evidence to come), but I'm the kind of person who really enjoys physical labor so I helped chop up a tree in 90+ degrees.

We worked for a few hours, and finally Grandpa decided he was done watching and picked up a 40 pound maul and started splitting wood. Like, really effectively. We're talking single swings. It was impressive.

I was sweaty and smelly and covered in chips and sawdust, but it was time to go home. And who can sit down and write when they smell bad? (Note: I still had not brushed my teeth). So since I was already a mess I decided to do some touch-up painting on the cupboards that we redid in the kitchen, and once I did that I decided since I had the ladder out I might as well spackle the holes in the ceiling from the old lighting.

And since I had the ladder out and it was obvious we were going to have to repaint the ceiling, I might as well take down all the crown molding and wash the ceiling to prep it for painting.

Also I had to go find the paint floor cloths, which someone had peed on (not me, I suspect a cat) and so those had to be washed and hung out on the line with the bedsheets.

So while I was working in the kitchen I spotted that whole ham I set out in the morning to defrost, which I really should consider putting in the oven if we're going to eat tonight. 

And if you're going to make a ham then you might as well (I'm sorry) go whole hog.

So I studded it with cloves and I made a glaze out of apple cider and I put that in the oven.

And then I took a shower, because that was a thing that needed to happen. Also I did finally brush my teeth. So, it's 7PM now. I'm clean. The ham just came out of the oven. The boyfriend is cutting it up and I'm finally writing that blog post I sat down to create at 10 AM.

I did a lot of things today.

I did not start a novel.

I am so good at not writing.