Best Laid Plans

As I ponder the pile of notes, scribbled ideas and query possibilities that litter my desk this morning, the quote in my title today, from poet Robert Burns, is at the forefront of my thoughts. Beginning a new week, I'm already stressed because what I wanted to accomplish last week got waylaid by sickness that left me in no shape to write anything worthwhile.

So, today, I apologize to the readers of this blog. For the week prior to my becoming ill, I was hard at work on my novel, sacrificing all other writing because I had limited hours to work on anything. Day to day obligations leave precious few awake hours these days to sit at the keyboard and create. It is a constant stress for me because my mind is always active with ideas - which I write down and add to the ever growing pile I'm staring at now.

It doesn't seem fair somehow because the "obligations" I refer to revolve around caring for my family, babysitting, singing at church, helping my husband with his business, juggling time and energy to keep up with household tasks, etc. I pointed out all my duties in a recent blog about time management, so I won't detail them again here. But they are all important to me, and I can't shirk them. The one point I think I failed to touch on in that previous blog about finding time to write is this: my physical well-being is constantly in peril because of all my required tasks and suffers on a regular basis as a result.

I can chalk this problem up to age, to the crazy ever-changing schedules of our family, to the weather, or a myriad of other factors. In a nutshell, however, I have to face the fact that I'm no longer young - even though I think and act young - and I think my body is finally rebelling at all the stress I subject it to. No matter how much I push myself to believe that I can still "do it all", the fact of the matter is: I can't.

So, if you check in here on occasion and find no new entries for a week or more, forgive me. I've just decided that my "best laid plans" have to include some downtime if I am to live the 100 plus years that I dream of, and I've decided not to feel guilty about that. And, in the end, I'll probably be a better writer - I'll certainly be a healthier one.