Feast or Famine Anyone?

Coffee is brewing, music is the sound of dogs enjoying breakfast. The list today is as long as... a very large cucumber. Did I just attempt humor before coffee? Let that be a lesson to me. My next task for the book is to review the final layout in black and white. This is called the laser print stage and I am tasked to go over everything with a nit comb as this is the stage where typos MUST be caught. Changes must be minimal--adding or subtracting words in running text can seriously mess up the layout--and I have from whenever the package containing the laser proofs arrives on Tuesday May 1 till Thursday night (absolute latest) to get it all done. This amount of time would be perfect if all I had to do was review the laser proofs. Unfortunately, I will be in Las Vegas for the ACRE show setting up on Tuesday May 1, and then doing the show Wednesday and Thursday. What can't be cured must be endured.

Cleaning, organizing and new work areas are the themes of the day. I can't even walk through the garage, uh, studio annex right now. 60 cu ft of Styrofoam peanuts and 250 ft of bubble wrap take up a lot of room and they are splayed higgeldy piggeldy in the former aisles and on top of the work surfaces (in bags, of course). And I can't find ANYTHING. I have lost all three keys to the household drills, the majority of the screwdrivers, and a host of other tools. Mail for the past month can be found in unopened piles throughout the house.

I am really good at focusing on one thing and getting it done. I can even juggle two or three mission critical things. But I suck at the day to day. I am confident I could never have managed a conventional marriage--we would have starved or bickered ourselves to death over my lack of ability to cook, clean and do laundry on a regular basis. I am the person you call on to put out a fire. And I am a good manager--I can spreadsheet with the best of them. But frankly, I need someone to manage my life: Shop for groceries, put food on the table, wash the clothes and hang them back in the closet... oh wait, I have that. Dave does all that. And someone comes and cleans the house every so often. So really all I have to manage are the finances (including the mail) and the putting-away-of-things... oh yes, and my own business. But I should be able to do these things without breaking a sweat!

Anyone else experience the feast or famine cycle? I am either working full out or basking like a sloth recharging the batteries. It's never a measured pace. I envy the measured-pace people. Today, obviously, is a flat-out day as I have let too many little things slip for too many days (weeks) since finishing the book, the BMAC and the immediate post-show orders. It's also hump day so I am going to get humping.