Today I Wrote 1300 Words...

... which is amazing considering all the things I did to avoid writing, including but not limited to:
1) Draining the spa, giving it a scrub, cleaning the filters, and refilling it
2) Raking up millions and millions of leaves in the front yard
3) Sweeping the front porch and all the walkways in the front yard
4) Taking Enthusio to his play rehearsal, which lasted almost two hours, and sitting there with my laptop on and sometimes even open and on my lap, but not being typed on a whole lot because I was watching the rehearsal and also talking to anyone sitting near me who would distract me from writing
5) Putting up Christmas lights
6) Running out to Rite Aid for more Christmas lights
7) Putting up more Christmas lights
8) Helping Mermaid work on her book report about My Teacher Is An Alien
9) Baking lemon bars (from a mix)
10) Watching two solid hours of crime dramas

The Christmas lights part was the really egregious part. It's not even December yet. It was a pretty day out, and I was out there doing the spa, which was really months overdue, so I didn't feel bad about that, and then it turned into lots of yard work, and then I convinced myself that if I put the Christmas lights off till next week, either it was going to rain or I was really not going to want to do it, since really, I'm only willing to do a lot of outside work maybe two or three days a year.

Then I got into the plastic bin marked "Outdoor Lights," and guess what? Not all that many outdoor lights in there. I found the mesh ones for the bushes in front of the house, and "swag" ones I bought last year that I'm not all that fond of, and I put those up, but as for the strings of multi-colored lights to go around the door and all -- nope. I looked in the other bins (the ones not marked "Outdoor Lights," but they weren't in there either. So I decided that last year when I took down the strings of lights, I must have gotten disgusted with them and decided to throw them all out and start fresh this year. As I told Reasonable Man, this sounds like exactly the sort of thing I would do and promptly forget about. Or maybe not so promptly -- it's been 11 months, after all. I should have known I would have no idea what the hell happened to the stupid lights after that long, and left myself a note in the box or something, but no.

It's not like this sort of thing is unprecedented in my family. My own father accidentally put the same crappy lights meant for outside on the Christmas tree two years in a row when I was growing up. I have a very distinct memory of him disgustedly ripping them off the tree as he told me that, in order to prevent this from happening a third year, this time he was going to put them in a bag and write "Idiot!" on the outside of it. No one ever laughs when I tell this story. I guess you had to be there.

Anyway, I went to Rite Aid and bought a couple of strings of lights to put around the front door and front window. That would be colored lights, because I just don't care for the white lights so much. It's nothing personal -- I just don't think they're as festive. I was very happy with what I brought home. They're the cluster lights, so there are three of each color kind of bunched together where there would only be one on a regular string of lights. You don't have to worry about pulling them tight to get them straight, and hey -- there's more lights! More lights has to be better than fewer lights, right? And then I felt very smug as I was able to quickly put them up, utilizing the hooks I've installed for this very purpose. It took me about 2 minutes -- honest to God.

Do you have your Christmas lights up yet? You don't, do you? Ha ha! In your face!