November Woes as it Comes to a Close!

Many apologies to my readers for being woefully uncommunicative in my blog. November is almost over, and that heralds the end of my busiest and most over-committed month of the year! The quest to pen 50,000 words for National Novel Writing Month is a huge undertaking, but even more so when you spend your 40-hour work week writing and editing! I’m talking writing burn-out, and I admit I have no one to blame but myself for taking on such a task.

It has been obvious to me over the last few years that the originators of National Novel Writing Month were young males with no obvious need for concern over which month to have the event. Maybe we should move it to March, when everyone is bored, tired of winter and in need of something creative to get them through to actual spring weather.

Penning 50K words in the midst of pre-Thanksgiving and Christmas preparations (as in planning, cooking, cleaning and readying for the onslaught of houseguests), work, additional activities and events associated with the holidays that have to be attended, shopping for gifts, and on and on ad nauseum, tends to put my stress meter above the red line!

But enough of the whining! I will buck up and get it done. I’m expecting my son and his crew to arrive from New Jersey and stay a few days. My daughter, her BF and possibly his crew, will be coming for dinner as well. So a 20-22# turkey and all the trimmings are on the horizon. Once again, I have no one to blame but myself that they all expect a traditional Thanksgiving meal from scratch with few, if any, shortcuts.

Even still, I am determined to take the stress out of the holiday meal and get as much of the accessory cooking done on Wednesday as I can manage. I’m also NOT breaking out the good china. We will be doing a traditional meal on disposable decorator plates. We will be using real flatware, but much of the after meal mess will be chucked into the trash (rather than two or three runnings of the dishwasher to get it all cleaned up.

Today is food shopping for Thanksgiving, and I will be doing some additional cooking when I get home from a 2-hour rehearsal for Handel’s Messiah (performance next Sunday). Since my son and crew are staying a few days, I’m making a large pan of lasagna and sticking it in the freezer to have the day after.

This is the plan so far, and I’m sticking to it. I just haven’t figured out how to fit in the last 19 or 20K words on that NaNoWriMo novel!