A few weeks ago Chris and I attended the Storyline conference and I’m still feeling its effects.

One of the things that was discussed, and that, somehow, really resonated with both Chris and I, was the idea that we should abolish “somdeday” from our vocabularies. You’re either going to do something or you’re not, it’s as simple as that.

Right?

Of course.

Totally.

Except…what about when your five year old wants to read you a book and you’re in the middle of editing your own book, or typing a work email, or talking on the phone. “Just a minute” becomes just as bad as “someday.”

I’ve been trying really really hard to not leave anything open ended since Storyline. If someone wants something from me and I can’t do it right that second, I put a time on it. I’ve gotten a bit better about stepping back and evaluating what is really the most necessary thing to be getting done in any particular moment, which has meant letting my kids interrupt me. ALOT.

I’m still trying to get used to it. And more than once I’ve had to stop myself from losing my temper. Because, seriously, who am I going to yell at? Myself? They’re just asking to spend time with me. I’m going to enjoy it. Work might not get done. Oh well. To be honest, I don’t make much money from my books right now anyway. It’s not like it’s going to be the difference between us buying groceries and not. And all of the important stuff seems to get done at some point anyway.

So…that is my long excuse to tell you why there is no Book of the Week this week, and why I’m just now blogging on Wednesday. Lily was home sick Friday-Monday and I didn’t get much done, other than cuddling. About a third of the way through the day yesterday I realized I was coming down with what Lily had, so everything I’ve done today has been through the middle of a sudafed-induced fog. (Not complaining about the Sudafed. I love that stuff. I’m just saying.) I did get done the things that needed to happen, I finished my read-through of Finding the Ruby Slippers and updated the Shop page of StealingtheRubySlippers.com to include preorder links and bundles. (It doesn’t sound like much, but I had to do a bunch of HTML coding, and I’m not super fast at that even without cold medicine.)

Instead, I’m going to send you over to Shauna Niequist’s blog. Her speech at Storyline, and this latest blog post, have really resonated with me. I can get a ton of stuff done. But is it the right stuff?