With Jared being in full time school, and Ryan in three afternoons a week, I end up getting about 2 hours at a stretch to do stuff before I have to pick either of them up from school. Most days, that is a bit shorter, somewhere around one hour and 45 minutes.

That gives me time to do some house cleaning, a bit of writing, yard work. Stuff like that. If I need to leave the house, I can get grocery shopping in, including the unpacking and placing on shelves all the stuff I bought.

What it doesn’t give me time for, is something like buying a winter coat for myself. So I end up doing stuff like that on Saturdays or evenings.

Last week, I went to Canadian Tire one evening and bought a Columbia Jacket with zip in fleece. Very nice. My only problem with it was that it was a waist length jacket, rather than a colder weather mid-thigh length one. I knew when I bought it that I wasn’t too comfortable with that, so I made sure to ask if I could return it at any Canadian Tire in Winnipeg (like, say, the one closer to my home). “No problem,” I was told.

Today, I went to return the damn thing. After 1/2 at Canadian Tire, I was told they would not take it. It wasn’t a regularly stocked item at this store, and they refused. Frakin’⁽¹⁾ great. I drive 25 minutes to the store I bought it from, get my money, and head over to WalMart for a cabinet they have on sale that the wife wants. The parking lot is fairly empty, so I go in an pick it up. By the time I get to the check-out stands, they are huge. I waited 35 minutes to buy a $29 cabinet. Yay!

I then drive to meet friends for coffee. The place recently switched to table service from ordering at the front counter. No problem. The place is half full with one waitress. A new waitress. A flustered waitress. A slow waitress. After waiting for 20 to 30 minutes, I went up to the counter to place my order, got what I wanted and sat down. My friends at the table had to wait at least 10 more minutes to get service. I can see that this is going to go well.

Okay. So far so bad. I am not a happy camper. On the way home, I get the boys skates sharpened (classes start on Monday), and all goes well. Things are looking up. I get home, the boys have been good and are playing nice. Marnie is happy, and I start to cheer up a bit.

After about 1/2 hour (is that a magic time-frame or what?) the kids stop playing computer and end up in Jared’s bedroom. Around two seconds later, Jared is bawling his head off, and he has teeth marks on his belly. Anger flares, punishment is delivered, and bad moods erupt everywhere. (Ryan started biting three days ago. I don’t get it).

Well, at least the day ended well. We went out for dinner with Grandma and Grandpa and the kids were good, though maybe a tad loud, and they went to bed just fine afterward.

I had hoped to get some writing in, but I am truly fried and must sleep. I’ll read a bit and then pass out, fresh and ready for dealing with the boys tomorrow.

Writing
Well, not too much, but some. It’s almost all crap (Show, don’t tell).

I am considerring lowering my expectations, and reducing the novels size to 90,000 words. We’ll see. I am also contemplating breaking one of my rules. With my short stories, I did not revise until the entire story was on paper. With the novel (considerring my poor morale so far) I thought I would take the prologue and do second revisions on it right now. I don’t know, it depends on the mood you catch me in. Aaaargh!

Misc
I found a cool on-line camera. It’s called Africam, and can be found right here: srobbin.com: AFRICAM The sound quality is awesome, and I’ve already seen some sort of antelope creature come to the pond for a drink. Cool.

^{(1) Gotta love Battlestar Galacticca!}