The Tales of Missus P.

An Update for December 2020

Posted on December 14, 2020 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

It’s 10 days until Christmas Eve.

It will be Jack’s first Christmas, followed by his first birthday. This week we have plans to see Santa, attend a Christmas “party,” and listen to Christmas stories. I’m hoping all of it is as traditional as possible because right now, it feels weird celebrating the season when we’ve been at home all year anyway.

But no matter, it will be fun because it will be Jack’s first, so we’ll enjoy that part.

As of this week, I’m not longer on maternity leave but am on annual leave until February. It seems quite surreal as well because I’ve not been home for a year and I have a little boy moreso than a little baby. (Insert crying emoji.)

I got to about 15K words for NaNoWriMo this year, so it wasn’t a complete bust. I was going to cut my losses and make the book a novella since it’s the first in a new series, but I’ve decided to aim for at least 45K or so.

It’s been really hard with mummying 24/7 but I think any writing I’ve done (and the planning for the series) is a win. The year has been productive as far as my personal writing hobby is concerned.

I’ve also been toying with making a Mummy blog because the world doesn’t have enough of them. Seriously, it makes sense when you’re focusing on being a mother all day, your instinct is to write about your experiences. I’d started posting on Medium, but I think I’ll go all in and make a site all of my own.

For my bullet journal, I’ve watched so many great videos but by the time I sat down to work on a weekly spread, I was totally zapped of ideas. Today, I started working on this week’s layout and decided to just make it how I wanted and not worry as much about perfection because it’s my journal and no one else is going to see it (except my family).

Other than that, it’s just all Pick all the time over here. We’re hanging in there as the rest of us are and just taking each day as it comes.

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25 sleeps until Christmas

Posted on November 30, 2020 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

Jack turned 11 months old yesterday and I’m sort of freaking out about him being a year old soon (and no longer a baby!) I’ve kept him in our room in a mini cot because I didn’t want him all alone at night. This week I’ve finally started seeing if he’ll sleep in his big boy cot and I do not like it at all.
In the daytime, we’ve still been taking walks and just trying to carry on as we get ready for Christmas.
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Cullercoats Beach

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Posted on November 22, 2020 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

I’ve been working on my Christmas list and, honestly, I only want stationery and planners. I’ve lost weight since having Jack (thank you, Slimming World), so I don’t want clothes yet, except maybe pjs. Besides, we can’t go anywhere these days anyway so lounge wear is all I need.

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And update for November 2020

Posted on November 14, 2020 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

Halloween is over. It’s time to get the Christmas lights up and prepare for Thanksgiving.

In England, we’re still in Lockdown 2.0 so there are limits on what Jack and I can do this month. Luckily, we’re allowed to go back to one of his baby classes so we have that to look forward to each week. Plus, it’s good for him to keep seeing other kids, I think.

Mister Pick and I have already started getting ready for Christmas because, like many people this month, we figure why not celebrate early and enjoy the season after the crazy year we’ve had?

I can’t go to any Keeping in Touch days at work and I haven’t ventured to even walk around the mostly-closed mall. I’ve just been taking walks with the family and keeping our heads above water. At least this lockdown was something we could prepare for and knew what to expect.

I’m still trying to keep up with NaNoWriMo 2020 but today I discovered I lost a chapter from yesterday. It’s not great literature, but it did make me feel like I’ll never get anything accomplished. It’s tough to steal moments to write, so it’s that much tougher than it would be if I wasn’t mummying 24/7.

It’s also tough to keep up the bullet journal but I did at least start a November spread today (even though I’m a couple weeks late).

I’ve considered starting a blog just devoted to writing with tips and activities, prompts and writer interviews but, again, I don’t know when I’ll have the time to get that together. I at least got bookblogarama active again after being on hiatus for a long time.

And with that said, I’ll close this update because block editor in WordPress has just deleted text from this entry. (I’m doing well with technology today!) It isn’t a riveting post but I hope everyone is keeping well and getting their writing done.

Happy November!

Posted in All About Me, Baby Pick, bullet journal, home, Writing | Tagged 2020, Lockdown 2.0 | Leave a comment

An Update on Halloween’s Eve

Posted on October 30, 2020 by Suzanne Schultz Pick

It’s been a slow couple of weeks.

Jack got sick last Sunday. It was a cold coupled with throwing up, so I spent a few nights holding him a lot and trying to get him some rest.

Luckily, he’s feeling better now but I’m still worse for wear. I have a runny nose, cough, and sinus headache. I did have a fever. I also had a loss of smell. But all of this is from the stuffy nose and the cold. I didn’t feel it necessary to get a test. I’ve had many colds in my life, and this is one of them.

What troubles me is that with all the social distancing and super hygienic conditions that these places supposedly have these days, Jack still got sick. If we can catch a cold, we can catch Covid.

I’ve wanted to keep taking him to classes just to get him used to other kids because, unfortunately, I’ll have to go back to work next year and he’ll have to go to nursery. I worry about this constantly, and I want to make that transition as easy as possible for him. (I’ll be a wreck. There’s no way around that one.)

Despite this illness in the house, I’ve been able to write a bit in snippets, which keeps me sane and makes me feel productive in some respects. I’ve posted to Medium (the last article was on the subject of said baby illness) and worked on my book.

I don’t know why I say “book” when I have about four I dip in and out of. I love beginnings of stories, then slog through the rest.

What I’m doing is something along the lines of YA romance, and I’ve found Jami Gold’s Romance Beat Sheet.

This has helped me plot a little better than I usually do because I have always been a pantser and I end up not knowing how to steer the story back to where I wanted it to go. Does anyone else have this problem? I’m so impatient and I really want to crank out a decent 1st draft, then edit it without having to totally rewrite the story. This is why I’m amazed that people can churn out a book a month.

Today is Mandalorian Season 2 day, Halloween’s Eve, and the day before I do another Keeping in Touch Day at the library. We’ve not been able to find pumpkins anywhere nearby, so this may be the most subdued Halloween we’ve ever had. But it’s 2020, so what else can we expect?

If anyone else is taking part in NaNoWriMo next month, good luck to you!