I wrote last Friday’s blog on Monday evening, saying that I hoped to hit 50% on the next Beau book, The Taken Ones, by the end of Thanksgiving weekend. I didn’t make it. Right this minute, I’m at 42.2883158. That’s the current score, and I’m reporting it. But I’m also going to go through last week’s calendar and let you about a few of the reasons I wasn’t able to keep my eye on the ball this past week.

On Sunday night, I went to bed but not to sleep. My mind was wide awake, plotting out the next two chapters in the book (Both written now!) But writing in my head is not the same as typing words on the keyboard. I went to bed at midnight and finally crawled out of bed at 6:15 AM, having not slept a wink. I staggered out to my writing chair and did a rough draft of what I’d already written in my head. (Let’s just say it needed a lot of revision later on.)

But then, after making Bill’s breakfast and still slightly befuddled, I pulled myself together to go to a previously scheduled luncheon appointment. I arrived at the restaurant on time. The other people did not. Finally, fifteen minutes in, I called to check. Turns out I’d gotten my wires crossed and put it in my calendar on the wrong day. The luncheon was actually due to happen on Tuesday, so I went home and took a nap—three hours and twenty-six minutes’ worth. That’s all the sleep I had for that day. I was a complete wreck the remainder of the evening.

As for Tuesday? Made Bill’s breakfast and then went to the luncheon I’d tried to go to on Monday. After that I sped off to the dentist for a crown appointment. My dentist, Wendy Spektor is great, but crown appointments have nothing whatsoever to do with coronations!

Which brings us to Wednesday—the day before Thanksgiving. I baked a pumpkin pie from REAL pumpkin, mixed up Bill’s favorite Cranberry/Orange Relish, and got the turkey giblets cooked and chopped in preparation for making the dressing on Thursday.

Thursday. Made breakfast. Then, with nine guests due for dinner, I made the stuffing according to Mary Grandma’s, my first mother-in-law’s trusty recipe.) The turkey went into the oven at 1:30 pm. We watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Once that was over it was time to sprint to the finish—mash the potatoes, get the bird out of the oven, crisp up the onions on the green bean casserole, crisp up the marshmallows on the sweet potatoes, and make the gravy. That last one is always dicey.

Years ago, the grandkids were little and the kitchen was in the midst of that last minute pre-Thanksgiving dinner circus. With all of the little ones under hand and foot, I was in the process of making the gravy when the pair of sunglasses on my head tumbled into the gravy pan. In that moment, several very un-grandmotherly words escaped my lips. Whereupon my son-in-law cleared the kitchen of all ankle-biters. He continued to issue that same warning for a number of years—“Watch out. Grandma’s making gravy.” Now, however, with all but two of the grands either through college or in it, that warning is no longer necessary.

And speaking of grands. Colt and his girlfriend, Elie, as well as Colt’s mom all stepped up on turkey day, helping with setting the table, laying out the buffet, mashing the potatoes, carving the bird. They also helped clean up afterwards, but I have to say that by the time dessert was over, I was bushed.

Which brings us to Friday. Colt and Elie are both what’s called “Drama Kids.” As drama majors, they know all about doing video production and creating stage sets. I had made arrangements for both of them to be on tap to do the Christmas decorating on Black Friday. Part of our agreement included my feeding them breakfast. I did that, and they did the decorations. Because they’re also due to take the decorations down, it was important that they put away all knickknacks and then empty all the decoration boxes. That way they’ll know where everything is supposed to go once Christmas is over.

They did an amazing job. I always separated the ceramic and wooden Santas from the soft ones. They mixed them together, creating two separate scrums of Santas. Instead of putting our herd of deer out on the front porch, they set them up in two glittery groupings inside the house. As for the tree? It’s gorgeous. Way better than my paltry efforts from last year.

In the meantime, our other daughter and her family—husband and two daughters—showed up from Silverdale. While Colt and Elie worked diligently in the living room, we had some quiet time with the four of them in the kitchen/family room. Audrey, who graduated from WSU last spring, is now working in a neuroscience lab where her primary job is dissecting fireflies! Celeste, also a science major, is a senior at WSU, is working in a lab sorting canola seeds. The four of them had shared a restaurant Thanksgiving dinner the day before, but during their afternoon here, Audrey and Celeste cleaned out every smidgeon of Grandma’s leftover mashed potatoes and gravy.

Saturday? I was still tired. We watched the Formula 1 qualifying and the Cougar game. We also watched the first two Harry Potter movies. I’ve already mentioned in previous blogs about how I personally became acquainted with J.K. Rowling’s work by listening to her first four books on a continent-crossing automobile trip in 2001. Her wonderful manner of storytelling draws a clear lines between good and evil, mixed in with a fair amount of mean and stupid. Harry’s adoptive family, the Dirsleys, are the ones who fill the mean and stupid roles.

In watching the movies, it was wonderful too see how, under J.K. Rowling’s leadership, the movies managed to bring all of her truly imaginative characters to life on the screen. By the time Saturday was over, we were so caught up in the Harry Potter saga that we watched two more of those on Sunday, along with the Formula One Race and the SeaHawks game.

Monday, life finally got back to normal. We met with our trainer. I made breakfast. And I finally got back to writing—the second middle-of-the-night chapter that had been rattling around in my head since that sleepless Sunday night and the one that got me to that 42% mark. But by five o’clock in the afternoon, I noticed something wasn’t right, and since, in all my eighty-one years, I’d never had a toothache before, it took some time to figure out what was wrong. So today, Tuesday, I went to the dentist—again—where, apparently, I missed needing a root canal on another tooth by … well … the skin of my teeth, as it were.

That’s my week in a nutshell. Are you tired yet? And even with all that, I still got my steps each day. So yes, I didn’t hit my original goal of 50%, but I’ll wear my 42.28% badge proudly, thank you very much. It’s better than a kick in the teeth.

And speaking of that, I think I’ll go take an Aleve before I start dinner.