Project: 30 in 38

I go back to work in 38 days. Soon, I will find words to express the dread and sometimes excitement (adult conversation ALL DAY) that I feel about this. Right now, I'm a little bit sad because I'm finally starting to get the hang of things, have a routine, and enjoying my time with Zygote...and the end looms.

Like most things post-Zygote, the reality of my maternity leave didn't quite match up to the summer I had envisioned in my head. I had chattered endlessly to YG about "The Summer of JM" and how I was not only going to write and read every day and make a ton of new mommy friends, I was also going to figure out what exactly I was going to do with the rest of my life, develop a plan and be well into plan execution mode (to use a little corporate speak) before I headed back to work. YG indulged me. This is his second kid so he either knew better than to frighten me ahead of time, or he actually believed that I might be able to pull this off. He knows how I am when somebody tells me that I can't do something. I do it anyway. With gusto. No matter how stupid or ill-informed it is. I ignored all of my friends who told me that "maternity leave does not equal vacation" and went ahead with envisioning The Wonderful Summer of JM.

It's now 11:08 a.m. and I am sitting here in my pajamas with morning breath, an unmade bed and finally, a napping kid. This is not out of the ordinary. However, I have my second load of laundry in the washer, am ready to empty the dishwasher, wasted time on Facebook, and possibly, if luck holds out, I can take a shower. I'm feeling pretty good. And that, folks, is the reality of The Summer of JM. Don't get me wrong -- I've had a lot of free time. I did read some good books and I got back to running and I joined a moms' group to meet some new people, but I WILDLY underestimated how much time I would be spending being Zygote's mom.

I'm now at the point where I really like being Zygote's mom, but with the return to office life coming soon, I want to try and tackle some other items on my list. Last night when I was waxing neurotic to YG about all of this stuff, I said that I needed a Project. I haven't taken a writing class in a while and when I don't have deadlines, I tend to forget about writing. I was whining about how I didn't know what I want to be when I grow up and how it's unlikely that I will figure that one out in next 38 days, and when I caught a breath, I continued to whine about how I can't even figure out what to write about and how I can't even get my poorly-maintained blog updated. Whine, whine, whine. Angst, angst, angst.

The end result of this conversation was the decision to try and write 30 pieces/posts/whatever you want to call them in the next 38 days. I don't know if YG suggested this just to shut me up -- it was after 11 p.m. when most normal people would like to go to bed, but also when my neuroses seem to kick in high gear -- or if he knew I would immediately like the competition aspect. But, I like the idea. And given that my only other projects at the moment seem to be deciding what rerun of America's Next Top Model I'm going to watch while nursing Zygote, let's just consider this Item #1.