Thursday, August 25, 2011

Productivity On the Go


...because when you're a Soccer Mom and a Stage Mom, sometimes you just have no choice.

After-dinner hours around here used to include washing dishes, hanging around, reading a book and having ice cream before presiding over showers, tooth-brushing and other going-to-sleep rituals. Now the kids are older and busier. And while Middle Sister, as a high-school sophomore, can be dropped off at sports practices and play rehearsals, the same is not true for nine-year-old Little Brother. Someone's got to stay with him. More often than not, that someone is Mom.

7 PM is my slow time of day, when I'm just concentrating on staying awake long enough to make sure that Little Brother brushes ALL his teeth. Not anymore. Now I'm headed for rehearsals that last until 10 or later! The director had dangled the carrot of "sensitivity to his bedtime when school starts" but what neither she (nor I) realized when she asked him to audition was that this was affecting my bedtime too.

I'm trying to get some stuff done when I'm sitting in a straight chair in a small rehearsal space for 3 hours on end. The other day I had a stack of the "Personal Journal" sections from The Wall Street Journal. I love to read those but don't always get the chance, and they pile up in a corner. It's not like most of them have time-sensitive articles. I got through a whole month's worth on Tuesday night.

Tonight I'm bringing my copy of Apocalypse Chow and my shopping list; a hurricane is on the way here and I want to have some ideas of how to cook and otherwise prepare in case we lose power. If I finish that, I've got Michele Buckman's Death Panels with me too--although that book is downright terrifying.

It's pretty impressive what I can get done, even without Wi-Fi.

But no matter how productive I manage to be at rehearsal, I'm still going to walk out of there with "Mame" stuck in my head.

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