Coming Up on the Finish Line

Well, I am 827 words away. It is 10:19 at night, the last night and my fingers are tired because I started today 5,000 words away from finishing. I had hoped to only have to do 2,000 or so words by tonight but I had a vending event to work last night at Son's school and I came home too tired to see straight. So I waited.

I thought maybe at work I'd get a chance to do a thousand or so words at lunch. But I had to go on a mommy mission and pick up Daughter's coveted Dora Vanity today while I had the money. So nothing.

Then I left work thirty minutes early to go check out a new store where we might be able to sell our puzzles but traffic, a major accident and generally not being as familiar with the area in the dark as I am in the light, got me there 5 minutes after closing and I was still not able to write. But I called the woman who was still in the store and she let me in. It felt good. It felt right. My partner needs to go check it out with me and if she agrees, we may plan on trying to get in there about 6 months from now when the first set of contracted vendor agreements expire. If anyone leaves, that is. I suspect between now and then someone will decide they can't do it anymore or they will screw up the rental agreement and we'll get our shot. There is no waiting list right now so we'd be first on the list. Plus the woman was receptive to what I had to say about our product. It's just the sort of thing she looks for as gifts, she said. Plus she and her partner own two other stores so they are pros and partners - just like us. Perfect. We'll see.

But now, 827 words away, why do I take the time to write here instead of there? Simple. I am savoring the moment.

It felt impossible just a few days ago. If you look at my little widget in my sidebar, you can see I had way more red days than green ones. There was Thanksgiving, cub scout meetings and trips, a fundraiser wrapup and product printing, vending at Son's school, finishing a lesson for my children's writing course, business group meetings, and doctor visits amid the usual work frenzy, homework checking, bedtime stories, dish washing, clothes washing, and the like. I know I did it last year but I just didn't see myself pulling it off this year - yet I was determined until the end.

So now I have an hour and a half to go. Like the dropping of the Time's Square ball, I am counting every word and let me tell you, this is an even bigger deal because I am finishing this at home. For whatever reason I and my other nearby Nano Buddy have yet to figure out, my Word program at work gives me approximately 150 more words when I do a word count there than if I do it at home. So 50,000 words here is 50,150 there. But it's better to err on the side of caution than to upload at 11:50 and find out I am 150 words short. There would be a lot of very-ing and and-ing going on if that happened!

But let me not tempt fate and try to upload near midnight only to find the entire world is uploading and have the website crash or something horrible like that and then I would be counted out. Heaven forbid!

When this is done, sweet reward shall be chocolate covered cherries and watching one of the many shows I missed this week; probably "Heroes".

Back to the grind!
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It is 11:10 p.m.



Good night.