Success Lesson from Chipmunks

Readers, I forgot to write a blog post last week. Crazy, huh? But I was busy and I was frustrated with my book draft and as I said I was just plain busy and I forgot. Not totally forgot. I remembered too late, which is just about the same thing, except that I couldn’t do anything about it because I had to get in the car and drive to Cambridge to see the college student perform in a dance. In literally one dance. A three minute dance out of a program of ninety minutes. But that’s the kind of mother I am. Since the driving took about three hours, that was a pretty incredible ratio of driving to dance, wouldn’t you say? I’ll let you interpret “incredible” as you think best….

Hey, cut the eye-rolling. You would do the same thing. You know you would. 

Anyhoo, now to this week. Which has still been frustrating in some ways. It’s been one of those phases when every time I need a tissue, the box is empty; the toilet paper needs to be changed; I reach for a paper towel and am met with a cardboard tube. It’s always the last dregs of the soy milk when I’m making my coffee. You get the idea. Life is out to get me. 

I may be more attuned to these frustrations because of the difficulties with the writing. That can lower the threshold for total meltdown considerably. But no more. Today, things are better. Even though chipmunks destroyed the styrofoam cooler I set outside to get at the half bushel of apples we picked this weekend, I am nonplussed or plussed. Fine, in otherwords. They did not get to the apples. Perhaps they were scared away by our fierce dog. 

He's a terror. 

I simply swept up all the styrofoam crumbs while muttering, “Not this time, little beasties.” And turned their ubiquity and persistence into a lesson. Here it is: like a chipmunk, I have gnawed my way through the block with my manuscript and now I’m steadily eating away.