{"id":37,"date":"2007-03-03T19:58:44","date_gmt":"2007-03-03T07:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/03\/schedules-and-deadlines\/"},"modified":"2012-07-27T13:41:22","modified_gmt":"2012-07-27T01:41:22","slug":"schedules-and-deadlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/schedules-and-deadlines\/","title":{"rendered":"Schedules and Deadlines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Mamea household<a href=\"#1\"><sup>1<\/sup><\/a>, for the sake of the adults&#8217; sanity and convenience (and the prevention of corporal beatings), gets through each week with the help of a dinner schedule.\u00a0 The schedule for Term 1 of 2007 is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Monday &#8211;\u00a0macaroni cheese<\/li>\n<li>Tuesday &#8211; baked potatoes (courtesy of <strong>The Boy<\/strong>)<\/li>\n<li>Wednesday &#8211; vegetarian surprise<\/li>\n<li>Thursday &#8211; nachos (courtesy of <strong>The Girl<\/strong>)<\/li>\n<li>Friday &#8211;\u00a0pizza<\/li>\n<li>Saturday &#8211;\u00a0semi-planned surprise<\/li>\n<li>Sunday &#8211;\u00a0last-minute surprise<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The children&#8217;s daily demands of <em>What&#8217;s for dinner?<\/em> are already answered, our (mostly) fixed shopping list ensures we get our core nutrients, and there are no more moments of standing in the kitchen wondering what the hell to stuff the kids&#8217; mouths with.<\/p>\n<p>Adults&#8217; sanity &#8211; check.\u00a0 Overall convenience &#8211; check.\u00a0 (And no corporal beatings in three years, two months, two weeks, one day and counting<a href=\"#2\"><sup>2<\/sup><\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>Schedules, like lists, provide certainty.\u00a0 Y&#8217;know: something to look forward to, or work through, or work towards.\u00a0 Like goals.<\/p>\n<p>Or deadlines.<\/p>\n<p>And schedules and deadlines ensure Things Happen.<\/p>\n<p>Besides being handy for things like moving house (don&#8217;t forget the pets or children, in that order) or going on holiday (ensure the selection of travelling music is equal between adults), my writing time is rarely without a deadline &#8211; <em>I shall write ten pages of something\/anything\/everything until noon<\/em> or <em>I must write ten pages before I am worthy to watch an episode of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Law-Order-Third-1992-1993-Season\/dp\/B00080Z5FM\/ref=sr_1_9\/002-5199435-3278445?ie=UTF8&amp;s=dvd&amp;qid=1172910168&amp;sr=1-9\" target=\"_blank\">Law &amp; Order, Season 3<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Some days, the ten pages write themselves&#8230;.\u00a0 Well, the pain of typing text onto the blank screen is manageable.<\/p>\n<p>Most days, I stave off the urge to do (long avoided) housework <strong>and\/or<\/strong> try not to panic as noon approaches at double-speed <strong>and\/or<\/strong> fight off any number of other procrastinating techniques, and I write and I <em>write<\/em> and I <strong><em>write<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>As long as I&#8217;ve done a day&#8217;s writing, I don&#8217;t get restless, guilty or cranky with family members.\u00a0 Well.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 It doesn&#8217;t stop me being restless from being pulled out of The Zone (<em>I was in the middle of a great set piece!<\/em>), or guilty that I didn&#8217;t spend more time with family, or cranky (because <em>Who wrote this shit?<\/em> or <em>It&#8217;s so <strong>haaard<\/strong> and I <strong>hate it<\/strong> and why can&#8217;t producers just <strong>feel the craftsmanship<\/strong><\/em>?&#8221;).<\/p>\n<p>Yeah.\u00a0 The writing journey has its moments.<\/p>\n<p>But on any given day, I know what I&#8217;m having for dinner.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"1\"><\/a><sup>1<\/sup> &#8211; I hope my family forgives my possessory credit here.\u00a0 But they&#8217;ll understand.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"1\"><\/a><a name=\"2\"><\/a><sup>2<\/sup> &#8211; Which, incidentally, is the length of time our entire blended family has been together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Mamea household1, for the sake of the adults&#8217; sanity and convenience (and the prevention of corporal beatings), gets through each week with the help of a dinner schedule.\u00a0 The schedule for Term 1 of 2007 is: Monday &#8211;\u00a0macaroni cheese Tuesday &#8211; baked potatoes (courtesy of The Boy) Wednesday &#8211; vegetarian surprise Thursday &#8211; nachos &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/schedules-and-deadlines\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Schedules and Deadlines&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[317,155,315,316],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scriptwriting","tag-deadlines","tag-law-order","tag-the-boy","tag-the-girl"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2677,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}