Shutting down when blog day ends

Someone asked me recently what I do in my spare time.

I stared at her for a moment. “That’s a good question,” I responded, and then didn’t really give an answer.

It’s not that I don’t have spare time. I just don’t have much of it.

The blog consumes practically the entire day. I’m always researching online, texting with a source, having Cattle Dog chats with community leaders, or on the road traveling the byways of Citrus County.

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Then there’s the writing. Most days, easy peasy. Some days, it’s 9 p.m. and I’m still trying to figure it out. That is NEVER good. Writing late when I’m tired or worn out is extremely difficult, so I do my best to avoid it.

I’m actually trying to write earlier, so I can have evenings to myself. Which lends the question: How do I spend that spare time?

Three ways: reading, TV, and music.

Working from home is both very cool and challenging. The Just Wright Citrus World Headquarters on the shores of Big Lake Henderson is a writer’s dream. I have a desk with all my stuff, Bunny sleeps at my feet when it’s not storming, and I take frequent breaks in other parts of the house. Plus, that lake view.

That’s the cool part. It’s not as much fun when work overwhelms the day so that there’s little separation. I’ve learned that I need to shut down my blog mind at the end of each day.

— Reading. Scripture in the morning, fiction in the evening. I’m on a Carl Hiaasen kick lately. And a friend lent me a John D. MacDonald novel that’s taking forever to get through because I’m savoring every page.

— Music. Every so often, I’ll go into clean mode after finishing for the day. You’d never know by looking at me, but I enjoy household cleaning when I’m in the mood for it. I’m ONLY in that mood with music in my ears. That’s just the way it’s been since the early years. 

— TV. The guilty pleasure.

I don’t watch nearly as much TV as I once did. TV is not my go-to for entertainment. I rarely watch the local TV news, and I don’t spend much time on the national networks either.

Where reading takes me into another world, and music fills my head with joy while emptying the dishwasher, TV is a whole other animal. I have very few expectations for TV. I don’t rely on it to change my life.

But there are little snippets of TV that I really enjoy. Hockey playoffs. The Big Bang Theory reruns. And Tampa Bay Rays baseball.

About the latter. I don’t profess to understand how this works, but the regional broadcaster that carries all the small-market baseball teams had one of those carriage disputes last year. The result is that the Rays are no longer on the DirecTV package I had. If I wanted to continue watching the Rays this year, I had to move up from “Entertainment” to “Choice.”

I basically switched from something with 200 channels I don’t watch to 250 channels I won’t watch. All for baseball.

And dealing over the phone with DirecTV…that’s fun, isn’t it? The person (I’ll call him Phil) was very helpful. We got to the end of the conversation when he told me the difference in price between the old package and the new one. He gave me my new monthly bill amount. I repeated it back to him. We both had the exact same amount. I wrote it down on the reporter pad I keep on the desk.

Few hours later, here comes the DirecTV email summarizing what we agreed on. Actually, I received two emails. The first was $60 more than the price Phil gave me, and the second email,10 minutes later, was $80 more than Phil's price.

Sheesh. I decided to leave that headache for another day and enjoy the Rays.

As I’m writing, it’s closing in on 7 p.m. A little later to post than I prefer, but still plenty of reading daylight. And The Big Bang Theory starts in a few minutes.

Time to wrap it up. Have a great weekend, friends. Seek diversions!

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