Busy or Bored?

Our boys went back to school Tuesday. The house was supposed to be a peaceful mecca so I could work, right? Wrong!

Guess which of these actually happened this week:

1. Brad Pitt stopped by for, ahem, coffee.
2. I was called to jury duty.
3. I won a lifetime supply of Brussels sprouts and Twinkies.
4. The electricity went out while I was cooking dinner.
5. I was voted Queen of Absolutely Everything.
6. Made an emergency run to Target for school supplies that didn't actually exist.
7. Squeezed in a quick lunch with Oprah to talk books.
8. Dog-sitting a sweet pea named Clover.
9. Flew to Washington, D.C. to offer my two cents to President Obama about health care.
10. Sister visiting from CA. Sister's rental car battery died. Twice.
11. Hubby whisked me off to Hawaii for a quick getaway.
12. Serious computer problems.
12 3/4. I wrote anyway!

I'm one of those people who gets more done the more I have to get done. Give me an impossible list of things to accomplish and I'm on my A game. Long, languishing days dull my mental spark.

And I'm not the only one.

After being widowed with five children, Mary Higgins Clark woke three hours before her day job to write. It was several years before she wrote and sold Where are the Children?

John Grisham wrote on the train to and from his job as a very busy attorney.

After a long day of work, Jerry Spinelli stuffed cotton in his ears so he could concentrate on writing with his six children in the house.

How do you work best? Amidst chaos or in peace? Do you prefer busy or bored? I love busy with a bit of bored thrown in for good measure.

Happy weekend,
Donna