This tweet by the always wise Eugene Lee Yang is currently making the rounds on my social media. And this is advice that I would absolutely adore to take because it’s smart and I could use the recharge. Six days of relaxing, catching up on all my backlogged shows, crafting to my heart’s content? It would be glorious.

Except that I’d promised to release Shifter Woods: Claw on Friday and I’ve been so bad about releasing things on time this year that I really don’t want to miss that deadline as well. (Not to mention that I’d have to change the copyright notice in the book if I do, she muttered into her glass of Coke Zero.)

I was about to write, “And to be honest, I’ve been goofing off for the last week or so,” but on second thought I haven’t been goofing off whatsoever. Wednesday I did the major holiday shop at three stores, prepped the house for the cold snap, and did some writing. Thursday I cleaned, baked cookies, quilted, and kept an eye on the weather. Friday and Saturday I got up the last of the decorations, cleaned, cooked, quilted, and on Christmas Eve I felt like crap and crawled into bed around 4 PM. Still felt like crap on Christmas but I managed to get up, do the daily changing of JJ’s bedding, and cook dinner, then finished the quilting on my nephew’s new quilt. And yesterday I bound the quilt and threw it into my daily loads of laundry, cleaned, then finally made the big holiday meal.

Huh.

You know what? I think I am taking the rest of this week off. It’s not going to kill anyone if Claw comes out next week instead of this one, and I’ll work on hitting my deadlines regularly in 2023.

And now if you’ll excuse me I’ll be over here transforming into a couch.