For some reason, April has become Deadline Month. I’m not talking about filing an income tax return which, thankfully, my husband did in February. No, I’m talking about freelance projects, some scheduled and some unexpected but unavoidable, that have this week as their endpoint.
It all started in January, when the calendar was clear, and I accepted an all day speaking engagement on April 19. Things warmed up when the edits for my manuscript arrived for examination, along with an April 20 deadline. They escalated further when the contract for the sixty kids devotions arrived. They aren’t due until the end of June, but to meet that deadline, I had to start writing one per work day in mid-March. All that was doable, and I even found time to accept a couple paying magazine assignments with mid-April deadlines.
But then, Mom’s house sold within twenty-four hours of being put on the market in March, with a closing date of April 10. Things were a little hairy, but the timeline was doable because my siblings promised to help with the remaining work at Mom’s house the first weekend in April. But a snowstorm, which dumped seven inches of snow on our town that very weekend, forced them to cancel.
At that point, things got crazy, but somehow, Hiram and I had the house ready in time. And I’m on track to meet the writing deadlines, too. Granted, I haven’t taken my blood pressure lately, and don’t plan to until next week, after the deadlines are successfully met. Then I’ll relax for a few minutes and dig into the pile of on-hold projects, if I can figure out where I was at a month and a half ago when I set them aside, and start all over again.
Good thing I love freelance work.
