It’s beginning to get to me that I haven’t committed a creative act in a week. I know, I’ve been shutting down school, and today was given over to trying to get the new appliances installed and the cats to the vet, but still. My goal was to create something every day.

I don’t like failing in my commitments, so this is an underlying stress that is exacerbated by the very things that are keeping me from creating.

For example, the installation of the appliances. The guys from Sears showed up at about 11:30, and that was fine. It was no problem at all emptying the refrigerator quickly, I had already emptied the freezer and culled the contents of the refrigerator itself, and moving the old appliances out was a snap.

Moving the new ones in was a snap as well. Hooking them up was not a problem. But then the stove wouldn’t fit correctly in the cutout in the island. We looked it over and decided that however the old stove (with the same dimensions) had fit in there, the new one had to slide further back and was being stopped from doing that by the gas pipe. We decided that the gas pipe had to be dropped back down into the basement and the stove hooked up down there, thus allowing the whole thing to fit firmly into the island.

Only the Sears guys couldn’t do that. Were they telling me that all they did was bring the appliance into the house and plug them in, I asked incredulously? That was exactly what they were telling me. A call to Sears confirmed that when I paid for installation, what they actually meant was plugging in, something which I was quite capable of doing for myself, a fact I pointed out to the manager. Abashed, he volunteered to take the installation charge off the bill.

That did not solve my problem, which was that I wanted to have these appliances completely installed by the end of the day so that Ginny wouldn’t have to deal with it on Monday after I was gone. (The water line to the icemaker in the refrigerator was also nonfunctional.)

I did track down a contractor who could do the job, but he couldn’t come until tomorrow morning. I had to be satisfied with that.

On a more positive note, both appliances functioned beautifully. The refrigerator is quiet and the stove works like a charm.

On a still more positive note, we watched a lovely movie called Malèna which we highly recommend you add to your Netflix list. It had lain around the house for months, and we were never “in the mood” to watch it. Foolish, indeed. I can’t remember now why I had added it to the list, but it’s a wonderful movie. And Monica Belucci is stunningly gorgeous.

You would think that on this day I would have made an effort to create something, but I’m still in that shutting-down-school mode, only with a Promethean board to play with, only it won’t respond to the laptop’s Bluetooth. And I still have to manage the county’s elementary school MARC records conversion with Follett.

And at some point I have to start getting into getting-ready-for-GHP mode, which I haven’t yet, and I leave on Monday.

And my van was in the shop, ostensibly to get a couple of lights replaced but eventually having brake work done on front and back, and postponing the “seepages” around the manifold intake until I get back. That took until 5:30.

So did I get any actual creative work done? Nope.

Last day of school, and on top of that I had a doctor’s appointment, continuing circulation database woes, and the installation of my Promethean board. I got one or two more ideas jotted down for Thurgood’s song (and emailed Mike a suggestion for a gag in the first scene), but other than that, I didn’t really create.

We went to see Shrek the Third. Lots of good will, but it didn’t really click. Unless they can come up with a really rousing plot, they ought to retire the franchise.

70 days to go.

Today was my niece Hayley’s high school graduation, so the entire evening was spent crammed into the bleachers at the stadium. I tried to jot down some of the unusual ladies Thurgood might sing about, but it’s hard to write down things like “three breasts” when people are curious as to what one might be writing down in one’s little black book.

71 days to go.

You would think, on a day where I had nothing, and I mean nothing, in particular to do, I would accomplish something. But alas, no.

Part of it is that odd inertia that happens when you don’t have to get busy on the next project, i.e., there’s no deadline looming over you. The old metaphor of that standing time between tides, or between waves, will serve. You just wait for the next tug of the moon to get you moving again.

Of course, I do have a deadline looming over me. Last year I wrote a snarky monthly column for Grant Wiggins’ Big Ideas website, but they sort of stalled out midyear. Now they’re back, with a grand opening set for June 1, and they want a column. I sat down yesterday to start to work on it and realized I had no ideas.

I emailed my editor to see if there were a theme I could leech off of. Actually, I went to the website to see if they were announcing a theme. No, but they were inviting people to submit material for their new and improved site. They had two examples: an article by Grant Wiggins and a snarky column on standards by Dale Lyles. That was no help at all. So then I emailed my editor.

She was heading into a meeting the purpose of which was just that, so later I got a list of topics. By that time, my inertia was complete. I’ll have to tackle it tomorrow.

78 days to go.

I’m in Greensboro, enjoying the company of my son and his charming friends.

Other than clean house and cook for a lovely dinner party, I didn’t get a lot done.

I did explore a to-do list kind of website, stikkit.com, which has some interesting features, but again, I don’t want to have to open a website just to keep track of all my stuff. It might be good for short term collaborative kinds of things, like getting people’s input on what restaurant to go to after the Louvre exhibit. But daily basis, I don’t think so.

I also ditched my old recipe software for a new one that is much more Mac-like and easier to use. I used to use MasterCook, but they stopped making a Mac version, fools, and it’s hard to find something that well-designed. But I think MacGourmet is going to do it for me.

I did not get to the two simple things I wanted to do this weekend, i.e., listen to the next two pieces in William Blake and polish them a bit.