I Go To Work...

First, know that I'm not giving up.

It's just that I'm in the middle of a bear of a project, with a June 15 deadline, and mama is stressed out. I've been operating at a pace that simply isn't human—reporting and writing a book, regularly writing blogs for Parenting.com, Dove.com, and Unilever's "Don't Fret the Sweat" campaign, freelancing for Essence, Heart & Soul and Parenting magazines, and doing most of the heavy lifting here at MyBrownBaby, in addition to trying my best to pull together my duties as a work-at-home mom, wife, volunteer, and friend without looking like a total deadbeat. I simply can not keep up this pace and do anything effectively.

I was complaining about, er... sharing this with my girl Akilah of Execumama a few weeks ago when she, in all of her you can do it/nobody's perfect/let go and live your best life ever wisdom, challenged me to come up with a list of five things I can do right now to make my life easier while I tackle this book project. "And for God's sake, take off that cape," she added.

For the record? I heart Akilah.

And though it took me a minute to develop it, I've finally come up with a list of five things I'm going to do to help me meet this book writing deadline without having to be carted away in a straight jacket. Here's what I came up with:

1. I'm going to fully implement the sole good thing to ever come out of the Reagan administration: Just say no. No more volunteering, no more running all around town participating in events, no more extending myself to help everyone else at the expense of my own projects. I gotta focus and I can't do that if I'm distracted by all that other stuff.

2. I'm handing off my cooking duties. I'm putting in a call t-o-d-a-y to my girl Shelley over at Naturi Beauty to see if we can work out a deal for her to swing some of those personal chef services our way, just until I get this book off my plate. She'll easily save me a good three hours a day in grocery shopping, prep, cooking, and clean-up if she hooks up our meals while I remain tied to this here MacBook.

3. The house is gonna have to be a little messy, dammit. So if you stop by and the laundry is piled high, the floors don't look like they've been swept, and it smells like Parliament Funkadelic just finished a funky, sweaty, three-hour body mashing set in my foyer, don't judge me—I'm writing.

4. Bye-bye FaceBook, Twitter, Yahoo, Gmail and all the other delicious distractions that keep me from knocking out these chapters with the lightening speed I'm capable of. Okay, well maybe I won't drop The Face totally, but, you know, I'll cut back some. (Sheesh--do they have a FaceBook Anonymous I can check into every once in a while? The habit is real.)

5. I'm going to have to fall back on the MyBrownBaby posts. Don't worry—you're still going to get the quality writing and thoughtful prose for which MyBrownBaby is reknowned, but I'm only going to be posting three times a week while I pour my writing energy into the book. This is temporary, I promise. And when I come back full-time, MyBrownBaby will be stronger, prettier, and better than ever. (Yup, I'll have a right nice surprise for you by then!)

Okay, wish me luck good people... 12 chapters in 30 days.

Watch.

Me.

Work.