SuperIma Sunday Check-in: Birthday Weekend Extravaganza

Happy New Week, Supers! (Or as we Jews say, Shavua Tov.)

Before you read my check-in, go visit regular checker-inners Amanda, who has a BIG announcement for everyone (no, she's not pregnant, stop asking her okay?) and Shannon, who has a new nephew! Also please welcome to the blogosphere my friend Elle at her new blog about her year studying to be a rabbi in Israel, and her sister Yaffa's blog I Put Birds on Things, a tribute to Elle's year abroad. (This meidele is only 13 but she is SO funny and her writing is so good. I hope my kids are that close someday.) Okay. Here we go.

Wow. It's hot in my kitchen. We're expecting a table full of guests for next Shabbos, so I've already started the baking. I was inspired by Deb over at Smitten Kitchen (I know, what's new, right?) and made these incredible homemade oreos for Asher's birthday:

What can I say? I'm a sucker for custom colors in cookies. In anything, really. Anyway, these things were so cute and awesome that I decided to bake up a big pareve batch of 'em for Shabbos. So they're rotating in and out of the oven, along with a couple of batches of challah, and I'm schvitzing up a storm. But hey, better now than Friday, and also I have my netbook and occasionally stopping to type, so I'm happy as a clam (could be.)

Also? I finished the first draft of my little writing for fun project, which I think I am now finally brave enough to refer to as "my novel."  Huh. That makes my stomach flip. I bought myself a url to celebrate. Wheee!

That is to say, it's been a good week. I got SO much done for myself, I can hardly believe it. I even had time to read my friend Gina's work-in-progress (btw you are going to swoon when this baby gets published and hits the shelves, it's incredible.)

This week on the docket: Turns out I'm so in love with the characters and my story that even two days without them is too many. They're speaking to me, y'all. Because I know my characters by now and I have a basic story line for it, I've rationalized that I should TOTALLY write the sequel, and yes you writer types, I know that makes me an idiot, but please believe me when I say this. It really and truly is just for fun. Like, 99% of it, anyway. 

To that end, I've decided to jump on the NaNoWriMo bandwagon for July and August. In case you don't feel like clicking over, it's a bunch of insane people who try to write a novel in just one month. The goal is 50,000 words and that works out to about 1700 words a day (I AM INSANE.) But seriously, I think I can do it.

So, for the rest of the summer, before I kick back into rabbi-ing, I'm going to keep giving myself the daily gift of 1.5 hours worth of naptime to work on this stuff. The kids "rest" for 2 hours a day, so that only leaves half an hour every day dedicated to intense housework/cooking/what have you but so far no child has gone neglected according to this plan.  Yes, I cook and clean while they're awake. Yes, they are sometimes bored to tears (you should see the staring at the ceiling that goes on around here.) But I took them to the Zoo THREE TIMES this week, so they're not doing too badly.

What about you, sweet supers? How was your week? How is this coming week going to be? What are you going to do to make it happen?

You're doing an INCREDIBLE job. Also, you look fabulous, even with the humidity. Great job.