I’d forgotten what happens when you make a plan to hibernate: the whole world lines up as one gigantic test of your will.

It can’t help it. It wants to know how badly you intend to keep your promise to yourself to Just Do One Thing. It’s actually a public service, just a reminder to you to hunker yourself down and set your priorities.

Here is what just the last few days have brought:

1. Our wonderful, sweet, delightful tenants decided they would like to leave our attached in-law apartment and live elsewhere. But why? What happened? Just last week, we were all shoveling the driveway together and laughing and smiling. They’re a lovely young couple, and we LOVED them! Was it the three snowstorms that made the driveway an athletic challenge? Or did we make too much noise over Christmas? They won’t say. “The apartment does not meet our needs at present,” was I believe the way the letter phrased it. But I know what it really is: it’s simply a test.

2. So we are back on Craigslist, looking for new tenants. Reams and reams of pages of new potential tenants!

3. Our car–the one with 215,789 miles on it–is suddenly very, very tired. And has recently taken to issuing black smoke to express its displeasure with life, and today it just refused to start for 20 minutes and then changed its mind and started right up. You could almost hear it chuckling to itself. The trouble is, it’s time to re-register the thing. Do we ditch it now and spend time trying to hunt down another car we can afford, (the novel, the novel!)… or take the chance of re-registering it and THEN ditching it a month from now, after we’ve spent money on it, getting it healthy enough to even qualify to be registered?

4. Objects are starting to play tricks on us. The garage door opener disappeared and stayed missing for nearly 24 hours, and then reappeared in a friend’s car, where it had apparently fallen out of my bag while she was giving me a ride to Starbucks on a day when my car keys were already lost. (This was two lost objects in one day, which is far too many for somebody with my nerves.)

5.  The plumber has declared that our copper pipes have the consistency of “tissue paper.” I don’t want to speak any more about this, because I don’t want the pipes to get the idea that this is a bad thing, you know? I hurried the plumber out of the house when he started to talk about this. He replaced one length of pipe that had actually sprung a leak, which was all very good of him. But I don’t want the pipes to get the idea that this kind of thing is going to be tolerated for their whole length, or anything. Just the idea of having the entire pipe system of the house needing replacement is enough to make me break out in hives.

I can’t afford to get hives now, at least not until January is over.

There are other things lining up to be dealt with, too. There always are. Sinus infections, insurance fights to be waged, heaps of laundry to be done. The Christmas tree to be removed. A newly purchased vacuum cleaner to be boxed up and returned to the store for a credit because it refuses to suck things up. Fascinating discussions at Starbucks among the customers. 

Ah, but I will not be diverted. I have been writing every day. The pipes may turn into a sprinkler system, the tenants may desert us, and all my objects may defect, but I am churning through pages, taking Sudafed, ignoring the outside world, keeping my head down and typing away like somebody who knows what she is doing.

I. Will. Make. This. Deadline.

Oh, and I’m on a blog tour!! Tomorrow I’ll post something about the schedule…after I go look it up!

Hope the Januaries don’t have you in their clutches.