Enter Procrastination Loop!

Today was the day I've been waiting for over two and a half months.  Seriously. For 80 days, I have endured more than any one person should ever have to endure:

Four children. Home all the time. Wanting three meals a day. Needing to be driven places and entertained and reminded to bathe.

Needing a mom. Sigh. That was me.

Since mid-June I have dreamed of today, this very day. The day the magic school bus would come and take my children -- and their plethora of noisy friends who always seemed to be at our house -- away.

For weeks I've had a list of things I would do, things I've been needing to accomplish, beginning with the very first day school started. I would:

1) Write at least 1500 words (about 1/2 a chapter)
2) Workout/run
3) Prepare a healthy meal
4) Read some of the 200 books on my Kindle I've been trying to get to
5) Get current with grading the online college classes I teach
6) Clean some part of my house

Once my kids were gone today I knew I would do, maybe if not all, at least some of these things. I mean, for the first time in months I had a quiet house, with no interruptions, no one with questions or wanting me to play ping pong or needing a snack.

There really was no limit to the amount of important activities I could accomplish under these circumstances.

So what exactly did I accomplish today in my quiet kid-free home?

Nothing.

Unless you consider sitting on the couch watching Season 2 of BBC's Sherlock while surfing the Internet something. (Which I guess... no, never mind).

Today I found myself in the procrastination loop. If you care to find out how that happens, start at the red box and just... go. It's tricky, and it's a definitely a loop. Once you're on the loop, (remote control in one hand,  keyboard under the other, lovely Benedict Cumberbatch on the screen in front of you) it's darn near impossible to get off it. I sure didn't today.

If the above flowchart is (understandably) a little too hefty for you, just use this one. It's basically the same thing:

So today is over and  I have nothing to show for it. Bummer. I got stuck in the procrastination loop -- and whether it was the complicated one or the simple one, the result was the same.

But the good news: the magic school bus will show up again tomorrow and provide me with another quiet house and a chance to accomplish something on my list -- something important. And this time I'll hopefully use my time more wisely.

Sherlock Season 3 doesn't come out until sometime in 2014. That should help.