A Day in the Life of Chautona Havig!

Posted by abakersp in A Day in the Life / 7 Comments

 

Squeeee……I am super excited today friends. Have you met Chautona Havig? Well, technically I haven’t met her in person, but I have met her online. She is, well, I don’t know if I can come up with a word. Funny, hilarious, sweet, helpful, supportive, and that is just the tip of the iceberg my friends. Confession time – Chautona and Sandy Barela from Celerbrate Lit did an online class together that I took. I watched their videos more than once. Not because I was taking notes (I mean, I was taking notes the first time), but because they made me laugh. Not giggle or chuckle, a real hearty laugh. If I ever decide to have a party, I want her there. And her blog posts? Yeah, they are the best.

Okay, fan girl session is over. Can you imagine if I ever meet Chautona in person?! Chautona, if you are reading this……please oh please can you travel to the east coast so we can meet in person. There are TWO Denny’s nearby – you can take your pick 😉

 

A Day in the Life of Chautona

“Would you like to do a ‘Day in the Life of’ post?”

It’ll be easy, I thought. Why not? I thought. Famous last questions. My response? “Sure!”

The reminder came last week. Need it by Monday.

So, with that in mind, I decided Friday was the optimal time. After all, it’ll go something like this:

Get up at 2:23 p.m. Check social media while I try to down some water and keep those eyelids open.

Go out and ooh and aaah over my husband’s killer pool-putting-up skills.

Check email.

Put out a bunch of fires. You know, things like: setting a time to meet for the podcast, going to get something to make for dinner, assuring #7daughter that she absolutely can do that math problem.

Again.

Then dinnertime comes, we make food, we eat food, I take a nap, wake up at nine, and head to The Lighthouse where I do the real fun stuff—write until six a.m.

Seriously, I figured the hardest thing I’d have to do is figure out how to flesh it out, so it doesn’t send Jessica’s readers into a soporific stupor.

Yeah. That’s how 93.2% of my days go. Just a repetitious series of nonsense, right? Yeah. Let me have my dreams.

I was actually tempted to write about last Thursday where I didn’t go to bed on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, stayed up until 10 p.m. on Wednesday night, got up at 4 a.m., drove a man and his mother-in-law to LAX—a 3-hour drive if there’s no traffic. It’s Los Angeles. There’s ALWAYS traffic (insert tons of hilarious things here). Dropped off the mother-in-law, drove back to Ridgecrest (insert tons more hilarious things here), dropped him off, and drove back down to another part of the L.A. area—Orange county (another 3 hours+) for my ACFW meeting.

At least it would be interesting. Because, on those other 6.8% of days, they’re doozies.

A “normal” day in the life of me

So, Friday I woke up and peeled one eye open. The clock read 11:53. I’d only been in bed for about five and a half hours. Not enough sleep. I managed to lie there for about thirty minutes—thirty minutes of staring at the wall.

Six months ago, I decided I wanted to remove a couple of cabinets from my room and replace them with shelving. Getting up early meant one thing.

“Today’s the day.”

It took me twenty minutes to empty everything onto my bed and find the drill.

I didn’t even open the laptop. I just proceeded to rip those cabinets off the wall.

Took the paint with them. Just sayin’.

No, really. I did. When I pulled one away, the paint peeled in a piece the size of my fist. I went to smooth out the edge and peeled off a piece the size (but not shape) of a piece of paper. Oh, boy.

No worries. My partner in painting crime, #4daughter, came to my rescue. We spent the next hour or two pulling great sheets off. Little pieces. So, in the space of time I’d planned to have new shelves up, we cleared the wall of the old paint.

Hey! One giant strip was over 3 feet wide and two feet high. Shaped like Australia!  Another spot on my wall looked like we’d ripped off the western half of the US.

By three o’clock, I was down at Home Depot gathering painting supplies, spackling paste, and putty knives. Because I was too lazy to go dig through the shed for them. *blush*

Of course, the minute I got done spackling the wall, I realized that I’d forgotten that one important thing I went for. The shelves. I tried to convince myself that I’d done it intentionally.

I failed.

Fortunately, we live in California’s Mojave Desert where our average humidity hovers around 4-7%. The spackling was dry by the time I returned. I sanded, wiped down the wall, and painted.

For the first time in like… oh, I don’t know, ever, one-coat paint only took one coat.

Dinnertime came, and between him putting up the pool and me demolishing our bedroom, both Kevin and I were wiped out. Praise the Lord for Taco Bell. I managed to get in an hour nap before I had to get up and get ready.

Because #4daughter and I had a date—to see Overboard. Note: I almost never go to the movies. I’m a “stay at home and see it in the comfort of my own living room because there I have a remote to pause and rewind” kind of gal.

Seriously, after a day like I’d had (and a mess that meant I had to crawl into bed from the end of the bed up to the front…), I needed the laughter (but not necessarily the innuendo), it was probably the best thing I could have done.

But… my “day” was really just beginning!

Off I went to Denny’s after arriving home from the movie. Here the “usual” began. Check email (hadn’t all day), check social media (almost ditto), get my upcoming review of the Journible books ready, write the script for the video my #1daughter and I did for that review, scrap the script (we’d never stick to it anyway), and then… back to trying to finish the bonus book short story for my latest release!

I write at a local prayer house most nights, so I did hurry over there at 1:30 a.m. to make sure I missed the bar rush at 2. I wasn’t in the mood to be social. And considering last week a woman tried to “pick me up” (THAT was a new experience), I decided that I should just skedaddle. Fast.

Home at six a.m. and off to bed. Usually, I’ll stay up an hour and watch an episode of some TV show I’m doing a “mini-binge” with, but I was too tired (after getting up over 2 hours early and almost no nap…).

So… was Saturday any different?

Not much. Woke up early… AGAIN. Worked on the room some more (put up the shelves, began organizing things on them, etc.).

Long before I was done, I had to run to the store to get food.

We were having dinner guests. Author April Hayman and her family came over. Then she and I dashed off to Denny’s to meet up with the other author in our podcast trio, Clark Rowenson.

There, we got good news. The three recorded episodes we had for the podcast were not destroyed in April’s house fire a couple of weeks ago. Her computer didn’t make it, but the local tech wizard got the data off. WOOT! And we’re still on track to do an interview post with author D.C. Marino about her upcoming book, Kingdom of Ruins and her novelette Points Worth (now available on Kindle). Stay tuned (pun intended) for that interview in July!

So… there you have it. Two days that were basically the same in their total different-ness. I give up.

A day in the life of Chautona Havig is pretty mundane. Except when it isn’t.

And hopefully my office’ll be done, soon.  Because I’m getting inspired by it!

 

 

Thank you Chautona for sharing your day/night with us!!!

7 responses to “A Day in the Life of Chautona Havig!

  1. Wow. I can’t even imagine that life schedule. When did you decide that the all-night writing was the best time for you? Do you miss mornings?

    • Well, I’ve never been much of a morning person–even when I woke up at 5 a.m. every day for school. I’d be half-brain dead until 10-noonish. Then I’d perk up a bit.

      But about 8 years ago, I got really sick–couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t breathe properly, heart racing… the works. My schedule got all messed up then, and I’ve never been able to get back on a normal schedule again.
      Still, it works for me. I get to write while the world sleeps–without interruptions, even! Well, except at Denny’s during bar rush…

  2. Hannah Corner

    I LOVE Chautona! I will read absolutely anything and everything by her. I really enjoyed this peek into her days.

  3. I’ve never been that far northeast. I’ll have to make that a priority! 🙂
    And thanks for having me. It was fun. I just wish it wasn’t as normal as it is. The more I think of it…

  4. Love this glimpse into your life. And just think–all the craziness just gives you more fodder for stories!(like you need anymore ideas, lol)

  5. MS Barb

    I LOVE Chautona too! I love her books! I enjoy her blogs & Face Book pages! Chautona, I would love to meet you in person (I live in OH & you in CA, so I don’t know how’d that work, BUT, we both have relatives in Minnesota! :)) I still have the hand crafted card you sent w/ one of my prizes I won from you–it’s beautiful! 🙂