Okay, I promise: this is not going to turn into one of those blogs where I talk about my kids and dogs incessantly. Because ultimately, this is supposed to be about writing. Well ultimately, everything is about writing for me these days, so bear with me.

This is not the post I planned to write. But, plans are that—only plans, and I spent last evening at the ER. Noble Hamster came down with a sudden, blinding stomach pain. I’ve never seen the kid so miserable and he’s the one who didn’t flinch, even as a doctor put five stitches to his forehead.

So last night I called the pediatrician and immediately after, we left—sans shoes and coats, dinner half-eaten. What we thought was appendicitis turns out to be the sort of sick we’ll most likely all get to experience for ourselves in a few days.

We got back late last night, too late to get the prescription but with enough time to go through our nightly drama about putting on PJs, brushing teeth and going to bed.

By dawn, we’d gone through two entire sets of clean bed sheets and I found myself raiding the basement at 2:00 a.m. for a sleeping bag for the kid, since we were out of blankets. The dog then subsequently pooped on the puke-soaked mattress and followed that up by chewing an enormous hole in it. And while I can say that I’ve had a bad night, I guess I can be comforted by the fact that it wasn’t as bad as the mattress’s.

At this point, with only minutes until I need to get ready for work, I need to find clean jeans so Twister doesn’t have the trauma of going to school pants-less, I have a mammoth mountain range of laundry, I see undone dishes littering the sink and remembrances of last night’s dinner all over the kitchen.

And this point, showering is practically a luxury and yet here I sit, writing. Blogging no less, and I wonder, will I ever finish HitList? I started it March 2nd of last year. Now, with the end so tantalizingly close, it seems there will always be Boy Scouts or peewee tennis, or kids’ birthday parties, or school plays, or dog obedience classes and the part that’s mine–the writing–just drops off the list. Not out of  laziness– but out of necessity.

But I swear. And by writing this, while I should be doing ten million other things, I do hereby solemnly swear and promise, I will write. I will finish my book. And while I may never be published and nary a soul may ever read it, I swear:

I will write.