Excuses, Excuses

Have you ever made plans only to have to change them due to unforseen circumstances?  Well, for me, this past week has been one long unforseen circumstance. 

I had every intention of finishing the first round edit of my novel, Finding My Escape, but my daughter ended up being sick all week.
(Very rough draft of cover at left.)  A trip to the doctor gave the very vague answer "proably viral" which really means no-drug-exists-to-help-her-get-better-and-the-illness-will-have-to-run-its-course.  Sigh. 

Wednesday, it looked like I was going to have some time to get to editing, but my husband was hogging the laptop, (my laptop) googling a part for his Honda.  (Apparently, the tip of his exhaust fell off and he felt an urgency to order a replacement.)

And then, there's my day job.  I own a small bookkeeping business specializing in non profits.  During the day, I try to give the clients first priority (unless, of course, I have a sick child).

Even as  I write this, I realize that my excuses don't ring true.  My husband probably spent only five hours total on the laptop this past week which left me the remaining 112 (waking) hours to edit.  And while the daughter was sick, she didn't need my undivided attention, and her illness actually gave me an excuse to cancel some other commitments.

Truthfully, I spent hours on my Nook, and not reading either.  I confess, that what I spent most of my time doing was playing Sudoku.  I didn't get as much editing done last week as I would have liked not because my daughter was sick, or because my husband hogged the laptop, or even because I was busy with clients.  I got behind on my editing because I chose to play Sudoku.

In postscript, I did spend most of Sunday editing.  I got through about thirty pages.  I might have gotten caught up today... except that I had to post on my blog.

What excuses do you use for putting off getting your writing, editing, or other work done?