The car saga dragged out for a few days. It was a dead battery, an easy (and thankfully cheap) fix.

But, of course, you can’t disconnect a battery in a car like mine without it affecting the radio. Ever seen me try to drive without the radio on? Yeah, not pretty. And no, I can’t hook my phone into it and play it that way, either. For one, the entire thing wasn’t working, including the clock. For another, those hookups were put into the model year after I bought my car.

So a fruitless call to the dealer and then a very helpful call to Acura later, the radio was up and working. Of course, none of the presets had saved. But the XM came back on immediately, which I hadn’t expected to be so easy.

The car died on Sunday. Last night, I set the final radio station. Four days later.

I’m not the only one around here who’s prepared. I don’t know if it’s my announcement of an upcoming rate hike or just that time of year or all my clients are hitting the same spot in their writing cycle or what, but January and February are now completely booked. Which means that for the first time in over a year, I’m scheduling 12 weeks out.

Twelve weeks! That’s crazy!

But I am SO not arguing.

After all, I have the costs of the car to pay off. And windows to replace before I turn into a Susan-cicle. (My joke with my contractor: That’s not cool. No, it’s frozen!)

But best of all, I can not stress for a little bit. I’ve got work, and I love to work.

It’s all good, right? Well, temporarily. Until something breaks, or until March arrives. March, historically, is my absolute slowest month, for some reason I haven’t been able to figure out yet. As in: so far behind the other months, I’d have to edit twelve different projects (SO not happening, although with my crack subcontractor corps?) to bring March up to the level of every other month of the year. Really weird.

The upshot of all this? I’ve got the car mess straightened out, and affordably, too. My calendar is full. My rates are still going up for anything booked after January 1. And I get up every day, so damn grateful for the best, most creative, inventive, hardest-working clients out there.