Always Catching Up

And always getting further behind

This post is even late. Sorry, not sorry. I am starting to recognize that I can’t do All The Things no matter how hard I might want to. Getting the majority of it past the “Started” phase feels like a major accomplishment.

An even bigger accomplishment, I’m starting to learn is how to not even start a thing. How to say No and set small limits when I do accept a task…. It’s not as easy as I would like it to be, but I’m finding the short-term discomfort of not “pleasing everyone” is more than made up for by the decreased angst and disappointment of looming deadlines, late deliveries, failed efforts…. and all the stress that those things bring with them.

So, along with my other ROW80 goals, that is my major WIP at the moment: Me.

At LandLubber’s in Atlantic City this December

How did I do since my last check-in (typed in the comments of the Facebook thread)? Well, here’s my list of “updated” goals with annotations:

• Continue to freewrite daily; aim for at least three pages or 20 minutes BICHOP There’s been some writing accomplished. Very little. I slept a lot from being sick this weekend.
• Maintain the ROW80 blog and update pages and info as I can Posts for the next week are scheduled
• Spend an hour daily, five days a week, sorting computer files (photos, notes, etc.) While I didn’t achieve a full five days this week, I did get a lot of photos (and some notes) sorted. 1/2 progress
• Spend an hour daily typing in notebooks, five days a week If I managed two hours all week, that would surprise me, but I did type in some stuff
• Reading… focus on reducing the “presently reading” list by finishing the library books (the hold up here is that several are non-fiction for research purposes, and those can be slow going when I’m taking copious notes or cross referencing details) I finished two books on my TBR… just in time for another book to be picked up at the library
• Update name blog and test it for “digestibility“ Mostly I’m just doing posts for the Weekend Writing Warriors (and I have a First Friday Photo post scheduled as well. That said, I finally fixed my timezone issue. So real progress here
• Learn the ins and outs of the Fediverse (Mastodon, Diaspora, etc.) Nothing; I’d ditch this task if I didn’t feel it will be necessary in the long term
• Maintain a weekly sabbath, a day where I do not NEED to do anything at least If sleeping most of Saturday away having fever sweats under the blankets counts, then yep. Even if it doesn’t… I do feel better than I have in a while, and that’s no bad thing.

That’s about all there is for now. I am off to make some late lunch and get some laundry done. See you all on Wednesday

I Took a Breather

I missed the last two check-ins for the ROW80. Mostly I needed to rest and heal some. Saturday the 4th, I had one….heck of a day. I’d headed up to NYS to help my mother with some things at the house (the Northeast was in for an exceptionally long and hard cold spell for the region and she was afraid that the furnace might not keep up and the pipes might freeze). And… the week before my dad had passed away suddenly, which meant she’d had limited mental energy for handling emergencies.

The picture above is how I was spending time at my hotel in Clifton Park, since Mom had asked me to just stay near, but not come over (she’d had trouble with the wind and had jammed newspaper in the door to wedge it closed and didn’t want to open it and let the cold in… yeah, I know). It ended up being an okay night. Cold, even the hotel, since the windows had iced over, but I had warm blankets and the heater worked.

And Mom called in the morning to say though the cold water in the kitchen had frozen some, she’d been able to get it going without any burst pipes. We were going to meet for a late lunch, go back to her house, and hopefully fix some things she’d been letting slide. Minutes later I was standing outside my hotel in slippers and pajamas while this was happening (it was 6°F out):

All I had was my room key and my phone….. Yeah, Dad used to be a fireman, and basic rule I’d always been taught was don’t worry about personal belongings, just get out of the building if the alarm is going off. The only thing I’d paused for was to make sure the cleaning lady who was worried about leaving her cart in the hall left immediately too. I’d been holding the phone and had had the key card because ‘d recently gone out to get ice.

Well, after my slippers started freezing to the pavement, I called Mom and asked her if she could help. Yep. Here I was going up to help Mom, and she had to rescue me. But eventually she was able to drive down, just as the firemen were able to help me into my room to grab my purse and keys so I could sit in my truck (and eventually again, to help me clean out all my stuff because the hotel was being fully evacuated for the night).

What do two frazzled women do in freezing weather in upstate NY? We went out to eat. My brother offered me a couch to crash on for the night (radio silence from the hotel about an alternative place to stay). So after enjoying our meal, we went to Mom’s house as planned before. And… boom!

Now, honestly, I can (and have) tripped over dustbunnies. But.. In the dark, dealing with the neighbor’s yapping dogs , I wasn’t paying attention to the uneven sidewalk… Mom says I was flying for a moment. The sidewalk does head downhill somewhat so, that’s probably why. Bloodied my left knee, my right hand and elbow, and… knocked the breath out of me so hard I couldn’t stand up for several minutes.

It still hurts to take a deep breath. I’m not sure how I slept on my brother’s couch that night.

So… I took a breather another way. Except doing a few errands for Mom on Sunday and then driving back down to NJ, I have taken things a bit easy this week. I can’t lay down in bed yet. Just reading (Thinking Fast and Slow, The Corner That Held Them, and Dissolution) as well as catching up with my latest BritBox mystery shows (Waking the Dead season five right now). Still… I did manage to do some ROW80 goals.

Here’s how I did:

• Continue to freewrite daily; aim for at least three pages or 20 minutes BICHOP Nope. Managed two days of any writing, but mostly my muse has been out of calling range
• Maintain the ROW80 blog and update pages and info as I can Yes
• Spend an hour daily, five days a week, sorting computer files (photos, notes, etc.) I cleared out some TBR tabs on my computer
• Spend an hour daily typing in notebooks, five days a week Nope
• Reading… focus on reducing the “presently reading” list by finishing the library books (the hold up here is that several are non-fiction for research purposes, and those can be slow going when I’m taking copious notes or cross referencing details) Yes, as noted above… though I also picked up two more library books that had come in through the interlibrary loan program
• Update name blog and test it for “digestibility“ I wrote a post several days late, does that count?
• Learn the ins and outs of the Fediverse (Mastodon, Diaspora, etc.) Nope
• Maintain a weekly sabbath, a day where I do not NEED to do anything at least Didn’t actually take any time off. I’d actually been relaxing in my hotel room, using it somewhat like a writing retreat until the alarms went off. Now I’m just laying somewhat low and recouping. So… no.

My plan for the rest of this ROWnd is to just… get through it and do what I can. This next weekend we’ll be in NYS again since Mom has some computer and paperwork issues that she needs help with. I intend to go to my local writing group events on Tuesday and Thursday. Just going day-to-day until I can get to something closer to this again:

Boodle and a Weeping Beech at Wintherthur

Just… Another Step Forward

The Beginning Ring of a Dream….. celebrating Coming of Age day

I didn’t intend to miss posting on Sunday. It’s just taken me a bit of time to get inspired to talk about plans and achievements since Thursday when, just as we got the new refrigerator installed, I picked up my phone to see my mom had messaged to say she’d taken Dad to the ER.

The weekend went downhill from there.

So it was a Coming of Age in its own way. Is someone Daddy’s Little Girl still his little girl when she’s in her 50s and he’s gone?

Truth is… my father would have found Kyary’s songs trivial and silly. This from a man who used to do a great imitation of Tiny Tim singing Tiptoe Through the Tulips (and he often added his own verse in his natural base voice that went “Stomping through the nasties; won’t you come along and stomp, through the nasties, with me”*). His favorite songs were from groups like the Mamas and the Papas (he loved Cass Eliot’s voice); Janis Joplin; Peter, Paul & Mary as well as many classical composers and artists like Isao Tomita who envisioned electronic versions of classical works (listening to his version of the Firebird Suite with headphones is sublime).

Anyway, since this is suppposed to be a ROW80 check-in, here’s what I set as my updated goals:

• Continue to freewrite daily; aim for at least three pages or 20 minutes BICHOP NOPE, unless you count insane pages of texts between family members and brainstorming obituary details
• Maintain the ROW80 blog and update pages and info as I can Yes, though only in that I set up the next run of scheduled posts; I really need someone to place them on Facebook though, since I can’t seem to get them done in time for our European members
• Spend an hour daily, five days a week, sorting computer files (photos, notes, etc.) Collecting photos for the memorial has gotten me look through them, but not as carefully as I probably should
• Spend an hour daily typing in notebooks, five days a week No
• Reading… focus on reducing the “presently reading” list by finishing the library books (the hold up here is that several are non-fiction for research purposes, and those can be slow going when I’m taking copious notes or cross referencing details) Nope. Even the time i the waiting room was not done waiting
• Update name blog and test it for “digestibility“ I DID finish a post I’d started for the WeWriWa bloghop on my main page; not sure I want to continue doing them there, but for now, I’ll leave it and try to get a pattern started
• Learn the ins and outs of the Fediverse (Mastodon, Diaspora, etc.) Nope
• Maintain a weekly sabbath, a day where I do not NEED to do anything at least Is there an emoji for exhausted, maniacal laughter?

Actually…. Looking at the blue, I’m surprised. I feel like I accomplished nothing except alienate my brother and give my mother one more thing to deal with.

North Underbelly of the Thaddeus Kosciusko Bridge

Oh, and catch this photo from under the Twin Bridges Saturday evening….

*Nasties being nasturtiums, which we’d always nibble a few of when visiting my grandparents