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

On A Jetplane

Ever feel like things were spinning out of control

This is… was going to be my ROW80 goal post.  Thing is…  I don’t really have any goals in mind special for Round 4.  There are, of course, the usual suspects: finish the Swan Song series, maintain the Row80 blog (though not for a few weeks…  Denise Young has kindly offered to help there while I’m in Europe with my son), and prepare to move to New Jersey.

All those are over-arching goals though…  grand plans as it were and not very definable.  The multitude of steps each requires can be daunting… has been daunting in some cases.  If nothing else, this trip overseas has allowed me to step back and NOT feel obliged to do things, which has oddly made me more productive than I’ve been in a while.

Departure

I even indulged my photography passion some.  The stairs image I snapped as we used the Tube at Earl’s Court station.  I took some window pics of our departure (Newark Airport) and landing (Reykjavik).  Since my seat was just over the wing and I had to hold the camera sideways, I’m really happy with the way these pictures came out.

Arrival

I did some editing.

I actually posted to Facebook (a lot…  especially for me).  In fact, during the wait at the airports, I probably spent more time on Facebook than I had all year before this.  It would have been nice if I’d been able to edit or write, but the brain just would not accept being made to focus.  I even tried starting this post then…  It didn’t work.

But all of this leave me still wondering what my goals are for Round 4.  I’d say just getting through it without tearing my hair out would be a good start for me, but that’s really just a cop-out.  I need to think more about the steps involved in achieving those grand goals.

Maybe that should be my goal for this Round of Words… As well as maintaining thw ROW80 blog and writing new words.  Even throwaway words encourage new ideas…  Yeah.  Those are my goals.

 

Not Today

Any normal week, I’d be prepping my (late) WIPpet Wednesday post. This being the week between Christmas and New Years and all the chaos contained within… well, it’s not a normal week.

There’s not going to be a post beyond this little note.  Life is good, but very cold here in the wilds of Upstate NY.  The holiday “feel” has already faded some, it seems to me, though it could be the fact I’ve been spending most of my last few days reading murder mysteries (the delightful Gaslight series by Victoria Thompson and the newish Molly Murphy books by Rhys Bowen) and waiting for your son to finish his days at soccer camp. The family visits are an”in progress” affair, but we’ve made a few already.

In all, the Holidays have been what they should be… a time of change and tradition merged into one.

Hope you all are enjoying yours too!  🙂