2026 Summer session: Week 2

 Hello everyone!

We have excellent collections of summer goals and wishes from last week. And we all like all the flowers! What’s not to like about flowers? Love them all.

I spent a lot of time last weekend digging up and moving plants, and doing all those garden preparation things like mowing, mulching, weeding, sowing, dividing clumps of things, and weed whacking. We’re planning to hire a tiller to pull up some grass and putting in new actual garden beds. The work is not the most satisfying because it does not look like much actually happened, but I know it is there, and I know it is important.

So, for this week’s prompt, here is a lovely unfurling baby hosta to inspire you to think about what invisible but important work you can do this week to set yourself up for success with your goals later in the session? Which project needs to mulched and protected? Which project is in need of a good pile of compost? What needs to be ruthlessly weeded out? What needs to be trimmed to make space for something else?

 

Good luck with your week!

 

This week’s goals:

DEH

-Write (or transfer) 3000 words for Overdue essay.
-Write 1000 words for First Conference Paper
-Contact 2 (or am I up to 3?) writers with reviewer comments
-regular PT exercises, otherwise rest cranky back (maybe try a short swim, short walks)
-finish booking 3rd summer trip

Daisy

Get three talks ready for conference
Data processing for other people’s talks
Do a million interviews
Organize student assistant’s work for the next month
Three fun things with friends

JaneB

SELF-CARE:
* 3x20 intentional movement, 1 x making, 2 x small things with people, reading every day (with dinner, in waiting times)
* make a list of different making methods and projects I might play with this summer
HOME AND ENVIRONMENT:
* 75% of chores
* braindump the steps for the living room and clothes projects
* braindump smaller house and environment things I would like to get done this summer
* braindump where I want to get to with my personal finances
TEACHING AND ADMIN:
* last week of marking, I hope - finish the marking! And the reminding of colleagues on shared modules!
* meet with the MSc by Research student who is furthest from submission
* start writing the summer block list for teaching preparation tasks
RESEARCH:
* submit small group paper
* check in with student author of the paper that got the horrible review (my review luck continues to be bad. Former PhD student submitted their first paper last week and got it desk rejected in 13 minutes - with a letter that began "we have read your paper, and..." - I really don't think they could have! Fortunately they are a very resilient person who said "they can't have read it, and their reason is wrong. Oh well their loss!" and we resubmitted it elsewhere the next day (same publisher so limited reformatting needed)).
* continue calm systematic exploration of the laptop problem. No crying, no suppressing the urge to throw the laptop out of the window!
*write a start of TLQ session list of writing projects and their status.

Julie

1. Finish 30,000 word chapter and try to draw a line in the sand with editor.
2. At least one day on Big Article
3. Teaching prep: check draft timetable for next year has everyone's teaching in correctly, suggest some seminar readings to rest of teaching team.
4. Plan archive trip for end of June ahead of funding deadline next week.
5. House/life admin: book trains for summer travel, sort out insurance, book annual leave, optician's appointment, organise daughter's birthday party.
6. Self-care/fun: run x 3, read, journal, fill hanging baskets and patio pots now it seems to have stopped hailing at random, enjoy surprise trip away with friend this weekend.

2026 Summer session: Week 1

Welcome to the new Summer TLQ session! This is the first week so we're setting goals for the period between now and August 16. We will have a mid-session check in and recalibration for July 5th in case that helps with planning! The theme is going to be picture-related – with a summer-long record of anything I take a photo of in the week preceding, and quite likely those will be flowers…

Last week we thought about what we want out of this summer. This week the prompt is a two-parter… We will set our goals for the session as usual, but I would also love to set an intention for the session. What word or sentence can embody your intention for the summer, as a guiding principle, as a reminder, as a reset when things go off the rails? I have a feeling I might need one.

Here's the boilerplate from previous sessions about goals: Goals can be in any aspect of life, although the key focus is often writing tasks that are personally and professionally important but that never quite tip over into important AND urgent. Urgent things sometimes find their way in here too; that is completely okay, and process goals are also most welcome. If you've been thinking for awhile about joining in, we'd love to have you try us out this time around!

So, a few things to do this week - introduce yourself if you want to, set an intention for your session, set some session goals, do goals for the coming week (if you feel like it!), and in the spirit of the theme of the week, tell us a little about your favourite flowering plant and what it means to you. The photo is a set of cherry blossoms on my sour cherry tree that produced so much last year that I learned to make sour cherry jam which is delightful. Even better, we have a resident fox that visits the tree to eat fallen cherries...


Thank you all for being here and being wonderful company!

 

Interim: May flowers

 Hello everyone!

Hope the May flowers are continuing to provide little spots of beauty and joy! 

Our session will officially start next week. I thought we might like to take this week to think about what our ideal summers would contain, and do a little bit of ruminating on how we can make the reality and the ideal come a bit closer together before we start off with goals next week... 

Are there non-negotiable fun things you want to do this summer? Are there restorative practices that you want to put in place?

For this week... Let's think about what we want... Not what we "should" or "could" or "have to"... 

Just what we want :)

 

Interim: May is here!

Where I live, we're still getting April showers, but the calendar puts us in flower season. I missed my moment to put out the peony supports, so they're going to go all floppy; the lavender is still working on greening up; the rather expensive rose I bought for my birthday last year seems to have died over the winter (boo!); the "lawn" is a mass of dandelions and violets, plus creeping Charlie. A couple-three weeks ago I bought lettuce and spinach seedlings but haven't put them in the ground yet, as we had a frost warning on 1 May! Around here, you have to buy plants when they appear in stores, not when you're ready to plant, or they'll all be gone.

What are you ready to do? What needs to wait for the right moment? Does frost, real or metaphorical, threaten any of your projects?

interim: cross cat edition

 We've had a lot of sunny, bright weather here in the northen UK lately, and the days are rapidly getting longer (the clock change added to that) and now it's light until 8pm or so.  Mr Shoutypants established a routine recently of eat (at 6), poop, then demand entertainment - that is, wanting me to wave his laser toy around for him to chase for ten minutes.  However, now it's light in the evening the laser toy is apparently much less fun and he has made his feelings known.  What out-of-your-control thing have you done lately to annoy your pet (or other household inhabitant)??

As usual, a space for checking in if you want during this transition.

Interim: chocolate edition

I need to go do some errands instead of eating All The Chocolate. OK, I'm not really eating all of it; there's still plenty left. But chocolate is always more-ish. So, what are your favorites? While I was in the UK, I had a good bar of plain (dark) chocolate from Sainsbury's, but then turned to Green & Black's ginger chocolate. At home, my go-tos are Trader Joe's Pound Plus of dark chocolate, and Chocolove's peppermint flavor (also fond of their ginger and Rich Dark). Your recs?

And how are the work and other to-dos going? Bonne courage!

Another interim post: what's next?

Greetings! I'm back from my travels, with three weeks plus exams left to run in the semester. But! My first conference of this overloaded year is over, spring is springing, a TLQ session wrapped up: what time is it, anyway? If it would be useful to have a short, interim session while North American semesters finish up, I can put up some posts. There won't be a unifying theme, and if there's a discussion question, it will just be whatever is on my mind that week.

So, here we are--a post, set goals and/or check in from last week if you mentioned any to-dos then--and if you feel like it, jet lag: in what direction do you feel it most, is it easier to adapt to big or small changes, does it depend on where you're going (familiar or not, stressful people or not), what do you do to help deal with it?

And who would like to volunteer for the next proper session, and when should it start?