We're approaching the half-way point already. The solstice has passed. It's getting darker in the northern hemisphere (but lighter Down Under: I wish I could head far, far south on the September equinox!). Is it time for triage? What could you let go of? Throw it overboard!
Or is it time to make sure you enjoy this season while you can? What do you want to do more of? "More sitting around doing nothing" counts, if that's what you want to (not) do!
Both of these questions might also benefit from considering what is within your control. If there's something you can't do because you're waiting on someone/something else, you might as well either enjoy yourself or pick something else to push forward.
Please report your progress on your weekly goals, analyze what went well or badly, and set goals for the coming week.
Bardiac
1. Exercise.
2. Weed the damned garden
3. Write 5 pages
4. Practice
5. Finish scrapbook.
Dame Eleanor Hull
Keep up stretching, cardio, weights, and push-ups.
Finish translation review.
Write something for writing group.
Clean the garage, work on the garden, book a trip to see family.
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
1) Write 5 hours x 7.
2) Revise schedule to make up for the break I took in New Orleans.
3) Meet with subordinate for requisite signing in quintuplicate the staff evaluation.
3) Taking a page from heu mihi, sit quietly, without phone or book or other distraction, for half an hour x 7.
Good Enough Woman (held over)
1) Keep working on healthful-ish food choices. Look for fiber and veggies on menus.
2) Write short story (eep!)
3) Do daily push ups and squats (10 of each)
4) Move like water / float like mist (but also be willing to be the stone in the river sometimes?) as I enter the intense family time that will begin on Friday (double eep!)
heu mihi
1. Read relevant parts of two books
2. Reread Wonder and figure out re-entry point
3. Finalize and print Impatience + associated handout
4. Sit x 6
5. Read the work of one graduate student
6. Back to regular exercise (heat permitting)
humming42
This week:
1 Write syllabus (although really trq at this point)
2 Submit second book review, also trq
3 Write and submit long overdue film review
4 Work on Sweet lit review
JaneB
1) write the damn summer lists.
2) use the writing retreat to review Picky, Touchy, Ferret and Foxy, assess their statuses, and decide which one to focus on this summer. If I get bored or run into too many blocks, work on Gallimaufrey paper or MScpaper.
3) cut out refined sugar wherever possible.
4) buy a new sunhat.
Karen
(Mostly going to be semester preparation and service whacking, so being realistic here)
-Runs on Friday, Sunday
-Write syllabus
-30 min writing time building off idea gathering from syllabus
OceanGirl101 (held over)
a. write 5,000 words for Ch 6
b. restake tomatoes in the garden and weed all over
c. have handyman repair garage door
d. walk for 2 hrs total and lift weights 3 x
e. find a new massage therapist who is good working with injuries
Plant Girl
1. Get back to a regular rhythm with the book.
2. Do freelance work somewhat more regularly.
3. Workout three times & run 5k Saturday.
4. Eat healthier / cook at home after four or so days of junk / restaurants.
Susan
1. Finish book for book review, write review
2. Read 9 journals
3. Re-read Violence essay, order books
4. Clean desk in den, maybe get rid of it
5. List turntable and tape deck on Craigslist
6. Keep walking, eating relatively healthfully
7. Do one fun thing
Waffles
1) Revise the results and introduction section for Aim 1 paper
2) Revise the results for a marriage recognition paper
3) Draft IRB for new grant (yay! it's a small grant to do some piloting with my own sample!).
What Now? (held over)
Finish the dang essay!
If I don't do this now, it'll likely be Wednesday before I get around to it!
ReplyDeleteAs you might guess, the week's questions have to do with elements of my life. I'm still waiting for an offer on our house, and so I'm trying to enjoy living in this town, in this space, while we're here. There are nice things. But it's strange, feeling that I'm both trying to enjoy and to disconnect, at the same time. I definitely want to have more active enjoyment of summer. June went way too fast, mostly in a haze of fatigue and illness, and I'm ticked off that I didn't get to enjoy it more. I have to remind myself that we did list the house, which has been a goal for the past two years, so that was a big thing for June.
How I did:
Keep up stretching, cardio, weights, and push-ups. YES. Still only at 20-30 push-ups, but form is reasonable.
Finish translation review. YES!!!! WOOOOT!!!
Write something for writing group. YES.
Clean the garage, work on the garden, book a trip to see family. YES, minimally, YES (cheated on the last one: I'd just done it before posting goals last Wednesday).
New goals:
Keep up stretching, cardio, weights, and push-ups.
Finish the last set of revisions.
Put in two hours of fall teaching prep.
Prep for real estate open house.
Do something fun or self-indulgent besides reading novels.
Congratulations on listing the house and preparing for an open house! That's a huge step. I hope someone comes and falls in love with your house.
DeleteThanks! I hope so, too.
DeleteHuzzah for the translation review! And, really, for having a good TLQ week overall!
Delete(I have garage cleaning in my future, so I am inspired by your progress even if it's minimal.)
The garage is done. It’s the garden where work was minimal.
DeleteTopic: Last week, Susan mentioned wanting to pack away her reactions to life in the university. I would love the possibility of chucking my reactions over the side. My negative, bitter, combative colleagues have much more impact on me than my positive, kind, helpful colleagues. I need to learn how to diminish their power over me, and to remember that I have control over my emotions.
ReplyDeleteI want more “me” time this summer, time to be alone, reading a novel in the sunshine, or even thinking through my next projects. Summer is visiting time, but my introvert heart is finding it difficult to have guests, or even to be a guest, several times a week. I also need to remember that I have control over my schedule.
In both situations, I am far too worried about what people think of me, although that worry is diminishing as I age.
Last week’s goals:
1) Write 5 hours x 7. Done
2) Revise schedule to make up for the break I took in New Orleans. Done
3) Meet with subordinate for requisite signing in quintuplicate the staff evaluation. Done
3) Taking a page from heu mihi, sit quietly, without phone or book or other distraction, for half an hour x 7. Done
Analysis: Although I was stressed out at being behind at the beginning of the week, I'm feeling more in control now. Sitting quietly unearths all sorts of buried thoughts and emotions. I have managed to acknowledge that there are things I cannot control, and must either work around them, or let them go. Another realization is that I cede power to other people, and tend to put my needs last. While I cannot completely control other people, I can ask for space and quiet, and go someplace else if I need to do so. I'm investigating having a cleaning service come in every few weeks to do the deep cleaning.
Next week’s goals:
Go to dental and medical appointments.
Get pool pass and use it.
Ask neighbor about her cleaning service.
Start proofreading edition--3 hours a day.
Edit introduction and textual notes--2 hours a day.
Here's to a productive week for everyone. Excelsior!
I love having someone else do the cleaning. It's more efficient (I always used to start reading the books I was dusting), it saves you time and energy, and it eases any relationship tensions that hover around cleaning (it's not your job or his job, it's the cleaner's job!).
DeleteI have had many moments in the last two weeks of struggling to deal with issues that I cannot control. This is such a tough challenge. Hat's off to you for meeting it head on!
DeleteI love having people come clean. It also means that every two weeks I actually deal with junk so they can clean!
DeleteAsking for space and quiet can be surprisingly difficult but can be so necessary.
DeleteI will echo the others on the cleaning help. Our cleaners just do surface stuff every two weeks, but even that helps my husband and I feel like we are, at least somewhat, keeping things together.
I completely forgot to check in last weekend because our niece was staying with us and we took her to her first political rally. That was a really fun reason to forget checking in here!
ReplyDeleteWhile she was here, I had an epiphany one day about how I needed to rip apart the essay and put it back together again, so the day after she left, I spent the entire day on July 4 chained to my computer. I was cross-eyed and exhausted by the time I finished, but I had done it! The next day, I printed it out and gave it to a colleague who's going to read it and give me feedback.
For this next week:
1) Have a colonoscopy on Tuesday. I've been dreading this for ages, but at last it's here.
2) If my colleague gets back to me, talk with her about her feedback.
3) Prep the heck out of the three-week summer school session that starts next Monday. The goal is to have it all laid out so that I just need to show up each morning and do the grading I need to do each day, but that's it, and I can still be doing other things for those three weeks.
4) Get caught up on an online course I'm taking. I'm a week behind.
5) Finish reading some books! I'm partway through a whole bunch of books -- some work-related, some personal -- and I'd like to clear the decks. I finished one yesterday, and it was very freeing.
Sounds like a great visit with your niece! I hope the new essay organization works. It would be awesome to have a class prepped so thoroughly, too.
DeleteI hope the colonoscopy prep and procedure went well. I'm facing my first one this fall, so I sympathize!
DeleteI’m refusing to have colonoscopies. No family history, no symptoms, so I’m just not up for it as a screening thing.
DeleteI never got around to setting my goals for the session. Let's see:
ReplyDelete1) be feeling calmer and more in control of my professional and personal life. This would ideally involve:
a) the house being noticeably more organised, b) having a clear, agreed plan for my new admin role in place, c) have reviewed and prepared for all my teaching for the year, d) be feeling like I know what my next steps are for writing and research activities until at least the end of January, and e) having some better self care habits in place
2) specifically I want to have ProblemChildren1 and 2 resubmitted
3) and measurable progress made on at least Ferret and Gallimaufrey Review, and probably also Picky and Touchy
4) and a full, rough draft of Gallimaufrey Grant Application
Yay for clear useful session goals! Your project names sound like cats . . . or maybe critters that appear in this dimension to be cats but when you catch them out of the corner of your eye, they're rather larger and seem to have a few feathers and maybe some extra legs . . .
DeleteThat is a very good description of my projects! Gallimaufrey in particular has fangs and talons from the corner of one's eye but is all fluffy and adorable viewed straight on.
DeleteThe late lamented Furball's "house name" was Squeaky due to her somewhat rusty and inadequate vocalisations (she had a purr, a tiny squeaky gate rusty miaow, a "musical grumble" and a full-on siamese-style multi-tonal "wooooooooaaaaaaoooouuoonnnnnggg", but no mew or meow), the naming part of my brain just doesn't... run along normal lines.
last week's goals:
ReplyDelete1) write the damn summer lists. about half way there
2) use the writing retreat to review Picky, Touchy, Ferret and Foxy, assess their statuses, and decide which one to focus on this summer. If I get bored or run into too many blocks, work on Gallimaufrey paper or MScpaper. I did ALL of those things (and ate good cake and watched wildlife)
3) cut out refined sugar wherever possible. maybe two days. See 2 re: cake
4) buy a new sunhat.I couldn't find what I wanted in the few stores I looked in (It's hot and I hate shopping) so I have two on order from Amazon. Hopefully one will work...
A very busy week, six days of full on work, and I'm not doing too great with the weather (me and heat do not go well together). I plan to only do 3 days at the office for each of the next two weeks so that I only do my offical four days over the three weeks - we'll see if that is at all possible. It's infuriating that it might not be, but it is the reality of the current UK academic system for most of us ordinary academics, I suspect.
Last week GrantINeverShouldHaveStarted got rejected rather than passed on to round two. This funding organisation does not allow resubmissions, so that was a waste of time. Oh well! onwards...
Goals for this week:
1) self-care: focusing this week on drinking enough water, on taking time to eat the food I choose, on moving a little extra each day (despite it being hot - I can still benefit from doing my back sstretches, if nothing else!), and on starting "sitting" again.
2) going through all my notes from meetings about my new admin role a few months ago, and compling them into a single document
3) going through all my notes from last week's meetings
and taking small actions, planning/recording large ones, related to my various papers and grant application in progress.
I must do my own back stretching; that bit that affects my ankle is acting up again. You make an excellent point that doing a little is still worthwhile.
DeleteAs mentioned before, I’m stuck in the do less / do more paradox, trying to make the most of summer in terms of enjoying the downtime while also having time to think about and move forward a few research projects. I have tried to be more focused, but I can’t seem to get myself to pick the “one project” and work on it until it’s finished.
ReplyDeleteSummer teaching begins for me this week. I am committed to staying on top of my grading workload and maintaining a good attitude about it. I discovered that when I was working on the syllabus, I also took care of a few teaching-related service obligations, so I’m hopeful that I can continue to get things done painlessly while I’m the mindset of the university.
Last week:
1 Write syllabus (although really trq at this point): yes
2 Submit second book review, also trq: will finish today
3 Write and submit long overdue film review: need to watch director’s cut
4 Work on Sweet lit review: somewhat
This week:
1 Finish reading and post two book reviews
2 Write and submit overdue film review
3 Write 1000 words for Tiny Project
4 Read though Sweet conference paper to determine next steps
I wonder what effect our names for projects have on us. Is it easier to work on something called Sweet than on Ferret? Or does it help to face the difficulties with a project and name them, so you know what you're dealing with when you sit down to work? (I know many people love ferrets. I've only known one, who seemed like a nice little critter; my associations are more with the "ferrety-faced" bad guys in mid-century mystery novels.)
DeleteI agree completely. I must note, however, that this is a lovely coincidence in that the primary person I'm writing about in this project has Sweet as a surname. It is good advice, though, to give projects appealing names so we can welcome, rather than dread, our time with them.
DeleteThe "do less / do more" paradox is exactly it. I think I have to approach it like a teeter-totter--alternating which I do. Still, we all know the ways teeter-totters can go wrong.
DeleteI like to think of my projects as critters I want to spend time with, as... not entirely passive objects, but active creations.
DeleteAll the "F" named papers are from Project F (which employed Former Post Doc F, or PDF, for several years) which I think will be with me until I retire, quit or die in harness at this rate :-( - I've tried to choose names I want to spend time with for that. Ferret - I really like mustelids, they are small and fierce and independent and charming and playful, and Ferret SHOULD have been a fun, easy paper (sigh. Co-authors). Foxes are amazing adaptors and fit into the modern world just as well as the wildwood - Foxy hopes to slide some pretty basic science into a high-octane part of the field which is to my mind more show than substance. Picky paper needs precise thinking to produce the best paper it can be, but will (hopefully!) persuade a certain group of side-liners to be LESS picky about the methods we choose. Touchy is assessing how reactive a simulation is to small changes in inputs - so sometimes it takes wild offense at a tiny thing and produces way-out-there results. Gallimaufrey review involves a lot of people, with co-authors from four continents, and at least half-again as many opinions, and I like saying the word Gallimaufrey.
The only issue I have is that these names get too attached to the project in my head and sometimes I say to former-PDF "any news about Ferret?" and then have to back-track and cover up! She knows I sometimes find it hard to word, she still likes to remind me about the "I need a yellow writey thing" incident (I needed a pencil and my brain was focused on a science problem, and the phrase did eventually get me a pencil, so... Yellow because the cheap brand the university supplies is yellow-coated in both wood-cased and mechanical forms for those who were wondering).
Having a school-aged child on summer break--for the first time--means that summer actually feels like *summer*. He likes to go to the pool or to the swimming hole; he wants to watch movies in the cold basement on hot afternoons; there's ice cream and (at some point soon, I hope) bike rides. I want to end summer feeling like I've *had* summer, so these are all good things.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to finish Wonder this summer--or at least get it into shape enough to send it off to my writing group--but I'm having a very hard time caring about it. Maybe once it's in a more coherent form, I'll feel more excited about it. So I'll keep on slogging.
I'll be at a conference for nearly the whole week, though, so my goals will be limited. Last week I had three days entirely alone, so I read a ton, which was great!
1. Read relevant parts of two books - DONE (one in part, one whole, plus a novel! So three books!)
2. Reread Wonder and figure out re-entry point - DONE—reorganized it, drafted new thesis paragraph. It’s still really long and boring and overly detailed, though.
3. Finalize and print Impatience + associated handout - DONE
4. Sit x 6 - DONE, if my one-hour Kirtan and bhakti class (in which I was the only student!) counts. I say it does. I do need to figure out a system for remembering to sit on the days when Bonaventure is home, though.
5. Read the work of one graduate student - DONE
6. Back to regular exercise - Mostly. Slept in on Monday AND Tuesday, but still managed 4 of 5 exercise bouts.
This week:
1. Read the work of one graduate student
2. Read half of one book
3. Sit x 6 (traveling—will this work?)
4. Wonder: Need a plan for revising. Part of the problem is that it's so cluttered with detail that I'm having a hard time seeing the argument. So how's this for goals: a) cut 1000 words; b) work out topic sentences for major subsections.
5. Enjoy the conference and seeing friends.
That's a great week! And good point about kids helping us feel like we've had summer. I could make myself some safe popsicles. I keep thinking that if I can ever work back to getting up really early, it would be lovely to start the day with lap swim in the outdoor pool, but I haven't got there yet.
DeleteI think this is a HUGE advantage that academic parents have - good parenting forces you to spend some time at a different pace and in a simpler world. And "society" is fine with you doing that. As a single solo, I kind of feel required to hide that I spent a few hours playing legos, unless I borrowed my neice or at the least had a friend over!
DeleteBack home last night! My goals for this week are to:
ReplyDelete1. Finish major edits on Ch 6 and write 3,000 words for Ch 6.
2. Re-stake my tomatoes, weed the garden
3. Work out 2x with new personal trainer, walk 2x weather permitting
4. Spend three hours in the lab getting samples pulled for book related research
5. Finish test writing and copy edits on a co-authored article and send to my collaborators
6. Think about finding a decorator to help me get my home office in working order
Some of this week will be devoted to getting back into the swing of things- going through two weeks of mail, paying bills, weeding the garden and veggie plots, and generally just resting after two weeks of demanding family work. I also need to get back into writing after two weeks of being away when I only had the head space to copy edit. I am behind on my projected book writing for the summer and I am fighting the worry that comes along with that.
And sorry for being MIA for two weeks- I went back and posted on earlier weeks here but realized no one is looking at those now. I had to spend a very stressful two weeks at my Mom's getting my aunt into Memory Care. My Mom has COPD so could not b much of a help in the move. It was a successful trip but now I am behind and trying not to stress about the loss of time and the loss of some of my veggie garden while I was away. Anyhow, glad to be back participating in the group.
DeleteI'm sorry you're dealing with that -- it's really hard. (My mother has had a stroke, and is in assisted living, so I know...)
DeleteI'll go back and look at your earlier posts; thanks for pointing them out. I agree with Susan: it's very hard, much harder than it seems like it "should" be in terms of time etc. My mother had Parkinson's that included dementia, and my dad is now in assisted living (which is a step up from the nursing home where he spent the winter), not to memory care yet, but that will likely come up eventually. Take care of yourself, and if it helps, you have my permission to write off the time and vegetables as acceptable collateral damage.
DeleteThanks to both of you for your support. It does help to hear from others that this process (caring for elderly parents, aunts etc.) is time consuming and that the time we lose caring for them is acceptable collateral damage. I never really had grandparents or others to watch age, they all died when I was young. So its new territory to travel and emotionally and physically exhausting at times, but necessary too.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm beginning to think that I need to triage my freelance work as much as is financially viable...I have allowed a bunch of deadlines to sneak up on me and with some summer travel looming, I have a bunch to do these next couple weeks that would benefit from finding extra time.
ReplyDeleteGoals from last week:
1. Get back to a regular rhythm with the book. Sort of; am at the point where I need more resources to get further.
2. Do freelance work somewhat more regularly. Kind of; as said above I did some but I think I need to be smart about it.
3. Workout three times & run 5k Saturday. Ran the 5k, only ran two other times last week. So, I call that a win.
4. Eat healthier / cook at home after four or so days of junk / restaurants. Mostly did this.
Goals for this week:
1. Begin work on a book review I've forgotten I had to do.
2. Review an essay.
3. Schedule necessary doctor's appointments prior to my move next month.
4. Edit book proposal.
"Mostly" and "sort of" answers show that you are making progress! Take all the wins you can get. Reach must exceed grasp, or what's a heaven for?
DeleteWith a wedding and a move this summer, you have a lot going on! In those situations, regular habits are comforting and helpful to self-care but, potentially, difficult to come by. I usually let big events (and even small ones) up-end just about all of my routines. I hope that you're either able to keep your routines or find a way to "move like water" when you can't. It sounds wise to think carefully about workload and deadlines.
DeleteI hope you have a great week!
Hmm. I don't think I have to jettison anything yet. Everything seems do-able. Having organized a summer that is fairly low key, and goals that felt modest, I think I can manage it.
ReplyDeleteGoals from last week:
1. Finish book for book review, write review FINISHED BOOK, started review
2. Read 9 journals DONE.
3. Re-read Violence essay, order books NO
4. Clean desk in den, maybe get rid of it MADE PROGRESS (but cleared out other stuff not on desk, so this is a win.)
5. List turntable and tape deck on Craigslist DONE, turntable gone, some interest in tape deck...
6. Keep walking, eating relatively healthfully DONE
7. Do one fun thing Sort of -- dinner with a friend.
I call this the summer of catching up with myself and de-accessioning. (I.e. now that I've got rid of the turntable, am I really keeping my vinyl records?) I'm finding the clearing out freeing. I've dealt with stuff I just dumped when we cleared out my father's stuff, and things that I brought to my house when my mother's house was cleared out after her stroke.
The stuff left on the desk includes 3 1/2 inch disks and zip disks :)
Goals for this week (and I'm experimenting with format, so. ..)
1. Finish book review
2. Start work on Violence: 3x 2 hours figuring out what it needs for this new placement. (It was originally written for a conference, revised for a potential journal issue, now part of a book from another conference...)
3. Teaching: 4x3 hours on syllabus for new Lower division course
4. Journals: 4x 1/2 hour on journals
5. Clearing: 4 x 1/2 hour on desk mess
6. Walk or exercise x 5
7. Do something fun
Oh, and thinking about Dame Eleanor's question to humming42 about names, "Violence" is actually about violence! I'm not very imaginative with names. (Similarly, Witch, which I finished in the last session, was about witchcraft...)
DeleteI had a bust of a week. Here's what I'd put on my list:
ReplyDelete1. Exercise. One good bike ride, one good hike.
2. Weed the damned garden AS IF!
3. Write 5 pages Nope, alas.
4. Practice Some... but not every day...
5. Finish scrapbook. One thing done!
This week is half over, but I feel like I need to restart my sabbatical now. So that's what I'm going to put.
1. Exercise.
2. Weed the damned garden
3. Write 5 pages
4. Practice
5. Plan trip out west!
You're doing fine. You have 58 awesome weeks to go! There will be time for writing and practicing. Right now, your trip west is quite reasonably your main focus; you need to prepare for it physically, mentally, and logistically. So put your energy there. After the trip you will be refreshed and in a good position to get back to work and home/garden tasks.
DeleteI am super late to the party!
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1) Revise the results and introduction section for Aim 1 paper - NOT DONE
2) Revise the results for a marriage recognition paper - NOT DONE
3) Draft IRB for new grant (yay! it's a small grant to do some piloting with my own sample!). DONE
Last week was challenging because I felt like priorities got shifted by external people. So instead of focusing on my work, I felt pressed to focus on others'. I decided to make a list of all of my projects and separated them by my projects and other people's projects (my mentor did not like these categorizations, oddly enough!). I counted that I am currently juggling 26 research projects. No wonder I feel overwhelmed constantly and never feel like I am making any progress!
This week has been challenging in another way - I feel like I am having interactions with people in which they just dump their bad feelings onto me. For example - we decided we wanted to do a survey of postdocs to learn what our needs and concerns are. I took the lead and spent a TON of time on making the survey, programming the survey into qualtrics, beta testing it, haranguing everyone till they completed the survey, analyzing the data, and writing the report. One postdoc in the group isn't technically in our school, but gets included in things. They asked if they should still do the survey -and I said, "Yes! Please do!" After I got all the data, I realized I should only report their data in some parts of the report. I let them know that so that they weren't surprised when they read the report, and they wrote back that they felt like I had disrespected them and their time by having them do the survey. I apologized and then they wrote back that they accepted my apology and felt better for having expressed their feelings to me. Well, that's great for them! But like - I spent a ton of time on the survey and I did it because I want to help make things better for all of us. I wanted them to complete it so that all voices were incorporated. WTF?
Anyway, it has been a week full of stuff like that where I get blindsided by people's unhappiness (including my roommate last night).
Thanks for letting me vent. Goals for this week are focused on trying to get some of my 26 projects off my plate. Sometimes I feel like most of my time is spent on project management - is this typical? It's exhausting.
This week:
1. Take stock of journal review project and email team
2. Take stock of where we are for august presentations and make a plan
3. Take stock of PTSD paper and make a plan
4. Take stock of YRBS paper and draft intro
5. Circle back with VA suicide team
Oof! I would think that with 26 projects, you would have to spend a lot of time on project management. I find it hard enough to deal with two or three projects. And certainly being a dumping ground for other people's unhappiness is very draining. I was much struck by this quotation from a Psychology Today article, which Clarissa posted on her blog: "One of the kindest things you can do for the people you love is to develop more emotional autonomy. Managing your own emotions, anxieties, and feelings of self-worth gives other people back their lives."
DeleteI wish there were a store where one could buy emotional Gore-Tex.
External people are such a pain! Empathy...
DeleteHere's what OceanGirl wrote on 10 July: "I had to go out of town to engineer getting my Mom's sister into Memory Care. She was being resistant. So my goals this week were to get her agreeable to moving in, to meet with the Memory Care facility to make sure they have space, and to start behind the scenes work to get all the admitting paperwork done. On the work front, I printed out Chapters 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 (latter is only partially completed) of the book to copy edit while I am gone. On health/balance front, my hope was to work out 3x a week and to get a massage. I managed to meet all my goals but the book copy editing has been slow- I finished c. 20 pages of full edits on Ch 6 and started copy editing the foreign words (glottal stops, italics) in each chapter."
ReplyDeleteI would say that in the circumstances, you did fantastically well, and I envy your powers of concentration.
Its been a bit of a struggle to get back into writing mode now that I am home. This happens every time I get sucked out of writing and then have to re-enter- I go through several days of uncomfortable tension, of not wanting to write, of only wanting to organize thoughts, or outline, or read, etc, etc. Then I finally write and its a relief. Hoping that day is today!
DeleteYes, I need to jettison some things. The good news is that I found out yesterday that the article I submitted in May got an R & R with generally positive reader reports! This is my first R & R with good potential for publication! However, they need revisions by August 15th. I don’t return home until July 24th, and there will be competing obligations, so I think I need to clear some decks.
ReplyDeleteMostly, I think I need to jettison the fiction writing goals related to item #1 and change that to REVISE ARTICLE, and I might need to switch up the reading goals. I’ll keep the health and household goals.
Goals from two weeks ago:
1) Keep working on healthful-ish food choices. Look for fiber and veggies on menus.
2) Write short story (eep!)
3) Do daily push ups and squats (10 of each)
4) Move like water / float like mist (but also be willing to be the stone in the river sometimes?) as I enter the intense family time that will begin on Friday (double eep!)
HA! #4 took everything I had, so that’s the only one I can call DONE.
Since it’s Saturday, I’ll wait until the next post to include goals.
Congratulations on the R&R! That’s very good news. I’m glad you’re hanging in through the family stuff, and I hope it gets easier with practice rather than harder as your nerves wear down.
DeleteHey, getting a DONE on something as all-encompassing as number 4 is still a great achievement! Own it! (and maybe have an extra scoop of ice-cream/glass of G&T/whatever your go to it's summer treat is as well)
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