Tracking and Planning in 2014

Ah, procrastination. I'd certainly rather write this blog entry than work on the next episode in the serial I'm writing about a Old West Bad Romance. Must submit a thousand words in less than a week (thought I had more time; there goes vacation). The tough part is that I'm just not in writing mode. I'm in housewife mode. Made 16 quarts of beef stock the other day (just before cooking Christmas dinner) and have been polishing surfaces and doing laundry this morning. ANYTHING to avoid writing.

And now this post, which is an excellent distraction. It really is kind of important to get my tracking and planning system for 2014 all set up. Isn't it?

This year I have abjured all expensive Filofaxes and Franklin Covey binders and binder inserts. Instead, I'll be using the Amy Knapp's Family Organizer found at my local Barnes and Noble and also Martha Stewart's vertical weekly inserts, with 12 monthly pages from Day Timers. Martha Stewart's calendar does have monthly pages but they are embedded in the weeks and not tabbed. I needed the Day Timer months with their fronts and backs for goals and plans, so bought them separately.

These together will serve as my tracking and planning system for 2014. I've put the Martha Stewart weeks, the Day Timer months and some loose pages at the front in a small 3 ring binder from Staples (slipped some scrapbook paper in the view pockets for decoration). The loose pages are for my goals and project lists. The Knapp goes in my bag, the binder stays on my desk.

Why this particular system? I find the vertical weeks in the Martha Stewart planner best for accurately planning how much activity can be fit into a finite week. I block off my work hours with Washi tape which helps me see how much time is left for my other projects.

Martha Stewart Vertical Weekly Pages - I track exercise & meditation in those boxes at the bottom

Here's how it all flows. Throughout the week I am writing items onto the shopping list and weekly to be done list in the Knapp, which is with me all the time. 

Amy Knapp's Family Organizer (my personal tabs!)

But at the weekly review, I go to my goals and project lists and pick out the next steps. Those go onto the Knapp weekly list, too. At this point I turn to the vertical weekly pages and spread my weekly list over the day blocks to see if there are too many activities and tasks for the available time, in which case I cut some. Then I write a brief final plan into the Knapp weekly calendar boxes and go to the next step, menu planning. I love how the Knapp meal plan lines up with the weekly calendar so it is easy to see when to adjust your plans for family activities. When the meal plan is done it's easy to add the ingredients to the shopping list.

The vertical weekly pages in the Martha Stewart calendar have two boxes at the bottom. I use the top one to track walking/cycling and the bottom one meditation. Creating these daily habits is one of my goals for 2014.  

Adding major goals to the weekly list keeps me from foundering in minutia. I like cooking but in the larger picture publishing my first three part fiction serial means considerably more!

Improvements

There hasn't been much to blog about recently. There's been so much running around, so much falling into bed exhausted and then never sleeping well and waking exhausted, and racing out the door at the last minute wondering was I ready, did I have everything at hand. However things seem to be changing now that my schedule is normalizing. 

I just put this in the oven for dinner:

Yes, it's a bit sloppy, but heck, I am cooking again!

And I'm healthily hungry again - have stopped subsisting on a steady diet of nibbles - chocolate and celery sticks and nuts and more chocolate - and started to want real meals. Today I've had time to not only prepare and cook dinner, but bake two batches of my dog's favorite biscuits! Yes, things are improving at long last.

While not a particularly good cook - I love rustic food too much to bother with much else - I love finding new (rustic) recipes and making them. Especially when it's this cold outside. 

I am humbled by our interconnectedness,humbled by realizing how my present comfort and bounty is dependent on the actions of others. I wish I could thank the farmer who grew these potatoes, carrots, onions and leeks, and the man who drove the truck who delivered them, and the people who built the truck he used to deliver them, and the people who pumped the gas the truck used to get from one place to the other. It goes on and on, as far back and as wide as I can think about the subject. It's laughable to think that any of us could be "self-sufficient." Not in today's world. 

For many years I registered as a Libertarian. The dream of self-sufficiency dies hard. I believe in hard work and personal responsibility, and still don't like big government, but no longer labor under the illusion that with a cow, 30 chickens and 3 fertile acres I could provide for most of our needs. Maybe if I were in my 20s and intended to raise a large family that kind of dream might still be possible.

If, if, if. Instead, I am blown open with gratitude for the labors of all those unseen others who have collaborated so that I might prepare this small feast for my small family tonight. May God bless every one of them, and all the rest of us, too. 

And I am grateful for the incandescent skies we have been blessed to observe:

In fact one reason I haven't blogged in a few weeks is that all I've had to post were photographs of stupendous sunrises and sunsets, the backdrop to an otherwise frenetic period with many mini-crises and lots of stress.

But! Life is on the upswing. We are very near the Solstice, when the tides of darkness will begin to recede. We are all very tired of night falling so early and personally I am ready to mount a campaign to eliminate Daylight Savings Time as an outmoded and unnecessary burden on the public.

Dinner emerged from the oven well after dark. 

It was good, even though my appetite turned out to be limited. Am beginning to suspect that I have the currently fashionable gluten sensitivity problem. And may have had it for a very long time. Suspect it can be developed just like Syndrome X, which I almost certainly have,too. Along with lactose intolerance which was diagnosed in infancy. 

This dinner was very good for the gluten-sensitive body, but a bowl of noodles at breakfast left my gut feeling pretty uncomfortable all day long. In fact this was the "proof" that I did not want to recognize, as it represents my largest incursion into gluten territory for several weeks. I had so hoped I was fantasizing all this. And the kicker is that it really made it difficult for me to enjoy my gluten-free dinner. 

I work with someone who has been told (by a physician) that it will take 2 years of gluten elimination before it is completely out of his system and doing no more damage to his digestion. This seems a very good motivator for abstinence - if every "mistake" sets your clock back 2 years one might really think twice! But it's very depressing with Christmas coming up, and our extensive baking plans. Thank God at least chocolate is gluten free. And merlot.

Context

Just past 6 a.m. and 32F outside. We're just recovering from the storm that is now moving through the rest of the country, dumping snow and rain. The clouds were so very beautiful.

And we had fleeting but beautiful sunsets.

I measure and track habits that (I hope) will improve my overall health and fitness, and I track "symptoms" of medical conditions that I am treating on my own. Hopefully as the habits become more stable the symptoms will become less frequent. That's the plan anyway. So I rely on my measuring tools.

What I realized today is that some of these measurements are dependent on where in the house I am tracking them! Sounds are going to be louder in a small, low-ceilinged room than a large one. Hadn't considered this effect, but it shouldn't come as a surprise; blood pressure and weight both fluctuate throughout the day.

But I'm bummed anyway. Thought I had stopped snoring completely, or so saith my app, but as soon as I moved back into the tiny, warm back bedroom (with its shed roof), I'm registering some mild rumbles again. They must have been there all along but dissipated into the larger space of the big bedroom. So losing 13 pounds didn't really make all the difference I'd thought it had. 

Sometimes I want to throw all this data in the air and say, forget it. I'm getting older. I won't live forever in this body, but I will in my spirit. So my attention ought to be more on my character than my weight and blood pressure. I ought to be tracking how many times per day I overcome selfishness, and how many times I can uplift people, or show them love and support. Measuring my spiritual progress is love-based, whereas measuring my physical progress is fear-based.

Unfortunately at the moment I feel overdrawn in both accounts. So I downloaded an app called "Daily Guidance from your Angels" since I could use some. My card for this morning is "Reward Yourself". Oh, really? I just bought the app, isn't that a reward? But the fact is that I am preoccupied with meeting the wants and needs of my loved ones, to the degree that I've had to get one of those "mom planners" since I'm driving my "kids" places now. I have to coordinate their medical appointments and take them shopping for things they need. And they don't play well together, so I have to take them separately. 

Being loving and supportive is its own reward. But a rest would be nice, so I'll spend some time today planning a mini-retreat for next year. Sometimes just planning to do something fun creates a feeling of rejuvenation. 

Red Sky at Morning

The past two mornings have found me tumbling out of bed to race outside with my camera.

Standing out in the middle of the road in my bathrobe and slippered feet, bed-heat shimmering off me like smoke, burning clouds to the east and a still fat moon hanging in the blue-dusty western heavens, I felt whole and realized. I began to understand what my husband tells me about having lived for 80 years: that your soul can be filled and complete. That you can reach a point where you feel ready to face the biggest adventure of anyone's life.

In my case it is probably not that adventure. It is probably more like what we might consider a test. But this morning I felt utterly capable of meeting whatever is required of me.

Perhaps it has something to do with finally having cleared off my desk and settled on a much larger planner (who was I kidding with that little thing). It might also have something to do with finally sorting through my reading pile to cleave to the most important.

Currently that is Biocentrism by Robert Lanza. I am trying to wrap my mind around his mind-blowing ideas and if I succeed, I'll review the book here in a later post.  

Just turned down an invitation to a wonderful, even magical Thanksgiving party. Last year I attended that (annual) party on my own while my husband was staying with our ill friend, who had her massive stroke the following day. I could not bring myself to attend that same party this year (am I that superstitious?).  

I'm too busy to be organized

Last week someone gave me a little plaque to put on my bulletin board. It reads "I'm too busy to be organized." I thought that was funny because the truth is that I'm too organized to be busy. 

Oh busy happens, but it happens when I plan for it. 

But today, I'm planning to stay in bed. Yes. All day. And drink another great hot toddy sometime before dark. 

All I've done for the past few weeks is run around accomplishing things that won't matter at all by this time next year. Much of what I've done has just ensured that I'll be occupied in the future with ever more low priority activities. That's how I've planned to be busy. And this is where it gets me: Quavery, shaky, right on the edge of debilitation. 

It's time to put on the brakes, climb back in bed with a sketchbook, and let myself sense the larger currents flowing through our lives. I don't have a wealth of decades left in this incarnation. Every choice requires a crystal clarity.

Rainbows can be elusive. They can shimmer into being with a turn of the road, and then vanish. The currents are like that, too. Like fish flashing in the stream, a quick glimpse may be all we find. 

Melancholia

Nothing's actually wrong. But I'm feeling depressed. The narcotic of planning is wearing off. Once I settled on a calendar and list system, I was done with that part.  

Reality is that the older my husband and mother get, the more time they require from me. Since they are diametrically opposed in temperament, they don't voluntarily spend any time together, which spreads me even thinner. Then, the fact is that I will need to work full time to improve my pension before retirement, but I don't see how I can take that time out of my life and still do everything else necessary.

I dreamed of a young boy left to die of exposure and woke realizing everything I've left out in the cold - everything that gets short shrift because I'm spreading myself too thin.

I don't spend enough time caring for my husband, my mother or our pets. I don't spend enough time caring for my own health, or doing what I should to secure my old age pension. I'm a writer and have two short stories scheduled for publication in 2014, but I'm not writing them. I haven't meditated or prayed or read devotional works in weeks. My part time job is becoming more and more demanding, and my schedule is expanding into former non-working hours.

Even my time-saving once a month shopping system has failed with Mom here. She has to go every week, as she did when she lived in the city and could get around with public transportation.   

Spreading myself too thin means I may be attending a bit to everything but not doing a good job at any of it.

I haven't washed my car since…September. Yes, September.

But the sunset last night took my breath away. I stopped the car on my way home from work and took photographs:

Perhaps such a glorious symbol of something ending is fitting because like it or not I will need to make some big changes very soon.

Will need to let that idea marinate.  

My husband is on board with the concept of ruthless simplicity. He's decided to scale back on a major home improvement project and might even sell his beloved boat. We've also decided to cancel a big trip we had planned for next year. The knife is slashing already, but not at the core issues I need to resolve.

November, Remember

For many, many years of my life, November brought trouble. For the astrologically minded, November brings my solar opposition (Scorpio Sun opposed Taurus Sun). I had a miscarriage, relationships ended, there were emergency surgeries, thefts. For most of my young adult years, November was not pretty. February wasn't much fun either.

Then as I became a 'mature adult' (ha ha), I decided that I was feeding into this mentally and creating the energy environment that would allow such things to happen, so if I wanted relief, I needed to change my beliefs. It was hard to do with all that evidence to the contrary, but I meditated and affirmed and in fact, November and February have been quiet, even pleasant months, for the past decade. 

Didn't know if this was the result of my energy work, or if maturity alone meant I no longer needed such dramatics in my life. I'd begun looking forward to fall and winter. They've become my favorite time of year!

But last year the trouble raged back in a nonstop November-March reign of terror. A very close friend died. My husband had been staying with her during an illness (severe, crippling back pain) that seemed completely unrelated to the stroke that destroyed her brain the day after Thanksgiving, and killed her two weeks later. None of us saw that coming, not her doctors, not her friends. 

She was single and childless, which left us dealing with the chaos of her large estate, to help an out of state trustee (a friend from her high school years) who could not leave her own work to do the job. The estate saleswoman turned out to be a thief, vanishing with all the proceeds. It was the perfect toxic end to a massively stressful 5 month long nightmare.

But by April, the estate was finally settled - we were done making those grueling weekly trips - and we could theoretically return to normal life again. But of course we didn't. It's just about now - almost a year later - that we are feeling more like ourselves again. 

And it's November again.

I no longer believe that November troubles derives from the energetics of my Solar Opposition. Winter is harder on older people, and our friend was a decade older than I am, as are most of my friends and loved ones. The friends I have who are younger than I am are fighting their own critical health battles. Most of us have lived the major portion of our lives already and are looking at shorter and shorter horizons.

I used to think that it was very nerdy to carry a planner and focus so much on organization of paperwork and household affairs. But my beliefs have been put to the test and now I know that my planner is, next to my water bottle and wallet, the most important thing I carry in my bag. Having the information I need with me creates a feeling of peaceful competency that has helped me through the major surgeries of my husband and mother over the past 4 years and now through the death of our close friend. And it will help me create legal and medical bulwarks against the storms that are sure to come again.

E Squared by Pam Grout - My First Experiment

So I came across E2 (E Squared) by Pam Grout in Barnes and Noble the other day. THe book intrigued me as it structures 9 "experiments" you can do to prove that your thoughts elicit a response from the "Field" - or whatever you want to call the unseen intelligence that permeates existence.

I started my first 48 hour experiment on Friday morning, the 25th. This experiment was to ask the "Field" (I'm not uncomfortable calling it God) to respond to my personal call for contact, by giving me a gift or blessing that in some way would make its numinous origin incontrovertibly clear. 

Since things like this have happened to me before, although never at my request, I was very happy, even excited, about the possibility that something wonderful could come about as a result of my simply asking for it.

And things did happen. It is a blessing in a way that Saturday brought about complete clarity that I cannot stay at my job no matter that retirement is less than 2 years away. I work for an extroverted business that is becoming almost maniacally social; as an introvert, I've muddled along but now I see there is no way I can handle what's coming. It was a blessing that when I got home from work my husband took me out for dinner, and we saw a wonderful sunset afterwards.

I was willing to accept all of these as real blessings and in fact they certainly are. 

But then, on the way home from our dinner out, I looked up in the southern sky and saw something unusual. It was very bright, and utterly motionless, about 2,000 feet up. 

I could not wait to get home and grab our big binoculars. What I saw through them made me catch my breath as I'd been half expecting to see a military helicopter. But no! This object was unlike anything I'd seen before: Circular and studded all the way around with stadium-bright lights. It was incredibly brilliant, real and solid-looking. My Mom saw the same ring of brilliant lights that I did, but she did not see the misty filament dropping down from the center of the ring that was apparent to me.  

I raced for my camera, knowing it would not take a good photo, but shot anyway. As expected from a little Canon Powershot, these photos did not capture what we saw through the binoculars, but I'll post them anyway.

You can see a glimpse of the round lights along the right upper curve in this shot. And yes,  that's kind of like a creepy face in the middle.

These two shots give a feeling of how bright this thing was.

I wish I'd been able to show in film what I saw with my eyes: a solid object ringed with brilliant lights.

After taking the photographs, I went inside and spoke with my Mom about it for perhaps 15 minutes. Then I went outside to look again. 

It had vanished from the sky. It was utterly gone.

So now I am dumbstruck. Within 48 hours my request for an incontrovertible sign of the numinous power of the Field (or God) was answered in a way that I never imagined. This is my first "UFO" in 40 years, and I don't follow the UFO news and never go looking for them. 

Wonder if I can ask for a job that pays more and suits my temperament better?

How I Provision

We have three freezers - the side-by-side on our refrigerator, an upright and a chest freezer. We also have 3 (rather small) pantries. I try to keep things organized in each but my husband, who is retired, manages to mess it up when I am at work. So every month I need to go through the pantries and the freezers, and sort things out. It's a good practice to revisit what's stashed, and it is an integral part of long-term menu planning.

Yes, long-term. We live 45 miles from the nearest comprehensive grocery store, although there are Mom and Pop stores nearby that stock milk, bread, eggs and an assortment of overpriced, tired vegetables and fruit. They're fine for emergency back-up, but we don't shop there. So we plan an entire day devoted to re-stocking our pantry and freezers once every month.

Actually it takes 3 days!

I make up a master shopping list for everything we need to buy to produce a month's worth of our standard meals. Then, to satisfy the need for variety, I pick out several new recipes to try and add those ingredients to the list.

The first day I get my lists together, followed by the pantry and freezer inventory, where I cross off the ingredients I already have. At this point I make adjustments to use up whatever is losing its freshness - and if we have 3 chicken meals one week, that's OK. After the inventory, and updating my lists, then I clean out the fridge. I don't scrub it, just take out leftovers and nearly empty bottles, to make enough room for shopping day.

That's because we cram most of what we buy into the refrigerator once we get home from shopping, to keep it chilled until we can portion it out on Day 3, which usually falls to my husband because I only get 2 days off at a time. 

We portion on day three because at the end of day 2 all we want to do is collapse on the floor. We usually fill 2 large coolers and 2 insulated bags and it's just a terrific project to shop and haul all this stuff. We don't do it all in one store, either - usually we hit a big box, a grocer and specialty stores too. 

After 13 years in a rural environment, we find the intensity of crowds and traffic in the city to be very draining. Whenever I think I'd like to live in town again, shopping day cures me of such ideas.

My husband has begun portioning our freezer goods in small batches now so we avoid leftovers, since we are very bad about eating them. 

All in all, I think we eat healthier this way - it's all planned, home-cooked food with very little processed food, primarily oils and sauces, with the largest focus on frozen or fresh veg and fish, chicken and a little beef.  

Cucumbers and Bibb Lettuce

 
In summer, I grow vegetables - carrots, lettuce, salad greens, cherry tomatoes, melons, corn and squash - but haven't had enough growing space to produce a surplus. Some day I will. In fact I may be able to increase my gardening area next summer. I'm excited about it!

Carrots

 So that's how I provision. We save money on gas by making only one trip, we limit the potential for random acts of bad nutrition by making wise choices and having to live with them, and we portion control as soon as we process for the freezer.

How do you provision? I welcome any comments or ideas on the topic!   

 

Mesothelioma

Heather Von St. James contacted me a short while ago and asked if I would link to her video about her experiences as a survivor of mesothelioma. 

I found her story very moving and hope you will, too. She's been through a terrific ordeal and has become an eloquent and effective spokesperson, helping to raise awareness of asbestos-caused lung disease. 

Good for you, Heather. Let's all be more aware of asbestos, which is still in the tiles and ceilings and walls of our older buildings, and remains a great hazard for remodelers of old houses and demolition crews. 

I wish you the best for your continued recovery!

Here's a link for more information: http://www.mesothelioma.com/heather/

The Stolen Backpack

The backpack was last seen hanging from a restroom hook as my elderly mother went out to check her grocery cart. By the time she realized she'd left her backpack, it was gone.

Gone - with her wallet, cash, checkbook, debit and credit card, an uncashed pension check, address book (crammed with doodles, recipes, birthdays, and observations), and a cellphone that held hundreds of photos of her grandchildren that she had been intending to take off the phone someday.

Gone.

At 81, she is taking this very hard. I find her often in tears, which breaks my heart. But I'm too busy to be sad for long, caught up in a whirlwind of damage control: Police reports, fraud alerts, replacement of bank account and credit card, stop payments, replacement of ID. I am tired and the list is long.

It's infuriating to know someone got away with this, with no concern for the pain and trouble they left behind. When I tell others about it, it seems they all have a story: Purses grabbed from shopping carts, cellphones snatched from people's hands by passing cyclists, wallets lifted from bags slung over a shoulder. I am disgusted. But there's no point in belaboring the issue. 

Have managed to lift her spirits by reframing the loss into a new beginning. And I am pleased by the simplicity of her affairs - just one ATM and credit card! It makes me wonder why I would ever need to carry more? 

TIme for a handbag and wallet review.

Haze

Everything seems a little hazy to me today. The jury duty was cancelled, thank heavens, and our tax planner has left us searching for appraisals. My dental work is not complete, sadly, and things may get worse before they get better.

But hazy goes beyond the uncertainties. I just feel foggy on the inside. So many decisions have been taken, so much set into motion, that despite my lists I feel scattered and uncertain. Things that were up in the air months ago are settling into form, and that form is not necessarily my preference. I'm juggling too much, in short. Spread too thin. 

We are going to have a cold winter. Our nights have been in the 30s already; typical for this time of year are mid-40s. My brother says his horses are growing unusually thick winter coats now.

I ordered a Plannerisms planner today for next year. Ever hopeful to find something that is both the right size and useful. 

And at the Goodwill a week or two ago I found this lovely desk organizer and pot of silk roses!

Have managed to fill the darn thing to bursting already, but at least that stuff is no longer scattered across the desktop.  

Wish I could find something to capture my scattered ideas as effectively.

It's Here!

Autumn has arrived, on the gibbous side of the harvest moon. We have glorious wind (only glorious because we've been hot and stalled for week upon week) and, overnight, heavy clouds. The air is fresh and even chilly.

There are many dull and boring concerns weighing on me right now - federal jury duty, setting up television service for my Mom (incredibly mysterious to me as I've not watched television in years & have no understanding of modern equipment), trying to coax a recalcitrant dumpster into our lives (two delivery dates missed), having dental work done, meeting with tax and financial planners and needing to set up wills and powers of attorney next. I am pretty sure I'll need to enter a year's worth of financial transactions into accounting software too, and had best set aside some time for that.

On the emotional front I'm dealing with very troublesome "friends" who poke fun at my desire to run a smoothly organized household (implying that I am losing my creative energies to these piddling projects; because these comments make me angry I suppose there is some truth to them). 

My father developed Alzheimer's disease when he was 70. It did not come on him full blown, of course; the symptoms were there long before. He had been living his RV dream at the time,and for at least a decade prior to the Alzheimer's diagnosis, his letters to me had degenerated into a recitation of itineraries. Therefore I am hypervigilant about becoming lost in routine or commonplace activities.

And I am grateful that my husband and mother show no signs of that terrible disease. 

A Morning Walk

Today I managed to get outside just past 6 a.m. I missed my 5 a.m. midsummer walks altogether this year, without any real excuse beyond internal chaos. Now the sun doesn't rise until much later so at 6:11 a.m. the world is still cool and blue. Today I went to the pond instead of out along the tracks.

There were far fewer birds than expected. I did not see or hear any quail, nor any ravens, which struck me as odd.  There was one roadrunner in evidence, for a few moments. But mostly I heard nothing beyond the occasional motor passing by on the road. Then I wandered around behind the pond. 

There are rocks. There is garbage. Just below this rock there is one with a bright blue "F-You" painted on it. 

There it is. You didn't need to see that, did you? This is the Kali Yuga. The sun came up; it shines without favor on all of it - the spiral of creation and the F-you of the Kali Yuga.

I felt subdued. The air was fresh and the light clean and clear. Yet I am tired of everything here, no matter how beautiful it can be. Perhaps my exhaustion is part of the Kali Yuga. Perhaps it's my age. Perhaps it has to do with living somewhere just too long. I'm a hunter-gatherer at heart. 

I do love me some countryside, though. Wild sunflowers bloom in languorous disarray, thick piles of white Datura trumpets fill culverts and dot roadsides, tiny sweet purple grapes with one big stone in each are plentiful on every vine threading chain link fences in town. They are almost too much trouble to eat, but so sweet I press on with bliss! Even my hollyhocks are starting to bud again at the root.

So I'll simply note my discontent and move on into the day. We have no plans to move. But so much for planning!

Stagnation

I'm in a bog. It's my day off, a day I declared sacred to self-interest so I could finally heal my right forefinger slashed by broken glass in dishwater a week ago. It is amazing how a deep cut crossing a knuckle will refuse to stay closed even when securely wrapped and coddled. I am sure by now that I should have had it stitched but the doctor is miles and miles away and the clinic was closed at the time of the wash-up, so there we have it. It's not bleeding any more, but my career as a hand model is ended!

Whenever I take a day to myself like this it usually ends up wasted. Not only does my workaholic husband shoot me poison looks, but, sad to say, I feel like I get fatter and less capable by the minute.  Yet the finger demands some attention. It may be small, and an inconsequential injury for a field laborer, but I write and draw, my work is fine and detailed, and I can't go on like this! 

Am waiting for new calendar pages so can't work on that project, but did spend enough time reading gardening books to understand what I'm up against. We live in the high chaparral and my landscaping choices are limited. Yet it's exciting to think about the changes I might be able to make in our yard over the next 6 months. I have lots of plans and think I'll do a before and after photo series to keep me accountable. 

But right now the blasted terrible heat of late summer is upon us. It's in the 90s - enervating heat that forces me indoors to huddle around the swamp cooler. I did ride my spinner bike for 15 minutes this morning, which, though not precisely an achievement, still represents getting 'back on track.' The weight loss plan I started in April, which had worked so very well up until mid-August when Mom arrived and we went on vacation, only required a 15 minute spin every morning plus a detailed eating plan for every week, covering my brunches, snacks and dinners.

It feels good to move back in that direction.

Regarding the potential for full time work, I drew the following Tarot cards from the Rider/Waite deck:  Page of Wands between Ace of Swords and Five Swords. The Page, who represents a messenger, is facing the Five of Swords which generally represents defeat. The Page's back is to the Ace, which represents oaths or commitments. I have chosen to interpret this as a message that the potential I so dreaded is not going to come to pass after all, and that the time of oath or commitment has passed.

It's the only time I've ever been happy to see the Five of Swords in a reading, and I don't fully trust that it could bring me good news. The next few weeks will tell.

Cosmic Jest

By "Cosmic Jest" I do not refer to the tragedy that happened on this day 12 years ago. That catastrophe is an overshadowing presence that puts my own little life and its travails into correct perspective. 

Yet I will continue to quibble and cavail about my affairs, which do now take on the nature of a cosmic jest. 

Despite having turned down a full time position (after torturous deliberation) I am now being thrust into one to cover for a colleague! It is temporary, theoretically, perhaps lasting through January, but I am fighting a tendency to snarky bitterness because I hate having my plans thwarted. Obviously there is a power that wants me to work full time.

And as if to make it very clear who is in charge, this "permanent art installation" was placed at the entrance to the neighborhood park yesterday morning, right across the street from us:

I don't know the artist's name or I'd mention it here. [Note: His name is Ricardo Breceda] Whereas this figure may have creative merit, I can't help but wonder if it's really appropriate at the entrance of a park with a toddler playground and library. 

This morning I took a long walk, something I'll not be able to do except on weekends for months now. There is something about being out there at first light which bolsters my soul, something about the liquidity of those first rays and that nourishing freshness in the air that keeps me not just sane but correctly energized. The thought of losing my connection with the rising sun is very depressing.

It is hard not to do more than count my losses today.  But there has to be a pony, right? 

I'll be doubling my income. Can't hurt! That will allow me to build up my savings account, and the size of my paycheck will help my (eventual) retirement check. 

The wash will still be there in a few months. 

And it gave me an excuse to order a two page per day calendar for my compact binder.