Fears, Frailty, Falls and Fractures

 

Mom Summer 2023
age 91

Dropping in for a quick note to explain why I disappeared for a week just as it began to seem I'd established a nice rhythm.  One that had held in spite of my falling on my tailbone on my birthday two weeks ago.  Even in spite of the fear that colored several days after the scare Mom gave the family complaining of chest pain the night before my birthday.

But then Mom ended up in ER last Monday having fallen because she'd fractured and dislocated her ankle.  And then fell.  But because of her grip on the bar her fall was in slow motion and no further harm was done--no bruises, breaks, scrapes or sprains.  But it was hours before we could be sure of that.  In fact I think it was nearly a full day before the tests and scans had reassured us and the doctors.

She spent four days in ER and I visited her there twice last week.  And a third time in the nursing home they moved her to for follow-up physical therapy and occupational therapy and monitoring of the (hopefully) healing bones in her left ankle. 

They opted to do no surgery as they believe her too frail.  It was her hip surgery after breaking her hip in 2008 that led to a clot induced stroke and the aphasia she's had ever since.  The known risks outweigh the possible benefits and since she has been bedridden since having COVID two years ago this month her muscles have atrophied. 

She hasn't walked since then but had still been able to stand briefly during the transfer from the bed to a chair and back again.  Now she will not be able to do even that much and the doctors have told us she needs to use a Hoyer lift.  And to accommodate the space that needs my brother and sister have been rearranging rooms at home.  They are moving her bed into the living room.

I visited her at the nursing home again yesterday.  I wasn't able to do so today as I had a preexisting appointment.  The same is true for tomorrow. But I mean to visit at least once more this week.  This event has forced me to see we're on borrowed time with Mom.  She will be 92 on January 3rd.  Suddenly all the difficulties with my energy, appointments, caregiver availability etc that have made getting over to see Mom even once a month for most of this year too challenging, seem frivolous.  I've had a priority reset.

Meanwhile I'm also scrambling to get my NaNoWriMo words...  But I won't say any more on that today.  Words on writing are for my Wednesday post.  And maybe the news will be better by then.

But I will say this much: due to the upheavals and associated anxieties I had to choose between posting and NaNo this past week.  Obviously I didn't choose posting.

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Rocking in the Hot Seat -- Sunday Serenity

 

Rocking Chair with Long Heating Pad

This is where I've spent most of my hours not in bed since last Tuesday afternoon when the fallout from my fall on my tailbone early Monday morning began to grip my back from tailbone to neck.  I read, wrote, watched videos, crocheted, ate, and occasionally slept sitting here with my back feeling as tho it was sunbathing.

Heat for me is soporific.  Which means sleepy as well as serene.  But also means lazy.  That list above may have sounded productive but in practice it was always snatches of activity soon filled with the static of crossing eyes then hypnogogic images then sleep but also in snatches.  Naps of twenty, thirty or ninety minutes.

This has untethered me from time so that I forgot to do my Friday Fiber post and did not remember until I was prepping the photo for this one.  I have the photo for the update on the Post Virus shawl so maybe I'll go ahead and put that post up retroactive as a record of my progress.  This new iteration of my blog is so far mostly a personal journal with an 'audience' in the single digits on most days and I'm not sure how many of those are just bots.  So I can't see why it matters.

I was already in bed for about three hours earlier and hoped it was for the night so I would have missed this post as well.  But I got woke up and then couldn't get back to sleep and thought that my best chance of doing so was to sit with the heating pad again and that's when I remembered my Sunday post so I got the pic before sitting down.

Well the heating pad is working it's magic.  

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Post Viral Shawl Update -- Fiber Friday

 

Second Post Section 4/6 Complete

Can't afford to spend much time on this.  Need sleep.  So just a few comments.

I'm pleased with the progress.  Most especially pleased that there has been much less frogging since the struggle with the first post section a week ago.  Some combo of sleep and upping the magnification of my reading glasses seems to have solved that.

But I laid it against the first shawl which it needs to match so that I can make a poncho out of the two of them and there is a hint of 'shrinkage' in this one.  I think if I had been using the wrong hook size from the beginning there would be more than a hint of shrinkage so I suspect it is the tension.  To rectify this tho I'm going to switch from the 3.5m to 4.0m hook for the duration of this post stitch section and possibly all further post stitch sections.  Unless I learn to loosen up on those sections as I gain confidence that I'm not having to frog so much of them.

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NaNoWriMo Workstation -- Wednesday Writing

The Full 8ft Long L

A couple weeks ago I traded my wheeled office chair for a rocking chair.  I thought I would be able to manage without the wheels but after one weekend of trying to manage with a stationary chair I realized it wasn't going to work with my work style.  It worked fine for those times when I was focused on one task at one desk station.  Especially for long sessions on one of the laptops either writing, online research or exploring and reading my story files.  But when I needed to spread out physical papers for editing or sorting I needed the wheels zip between the couch and the larger desktops at the far end.

The solution was the little wheeled stool like you see in doctor offices.  I had a very productive weekend after it arrived.  If I hadn't fallen off it at 6am Sunday morning as I was wrapping up my all night session I'd still be ecstatic about it.  I'm not about to give it up but I will have to be more mindful while using it.

What happened was that one of the times I approached the couch by walking it forward I didn't get quite close enough to reach the item I want to move to the far end so I stood up but that motion caused the stool to scoot back an inch or so and so when I sat back down I sat on the edge and tilted it onto one wheel and it shot backwards five or six feet across the room as I landed hard on my tailbone.

The Serious Writing Section

That was not a wonderful start to my 66th birthday.  

The fallout has been moderate tensing of the muscles at several locations along my spine.  The two worst at the rib cage and neck and right shoulder.  I've been spending a lot of time in the rocker with a heating pad.  But so far this is minor compared to three or four previous impacts on my tailbone going back to age 11 when I fell off a horse; age 16 when I fell from the top of a doorway after walking up one doorpost with my back pressed against the other; and at age 30 something while playing with children on a slide.  Those were the three times that gave me severe whiplash as well as bruised tailbone.  The worst one was the slide.  I'm pretty sure based on the extreme headache and vomiting I developed hours later that there was a concussion as well.  I did not know before that that you can get a concussion by falling on your butt.

The Research, Paper Sorting & Hardcopy Editing Section

 
Well I need to wrap this up so I can get back to work on my NaNo.

The big thing I accomplished last weekend was organizing the manuscript pages in my new Go Bag aka Trapper Keeper zippered 3 ring binder.  I now have all the stories in an order that makes sense to me with tabbed dividers between them that have pockets for the loose papers of all sizes that I'm finding tucked away in notebooks and folders.

I still don't have a wordcount registered at NaNo as I've been doing most of writing by hand and some of it scattered among the already existing application files.  For the latter I'm keeping the new words tagged.  For the paper pages I'm keeping them in the binder.  This weekend's big (non-writing) project will be to add up my word count and report it on my NaNo profile.

I know I'm way behind but somehow I'm feeling serene about it.  I'm really enjoying the return to the root story of the FOS storyworld and also a return to the process that I had before my first encounter with a computer in my early thirties.  I'm enjoying that and I think I'm going to be OK if I don't 'win' NaNo this year.  But I also believe that this year for the first time since 2004 I won't abandon my NaNo words after November 31.

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The Peace of Progress -- Sunday Serenity

A Piece in Resistance

This is an update on Friday's fiber art post about the frustration of a day of putting in and taking out four short rows so many times I lost count.  Well the next time I picked it up after the photo above, I discovered I needed to take out that row 4 of the post stitches yet again.  I'd started front posting on the row I was meant to back post on.  Sigh.  So demoralizing. 

I put it away and went to bed and the next time I picked it up on Saturday evening I frogged that row and put it back in without incident and then added the last two rows of post stitch with no frogging.  And then started the second virus stitch repeats and so far have gotten two full iterations of the virus stitch with zero frogging.

I wonder if it was sleep deprivation playing a roll in the mistakes.  Or was it because I switched my magnifying glasses from 1.75 to 2.50 on Saturday..
 

A Piece in Progress

Whatever it was, I'm grateful and was feeling peaceful as I set it aside to prepare for this post.

Now, tho, I mustn't sit here and revel in it as it is time to return to my story weaving project.  Can you believe we are almost at the halfway point for NaNo?  I'm way behind in word count and yet I'm peaceful about it.  What matters more is that I'm swimming in the story and loving it.  But more on that Wednesday.

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Frolicking in the Frog Pond -- Friday Fiber Art

 

Post Virus Poncho 50.55% Finished

I finished the first Post Virus Shawl last spring and instead of wearing it, I set it aside because I decided I'd rather have a poncho.  So I started a second one with the same yarn and colorway.  But I barely got started before I set it aside to work on a time-sensitive project and never picked it up again until this past Monday.  Monday-Friday should have been time enough time for me to get at least a third of the way--even through the pink section and into the pale blue maybe.  But instead I've goofed so many times, I've had to put just about every stitch in more than once, many more than twice and some more than thrice.

It's been a veritable frog frolic.

It's super frustrating when the piece is still so small.  When I can put a whole row back in in under 20 minutes.  But eventually I'll get to the rows where it takes me an hour just to get from the top edge to the peak of the triangle.  Long before then taking out a whole row will be well beyond frustrating.  I know because that happened a bunch while making the first one.

And yet I started the second.  What was I thinking?

I wasn't thinking.  I was drooling over the image of myself wearing the finished poncho.

But this pattern, tho gorgeous, is very unforgiving.  As unforgiving as math on which it is based.  If only I could reliably catch my mistakes before I am on top of them about to put a stitch into a stitch that isn't there!

A year ago this week the first cake of that yarn arrived on my birthday and I promised myself that I would be wearing whatever I made from it in time for my next birthday.  That's a promise I will have broken as there is no way I can finish it in two days.  Not even if I made zero mistakes from this moment on.



Well, my eyes are rebelling so I'm going to leave you with the video tutorial which taught me how to make the Post Viral shawl.  It is the creation of Bag-O-Day Crochet and draws it's name from both the fact that it alternates sections of the virus stitch pattern with sections of post stitches and also because she created it in the months after the pandemic's grip had loosened.

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From Where You Dream -- Wednesday Writing

 

From Where You Dream
The Process of Writing Fiction
by Robert Olen Butler
Edited and with and Introduction
by Janet Burroway

This is one of the writing craft books most influential on my craft.  In fact it was Butler who explained the story dreaming concept to me.  I can't claim he taught it to be since I'd been doing a version of it from the beginning which was before my double digit birthdays.  What he taught me was to respect it as the root source of the stories and the power source for their relevance.

He also taught me that for a story teller, daydreaming was the life blood of your work not evidence of laziness.  After I internalized this concept, I never had any further belief in writer's block as anything other than having gotten trapped in my left brain where the editor, critic and task master reside.  Perfectionists all and all full of disdain for daydreaming.  And yet no story and no idea is born in left brain machinations.  All things new and meaningful must incubate in dreamtime.

I have had this book checked out dozens of times from nearly a dozen different libraries over decades.  Now I finally have my own Kindle copy as I just stumbled on a sale while looking for the latest edition of Janet Burroway's Writing Fiction because I found it's Kindle edition on sale last August and bought it and was thinking of writing about it for this post.  So I grabbed this book and both images thinking I would write about both of them since Burroway's contribution to Butler's book is why I picked it up the first time as I'd been borrowing her book from my library for nearly a decade by then.  That was the 2nd edition.

Butler himself refuses to write non-fiction so without Burroway's help this book could never have been.  She recorded a series of his lectures made extemporaneously from a stack of index card cues then transcribed them (or possibly had students transcribe them) and then edited to smooth out the rhetoric, remove repetition and the grammatical glitches of conversational delivery.

It has been several years since I last read this so it is past time for a re-read.

I think I'll save Burroway's book for next Wednesday.  Unless I'm ready to talk about my NaNo project by then.  Right now that's still incubating.  I'm swimming in dreamtime and in spite of little wordcount, feeling as productive as a mother-to-be.

Storytellers must believe that day dreaming is not slacking but the ultimate making of meaning out of chaos.

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Meet Mr. Merryweather Giggles -- Sunday Serenity

 

Mr Merryweather Giggles
and My New Glider Rocker

My caregiver, Laura, took me to the Habitat for Humanity thrift store last Thursday.  I was looking for a deep glass baking dish for casseroles, hopefully blue.  I left with so much more than I knew I wanted before walking in those doors.  The two things I've gotten the most joy out of in the last several days is the glider rocker and the blue rooster.

I dreamed of having my own glider rocker since the first time I sat in one back before I married while on a babysitting job.  But it was never to be.  Until now.  As soon as I saw it, I had to sit down in it and instantly all the hullabaloo of sensory overload such a place as a thrift store imparts was dampened by the gentle glide.  I was instantly serene.

Before I could quite assimilate to this sensation tho, Laura exclaimed saying "You have to see this."  and disappeared because one step takes her out of my limited visual field.  But she was back in seconds and setting something into my arms that nearly filed them and I thought it must be a doll because the first thing I got focused on was the real toddler shoes.  Tracking up from the shoes towards the expected baby doll face I found instead the rooster and started giggling.

Laura knew I'd get a kick out of it as it was a form of fiber art and it was my colors which is any shade of blue.  I marveled at the handiwork.  Someone had put a lot of loving care into the project.  Eventually tho I had to hand it back to her to put back on the shelf and found myself saddened by it.  But we had to get with it as in about 90 minutes Laura had to clock out with me safely back at home.

I found my blue casserole dish and several other glass baking dishes, some of which would work in the toaster and/or microwave as well.  I found several DVD, a hand painted snowman ornament and a decorative wooden treasure chest.  I'd laid claim to the rocker as soon as I stood up from it and someone whisked it out back for us to pick it up after we checked out.

It wasn't until we were checking out that I decided I couldn't leave without the rooster as well.  I was still grinning and giggling in my heart every time it crossed my mind that whole hour.  So I told Laura and she went back to fetch it.

By bringing home the rocker though I had to give up my rolling office chair.  As soon as Laura brought the rocker inside she rolled the office chair out and packed it in her van so she could run it over to Habitat for Humanity the following day.  I miss being able to wheel up and down my 8ft piecemeal desk and swiveling side to side but it's worth it.  So far. 

I've got a small rug upside down under it so that it slides on the floor. Just not while I'm sitting in it. This allows me to position it in front of the section of desk I want to use or to position it facing either the TV or the front window and then roll or slide the section of desk I need in front of it.  It takes a little extra work to set up for a project but it is functioning and so much more comfortable for extended sessions.

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Picasso Ice Yarn Hat & Scarf Set -- Friday Fiber Art

Hat & Scarf Set 2/3 Done

I started with 3 of these small balls or skeins.  Not sure what they are called.  I hoped there would be enough for the hat and scarf set.  Now I'm sure.  But it was a squeaker.  One ball barely finished the hat and one ball barely got me half the length in the scarf I wanted.  But it will do.

Since I worked the hat between last Friday evening and Sunday evening and worked the half scarf between Monday and this evening, I'm determined to finish the scarf by Sunday evening.  I broke my own rule by starting something new before finishing a WIP but I needed something quick and easy to break the ice of the two month hiatus and the WIP I had been focusing on last July were very complex and big so I cut myself some slack.  But I'm itching to get back to them now.

The stitches used in this project are the simplest.  The single crochet into the top of the 3 chain loop.  Except for the band around the forehead in the hat which needed to be tightened up so I used the 2 chain loop.  In order to get the billowy shape on top I expanded the flat circle faster and for longer and then abruptly decreased half the loops in one round at the top of the forehead before switching to the 2 chain loops.  I was making it up as I go.  I call it sculpting.  I rarely have patience for patterns.

The Picasso Ice yarn has a lovely sheen and drape.  I love the feel of it in my hands as I work.  But there are issues one should know about.  It does not lend well to frogging.  It snags against itself and knots and snarls easily.  Working straight off the ball it comes in is easy for two thirds of the way and then at some random moment the end tail introduces itself to the working strand and curls up it and starts unwinding from the inside of the ball.  If not caught soon there will be a massive snarl.  The friction caused by the strands rubbing fuzzes up the strands.  Frogging also creates the friction fuzz.  And I imagine normal wear and tear of any item made from it will create this same frizz.

One might think winding the strand into a ball first would be a solution but there are foreseeable drawbacks to that idea.  Winding fast risks the friction fuzz.  Also if you hold the strand with too much tension as you wind you will stretch it and spoil the drape and the silky feel.  My solution was to keep a close eye on the ball and as soon as the empty center was big enough to fit over my left hand, I settled it on my left wrist and tucked the loose end strand up my sleeve.

It will make a visually stunning item that is pleasant to touch but know that it will require hand washing and drip drying and still will not fare well with frequent use.  Not recommended for an item meant to be an heirloom piece.

 

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Two Kickoffs in One -- NaNo and the Storyworld Go Bag

 

Storyworld Go Bag Filling Up

My new storyworld go bag for my Fruits of the Spirit storyworld was ready for NaNo on Monday night.  I got the printed manuscripts of several WIP installed along with a stack of tabbed dividers with pockets for loose papers.  I don't have the dividers placed at the head of each separate story yet as I need to reorganize the pages.  They are all in protector sheets--two per with often the first page of one story on the back side of the previous one.  You can see how that doesn't suit the concept of a divider sheet placed between stories.

They've been in a vinyl 3 ring binder like that for years and I was always thumbing through looking for the start of this or that story.  I kept putting off tabbing the protector sheets themselves because I'd had the concept of the tabbed dividers with pockets for sometime but I would have had to split the stories between two one inch binders as the first one was already stuffed.  I would have also had to expand into separate binders the next time I printed off new scenes or chapters.

I was hoping there would be more room to grow in the new 3 inch ring binder but after adding the divider tabs it is already over half full.  And with the stuff I put in the expanding file on the left it is already a challenge to zip it shut.  Sigh.

More Pages for the Go Bag

Pictured above is a folder containing the rewrite project for my story Blow Me a Candy Kiss.  The rewrite is still unfinished.  That all needs to go into the big binder but not just willy nilly.  I need to look closely at everything in situ or risk missing all sorts of clues or memories of what I was up to triggered by seeing each item exactly as I left it.  But I don't think I'm going to take the time to do that during NaNo as my focus is on a different story.

I declared myself a Rebel Wrimo a few weeks ago by deciding that I was going to devote this NaNo to the story that started the storyworld even tho nearly 30K words already exist.  But it has become clear to me for some time that all of the stories I start for NaNo that grow out of it all stall out for the same reason: The root story isn't finished. 

Faye's story in The Substance of Things Hoped For impacts every other story either directly or tangentially.  Most of the other POV characters encounter her at least once on their own story arc.  But with Faye's timeline still not gelled I can't gel the other timelines.

So on Tuesday evening I started setting up my new Dell laptop for NaNo.  Once again a prep step that should have been done days if not weeks ago.  But I kept shying away because it involves so much tech stuff I don't feel confident doing without a techie in the house.  One of the things I needed was to install the Whiz Folder ap that I'd done NaNo on and most of my research and journaling and note taking and book reviews and..... ad infinitum since the early 2000s. 

I think it was after 2013 when I started using Scrivener for NaNo but continued using WhizFolders for everything else and thus always needed to have both open so I could keep referencing or adding to my notes in Whiz because I'd not got the material transferred over to Scrivener before NaNo Kickoff. 

And here we are again.

This is what was meant by the ROW80 Goal referencing working with my storyworld files both pixel and paper.  I set myself the goal in April and one thing after another kept taking priority. Whether properly or by simple procrastination.  Until here I am on NaNo Kickoff with a new computer that contains none of my files and only one of the aps I need to open those files. 

The files are all on an external drive that needed to be ejected from the HP laptop and plugged into the Dell. I've kept it hooked up to the HP because once I'd copied the files last spring I did not want to save anything new to the old files as I feared loosing track of what changes I made to which drive.  I know there is supposed to be a way to sync so that any change you make to one will automatically be made to the other but I don't know how to set it up.  There is also the fact that the HP hard drive is stuffed to the gills and had been giving me warnings for some time. Especially around update times.

So Tuesday evening I ran into a snag when I discovered that the company that created WhizFolders had stopped supporting it.  I'd missed the warning emails in 2018 along with my last chance to get the latest updates.  The downloads for the version I owned was also no longer available.  Luckily I remembered that I'd saved a copy of the setup file from the Pro version I bought in 2008.  I'd been using the Delux since at least 2013.  But the Pro would still allow me to read and write to my files.  After some frantic sifting through my email I found the one with the code I needed to input to validate and lo it still worked.

So I spent NaNo Kickoff swimming in my story files instead of generating new words.  And yet if felt like the most productive kickoff ever.  I discovered a Scrivener file in which I'd set up a title page and at least one scene page as its child for every story belonging to the storyworld that I've ever worked on.  Each POV character's story was kept separate as if a separate novel even tho it is probable several of them need to be smashed into single novels with 2 or more POV characters. Nearly each story contained at least one scene I deemed written well enough I was willing to expend ink and paper on them.  I need to cross check these with the ones in the binder now because I can't be sure I've got hardcopy of everything I found in this file.

The Substance of Things Hoped For contains two complete stories aka chapters 1 and 3.  I am still trying to decide whether to do the NaNo words right there or create it's own file.  But I think my concept for creating this file was about keeping it clean as a showcase for scenes that were print ready.

One interesting note: when I click on the top of the file hierarchy the ap treats it as all one file and gives me the total wordcount.  It is closing in on 90K.  If only there was a complete novel in that mix.  Well maybe by the end of this NaNo I'll be closer than ever before to that goal.

I am unsure whether the stories in this file that have a title page followed by a blank scene page are missing words because I felt there was nothing good enough to move there or because I didn't finish combing through them.  Each one of those several blank stories have they're own Whiz and/or Scrivener file.  Some of those Whiz files are named only NaNo plus the year instead of the story title so I have to open them to identify them.

I explored these files all night quitting just after 7am.  I tried to get a nap before time for a zoom appointment at 11 but I felt like I was plugged into an electric socket.  All I could do was rest in the dark with my eyes closed and swim in the storydreaming.  So I was 34 hours awake by the time my caregiver left that afternoon which is why I'm writing my Wednesday post on Thursday evening tho I'm going to predate it.

I better wrap this up if I want to have any hope of getting NaNo novel words for day 2....

Find me on NaNoWriMo

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Breaking the Ice -- Sunday Serenity

 

Hat Crocheted with Ice Picasso

When I finally had my crochet corner back in order Friday night, I needed to crochet to test drive it but the several projects that were active when I was so rudely interrupted in early August were all quite complex and it is going to take me some time to remind myself exactly what I need to do next--involves a lot of stitch counting and row counting. 

So I allowed myself to break a rule and start something new before finishing a WIP.  Besides a new yarn I bought last month was singing a siren song.  Three small skeins of Ice brand Picasso yarn.  Enough for a hat and scarf set.

I won the argument with myself by acknowledging that a quick finish of a small project would fill me with warm encouragement.  And with both warmth and encouragement in short supply that clinched the deal. 

I would have had the hat finished by late last night but about 3/4 into the first skein I found my working strand snarled with the last several yards of the skein and that snarl took me a couple hours to untangle this evening.  I had been just about to start the band across the forehead when I had to quit Saturday night and that took me about an hour tonight.

I may go ahead and start the scarf tonight but starting to morrow I will be trading off between the scarf and one or more of the projects interrupted in August.  More on them Friday with the next Friday Fiber post. 

I pondered leaving the story of this hat for Friday but this is about more than the Fiber art.  It is about reconnecting with the joy and contentment that crocheting brings me and that is the essence of Sunday Serenity.

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Stick a Pin in It

 

Pincushion Mug

This pincushion in a mug was one of the items I bought at a artisan booth at the Highland Festival I attended last August and wrote about in my post, Jazzed.  I'm posting it tonight to head the first of my Friday fiber art posts.

The pincushion is made of felted wool and it pops out of the cup to access the small storage space under it.  The mug is either a vintage enameled tin cup or a modern replica of one.  It is a dark blue with white flakes.  I'm fairly sure the artist gets her mugs and cups at thrift stores and yard sales as there were no two alike. Tea cups on saucers provide a little more storage on the saucer but I would be sure to break one of those being both clumsy and legally blind.  Besides this is one of my fav shades of blue and it gave me a frisson of nostalgia reminding me of something I saw in a relatives home as a child.

I've gotten comfortable with the two posts per week (Sunday Serenity and Wednesday's on writing) and have kept them up for a month in spite of loosing the ROW80 accountability group as the motivation.  So I decided it was a good time to add another regular post.  I'd been debating between a Monday book review and a Friday fiber art.  Fiber art won out because I got my beanbag alcove reorganized for crocheting again finally after the forced hiatus that began in August as described in Kit and Kaboodle Chaos.

I was planning to get some pics of the several projects that got interrupted in August for this post but instead I crocheted for almost two hours and then it was too late to do a photoshoot over in the alcove as there would be a risk of making noise that might disturb my neighbor sleeping on the other side of that wall.

I was able to get a picture of the small mug though and thought that ideal for a statement of intent.  Not to mention the need to celebrate the fact that I finally have my crochet corner back.  That is huge.

All week it has been my intent to get that figured out this weekend in advance of NaNoWriMo as crocheting (or other fiber art) is woven into my writing routine. It helps me reach and sustain the story dreaming zone. 

Getting my writing area and writing tools ready is also on the agenda this weekend.  I actually started with that project but after creating a huge mess that compromised both the couch and the desk chair I needed to sit on the beanbag to rest and while I was there I started fussing with the crochet stuff that was already in reach and adjusting the lamp and sorting the small accessories (hooks, needles, stitch savers) and eventually needed to start crocheting to test drive the set up.  Two hours later I heard my neighbor's caregiver leave which meant he was now in bed.

So I tamed the chaos I'd made of my bed/couch and my entire desk area well enough I could work on this post.  I have a lot more to do to make it NaNo ready but I still have a whole weekend to fiddle at it.

Ewesfluffy Fiber

The pic of the artist's business card provides contact info for anyone interested.  She is out of Battle Ground WA USA.  That's less than an hour's drive from me.  But I'm not sure she has a shop to visit since there is no street address on the card.  She also dyes wool with natural plant based dyes.  Cards it and spins it herself as well.  I was so tempted but I'm drowning in yarn and thread and WIP.

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Storyworld Go Bag

 

Upright

Several times since the late 1980s when I first conceived the concept of the storyworld I call Fruits of the Spirit, I've lost much and once most of all of the related materials in a hasty move.  That's all but the hundred or so printed pages of manuscript i'd deemed worth the use of ink and paper.  I lost all the notes and outlines, character and setting sketches, family trees and timelines, lists of planned scenes and character rosters, research and bibliographies, floor plans and street plans.  The last time it happened was the worst as I lost all the computer files as well as all the paper files as the floppy disc drive had not been working for several years and we had to leave the computer and whatever we could not carry on the bus in a storage shed which we never went back for.

These incidents haunt me and I've been anxious for several years about how scattered and unprotected my FOS files are now--paper and pixel both.  The number of manuscript pages that I deemed 'worthy' of ink and paper has at least doubled and possibly tripled but the computer files have grown exponentially.  The NaNoWriMo site started putting a word count on my profile last year and it topped a million words.  That's just for the November and the Summer Camp NaNos.  That doesn't count the words I put in for JuNoWriMo and ROW80 or any created between challenges I participated in.  Nor does it count anything that still exists only on paper.

Flat

Well a couple months ago, I remembered a three ring binder I had in Junior High that held about 300 sheets of paper and zipped shut.  I wondered aloud to Laura, my caregiver, if they still made those and she said Oh yes!  They are called trapper keepers.  So I shopped for one on October 11 hoping to snag a Prime sale but this was the one I fell in love with and ended up ordering even though it wasn't on sale and it was out of stock though promising to be available soon.  It just arrived today.

It has 3 inch rings that will hold 600 pages on one side and an expandable file on the other.  When closed it measures approximate 4 inches thick including the outer boards.  It has a carry handle and also a shoulder strap and access to the expandable file is available through a separate U shaped zipper on the edge opposite the handle so you don't have to open up the binder to access it.

Open

Now I have a safe place to keep all in one place all my notes and manuscripts.  I hope to include all the computer files as well on either flash drives or a small external drive.  The story bible I've been working on for several months will be in the expandable file as It doesn't have holes punched for the rings.

Next Wednesday, along with my report on NaNo Kickoff, I'll share another pic of the inside showing whatever materials I've been able to gather and organize by then.

FYI Product info: Case-it The Mighty Zip Tab Zipper Binder

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Sweet Simplicity -- Sunday Serenity

 

Fingerfood for Read-a-Thons

Today, for the moment anyway, I'm holding this weekend's read-a-thon as a triumph rather than a fail.  I only made it fifteen of the twenty-four hours as I couldn't sleep the night before so I was already at twenty-four hours awake by 9am.  But the triumph was in reading a novel cover to cover in under ten hours.  I'm reveling in that today.  Also in the fact that I actually started reading at 3am after two hours of failing to sleep and thus had actually read for seventeen hours.  I also added another five hours today after waking from a fifteen hour sleep.

Pictured above is one of the thon food treats, a bowl of purple seedless grapes, slices of Honey Crisp apples and slices of carrot.  There are supposed to be snow peas in the mix but I couldn't find them in the fridge and don't know whether my caretaker stuck them in some spot I'm not thinking to look or was unable to find them when she shopped for me.

The question now as midnight closes in is whether I'm going to sleep again before dawn as a fifteen hour sleep is often followed by over 20 hours awake.  But if I don't sleep it isn't just me that suffers but also my caregiver as it affects how I function which affects every aspect of the time she is on the clock with me.  My mood colors her mood.  My inability to participate fully in the day's activities creates a dynamic that neither of us enjoys.  Important chores and errands get put off sometimes causing us to have to cram too much into a single day later in the week.

I wish I still had some of the chicken and rice casserole that gave me the nap attack yesterday afternoon... 

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My Brain On Books XXXV

   

 

 

I am reading for The Office of Letters and Lights the folks who bring us NaNoWriMo today as I love what they are doing for literacy with their Young Writer's Programs and because I've participated in NaNo every year since 2004.  I have been blessed to have it in my life and would like to give something back if only kudos and link love.  I'm putting this plug at the top in hopes some who stop by will check out their site and see all the great things they do to foster love of reading and writing and story in kids. 

This post will be organized like a blog inside a blog with recent updates stacked atop previous ones. I may be posting some updates on Twitter @Joystory and the Joystory fb fanpage. But this is where I do anything more than a line or two.  Including mini-challenges that don't require a separate post..   

Be sure and see my tribute poem to Dewey and the Thon she birthed at the bottom of this post

Meet My Reading Buddies:
Grace and Jolly
They are my sleep buddies and live on my bed but today they join me on my beanbag reading nest

The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman

7:17 PM - I surrender

After the 4-5PM sprint Pacific Time I realized I needed to eat something more substantial than the finger foods I'd been satisfied with for twelve hours.  But eating something substantial tends to take the blood from the brain and redirect it to the digestive tract which brings on nap attacks.  Especially if one is already sleep deprived.  Sigh.  I tried lighter weight reading fare but even my beloved Little Women can't keep me awake.

I would like to say I'm just going to take a nap but since I've been awake for over 24hrs already I know this isn't a nap coming on.  It is typical for me after a 24hr wake period to sleep 10 to 12 hours.

The clincher for me wasn't even the dozing off.  It was realizing that I'm seeing words on the screen that aren't there.  Either I'm starting to hallucinate or I'm mistaking words with similar shape for each other:  insect for inspect; conscript for encrypt; prefect for perfect...  This made for some pretty confusing sentences and since when I read i'm seeing the words, hearing the words and seeing moving images almost simultaneously, it makes for pretty startling mind pictures as well.  It is almost like I'm ping-ponging off the hypnogogic barrier which is another way of saying, I'm reading myself to sleep.

3:33 PM - I read the whole thing!!! - In less than ten hours.  Now that's the way a novel is meant to be read.  Total immersion.  That's the way I used to read novels.  Back in the days before my vision issues forced me to sip novels like I'd always sipped NF and poetry.  Back in the days when a book a day was the norm.  sigh.  Days long gone.

This is a very short novel tho and I might even today have read in in 6-8 hours instead of nearly 10, if: 

• I hadn't been already sleep deprived, crossing the 24hr awake at 9am
• My Kindle battery had not dropped below 30% when I was 30% from the end so that the battery saver kicked in dimming the screen and more than doubling the eyestrain factor
• I hadn't needed to stop for food, drink, bios and eye rests at least once every 30 minutes.
• If I hadn't been triggered more often than that by the references to the Puritan influenced rules of the Commune the young protag escaped from at age 15.  The Commune was completely secular, founded and run for the narcissistic supply of it's power and control mad leader and yet the rules were so similar to those I was raised under in the funde sect I broke from in my late 30s I was constantly fending off shivers.  Shivers of recognition.  Shivers of memory induced shame, fear and anger.  30 years ago and the power for thsese triggeres to put me in a tizzy is still simmering in me.

I'm actually tempted to drop all the rest of my thon plans and start this one over.  I regretted not taking the time to highlight the lines and passages that gob-smacked me for their insight into the power of story to transform your life, your world, yourself.  The power of story to redefine reality by opening doors on possibility.

But I think my sleep deprivation will hinder that project and even if that wasn't a factor I need to put a bit a space and time between finishing and starting over.  I have the book for another week so there is time. 

7:22 AM - Changing it up
I did a rare thing this morning.  So rare it might have been the only time I've done it in the thirty-odd thons I've participated in.  I started out with the book I was MOST looking forward to.  Even tho it was a novel and I'm already mid novel on three different devices. I used to avoid reading more than one novel at a time but the exigencies of library due dates and holds becoming available creates situations where it is unavoidable and this past year there has been quite a few such situations.  Like setting aside one novel with a short or no wait list for one with a many weeks long waitlist.  Or for the return of my turn on a novel I didn't finish on my first turn and so after a week's long wait I pause all else to finish it before I need to start it over or as a good turn for the next in line since I'm usually well past 50% when that happens.

The novel I started this morning was The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman.  The perfect read for a read-a-thon since it is about books and the power of story.  One of the strands of the story follows a young girl raised in a commune where books are forbidden.

Ok that's all i'm going to say at this point.  Just saying that much makes me long to pick it back up.  I actually reached 23% in under two hours so I might be on track to read a whole book start to finish this thon.  Another rarity since I always have so many BIP and I read so slow with my vision issues that it seldom makes sense to start a book for the thon just so I can say I read the whole thing during the thon.

But I just might stick with this one until it is done.  Then I'll book hop the over a dozen NF on my Libby ap before returning to one of the NIP (novels in progress)

4:44 AM - Intro Meme I'm setting this to go live at 4:44 AM but it may be well into hour 2 before I check in again.  I'll be joining the first sprint with my first pick sitting in my beanbag chair nursing a hot coffee & Dandy Brew and eating a protein bar.

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Kelso Washington USA.  Across the Cowlitz river from Longview where I grew up and had been living with my elderly mother between January 2013 and late July 2021.  I moved into my 400 square foot efficiency unit in late July 2021.  This  post was a photo essay of my new space.

So this is my seventh thon in my own home, counting the Reverse Thons in August 2021 & 2023.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Non-Fiction: Enough by Cassidy Hutchinson

Fiction: The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

A Double Chocolate Muffin.  Swoon

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

• Widowed September 2020  It still smarts at unexpected moments.  But at least it is usually only several times a month now instead of constantly.  But September brought it back to several times a day.  September was his birthday and the anniversary of his Mom's and my Dad's deaths as well as his.  So it was still a rough patch three years out.  But only half as rough as last year.
• Living alone for the first time ever.  Just passed the 2nd anniversary of move in day.
• Legally blind with RP aka tunnel vision.  Have only a sliver of vision left in center of right eye.  The rest is shadows and shimmers.
• Have struggled with mood disorder of Anxiety and Depression since grade school
• Diagnosed with high functioning autism in 2015.  In my 50s!
• Have a caregiver who comes in five days a week to help with chores and errands I can't do alone.
• I proved during this move that I have more volume in fiber art supplies than in clothes by at least thee times.
• I probably have double the volume of clothes in tree-books but since I still haven't got them all moved over I can't be sure.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

This is my 35th thon so there aren't many variations I haven't tried. 

But if the weather permits I would like to venture outside and sit on the bench about 40 feet from my front door and/or the Gazebo which is across the courtyard.  My caregiver helped me practice for months to make those two walks with just my cane and I finally 'graduated' in late August.  So now I'm not such a shut-in that I can't take three steps after letting go of the door handle or porch post without panicking.

Doing anything but especially reading or writing for a full 24 hours used to be my superpower but not so much anymore.  Now that I'm in my mid sixties the price I pay for that self abuse is significant as all my systems are less forgiving. 

Also hope to do a better job than in the past of staying hydrated and getting up to move regularly.

Ode to Dewey

by Joy Renee

vote, fav and share for Dewey

We Miss You Dewey

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To Be--or Not to Be--a Wrimo Rebel.

35 Years, a Million Words and No End In Sight

 NaNo kickoff is closing in and I'm not ready to commit to a new story in my storyworld.  Oh, there are possibilities that tempt me--several minor characters that could step forward and carry a POV story arc for 20-50K.  If I'm unsure of one taking it all the way to 50K there is the possibility of pairing up two or three characters into a single story with three separate POV characters each with their own character arc that is braided into one story. 

Several of them interest me and a couple excite me.  That is until I remember all the previous NaNo endeavors that interested me or excited me enough to take me to the 50K finish line only to molder in pixel dust after the clock struck midnight on November 30.  I've lost count but I think there are at least 20 separated POV stories set in my Fruits of the Spirit storyworld and since so many of the characters are interwoven into so many of the other characters stories the plots and timelines are a tangled jungle. 

This tangle contributes to the difficulty in sustaining each new POV story and especially in maintaining the pace for a NaNo 'win'.  I put that in quotes because it has not felt like any kind of win for several years.

All summer I've been working with the entire storyworld in my story dreaming and in the collecting from my story files all the relevant story facts into a story bible for reference no matter which POV story I happen to be working with. This work has reconnected me with the original story.  The one from which the rest have flowered.  The one that is still the heart of the storyworld.  Faye's story aka The Substance of Things Hoped for.

I find myself sad at the neglect.  A neglect motivated by the NaNo rule that it has to be a new story not a WIP.  The original story--Faye's POV--was already closing in on 30K when I first encountered NaNoWriMo in 2004.  Nothing has been added to it except in my story dreaming and notes.  But from that I'm confident there is material for another 50K words and I know much of the story I want to tell intimately. I've been living with it and dreaming it since the late 80s.

More importantly I already understand it's architecture which is based on Faye's character arc.  All of the other POV stories that I've spun off from Faye's story intersect with Faye at some point just not always inside the timeline of Faye's novel but if they do it is a bit part.  A line or two or a scene or two and strictly in Faye's POV.

My heart yearns to return to Faye's story and give it the same focus as I've given the spin offs each November for nearly 20 years.  But not if it too were to end up smothered in pixel dust.  So I am caught in a dilemma.  I'd rather work with Faye's story than any other right now but I don't want to give up NaNo.  Neither do I want Faye's story to suffer the same fate as the 20 odd spinoffs.

The best solution seems to be becoming a Wrimo Rebel by investing my November words into a WIP while simultaneously committing to continue working on Faye's story going forward until the story arc is complete and after that whatever rewrites and edits are necessary.  I think if I continue to give it half the attention of a NaNo month each month after I could have something close to publishable within six months.

See links to outtakes from my FOS storyworld: Fruits of the Spirit Story World Portal

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Feeling Eclipsed -- Sunday Serenity

 

Swallowed by Shadows or Floundering in Fire

My mood has been off all weekend and possibly since as early as Thursday evening.  But I noticed it sinking on Friday afternoon and it kept on sinking all of Saturday.  I don't feel it is still sinking but I don't feel much better either.  It didn't occur to me until late this afternoon that this might have something to do with the eclipse.

Everything has been a struggle like I'm wading in mud up to my chin.  I make silly mistakes.  I feel unmotivated.  I'm binging on junk TV.  I have to keep rereading sentence, paragraphs even pages.  I have to keep backing up the video because I spaced out or dozed off.  So I think a nap might help since I seem to be good for nothing else but once laying down I can't sleep.  Then at night I sleep only in fits, getting bounced out of the hypnogogic stage by startling images or sensations of falling or flying.  And when I do fall asleep long enough to dream I am soon waking from a nightmare.

I also have had a mild headache since I woke Saturday morning.  Along with mild nausea.

I searched for eclipse and mood or feelings and found this is actually a thing.  But I didn't have the focus to actually read the articles.  I read headlines and scanned section headings and looked at inserts with lists.

Here's hoping that the worst is over.  If the beginning for me was Thursday evening then that was about 36-40 hours before the eclipse passed over me in the Pacific Northwest just before 9am, then I should be back to feeling myself by the time I wake up.  Unless I still can't get a solid sleep but then the variable of sleep deprivation will be in the mix

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Of Notes and Notions and Drafting Dreams

Boxed and Bindered Scribbles

 It took four 6-10 hour days of effort to undo the chaos created by the forced switch of the beanbag/tramp with the table to accommodate installation of the cooler in the alcove window last August.  As featured in Sunday's post, I have my beanbag and tramp nook recreated and ready for use for resting, day dreaming, reading and crochet on the beanbag and exercise on the tramp.

It is still not back to the way it was and never will be as there were too many changes in the configuration and the small adjustments that will be needed won't become obvious until I start trying to use it as intended. I've been using the tramp daily and the beanbag for brief reading or resting breaks but my focus has gone over to the other side of the table which is the living area, my office and my bed/couch.

There was much chaos of time and space and mind created on this side during the 8 weeks as the number of activities performed here more than doubled while the availability of homes for the extra items was next to nil to start and by the end I had piles of stuff that kept shifting.  I had an archaeological dig on the surfaces of the big table and my entire 9 foot desk.

The most disruptive of my writing goals though was the loss of the boxes of notebooks pictured above.  There was no way to keep them on the office side so I put one stack on the far wall beside the table facing down the path from the 'office' and the other under it at 90 degree angle facing the hallway.

The problem with that was I couldn't get to them by just rolling my chair over and remain sitting as I pulled out what I needed.  I had to get up and go over there and then bend over or squat in front of them but this would block all light so I'd need a flashlight but it takes too hands to get most of the items off those shelves so I'd have to hold the flashlight in my mouth.  It killed my back and leg muscles.  I came away trembling and no longer interested in the project I'd gone over there in service to.

I sat on the couch/bed to take that picture so I could get all eight of the boxes in.  That also gives a good view of the edge of the table that I depend on to guide me in the dark on the path to and from the bathroom without needing to turn on a light.  That was yet another major dysregulation of routine and mental stability.  I have two blood blisters on my toes and at least one bruise and one broken nail to show for it.

Two of those eight boxes contain new and unmarked notebooks of various shapes and sizes.  I am a collector of notebooks. The two vertical ones on the right side contain accordion files, binders and portfolios containing notes, drafts, research, journals, drawings and misc. The remaining boxes hold more of the same in less organized or contained form.

My next project is to comb through every folder, binder, notebook and loose paper and organize by category with separate file or folder or binder for each.  Categories include creative writing notes and drafts, research notes, book review notes and drafts, journaling, fiber arts notes, sketches and doodles, and lots of lists and notes on lots of topics some not related to the categories already listed.

The main motive for tackling this project now is to mine out every last draft or note related to my Fruit of the Spirit storyworld for the storybible project I'm working on for Preptober.  This is part of the 'spend time in my story files' goal that has been part of my ROW80 goals for years but I tended to find it easier to click a short cut on my computer than to sort through this jumble that has been through uncountable moves in the last twenty-four years: from across the room to across the house to across the state to across state lines.

It it is time.  My work with the files on my computer and my storydreaming has awakened memories of notes I made at some point related to the thoughts I'm having now.  I need to salvage them.  This time I need to also protect them against ever devolving back into this kind of chaos and danger of being lost forever.

I've been contemplating how to corral everything FOS into one location that is as portable as possible.  I once upon a time--about 25 years ago--had a file box with a handle that contained the first fifteen years of work on these stories.  But that got left behind when we abandoned our storage shed to hop on a bus after being homeless on the streets of Silicon Valley for ten days.

This time I need a bugout bag that can contain all the paper files and all the electronic in a regularly updated external drive and/or high memory thumb.  I will also back up the electronic files in the cloud but I don't fully trust it and anything that causes a need for a bugout could also make getting access to the internet immediately iffy.

As I contemplated this need, my mind lit on a memory of the three ring binder with a zipper that I had in Junior High.  The perfect concept.  But I wasn't sure they were still a thing until I went shopping for them.  Not only are they a thing but they now have handles and carry straps and can be double or triple the size I had.  I spent several hours drooling over them.

I was hoping to take advantage of the prime day sale but the one I fell in love with was not on sale.  But it was still less than some of the sale prices.  Nor was it in stock. But the message said they were going to be soon so I ordered it.  I will have to wait a little longer for it's arrival but knowing it will arrive has my fingers itching to get started on the search and rescue.

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Cloud Sitting -- Sunday Serenity

Back in My Haven

Back in early August I had to switch the beanbag/mini-tramp with the table beside it in order to pass an inspection to avoid eviction.  I had to move the cooler over to this window as it was the only one that had an outlet close enough to plug directly into the wall. See the photo essay showing the result at the end of my post Puzzle On This.  This was a complete disruption of all my habits and even put my safety at risk.  This is what I lost:

• My crochet station as I was unable to get a light at the right distance and angle.
• Access to 4/5 of the shelves on the back wall as the table was placed against the left edge
• Access to 90% of my yarn and thread whose bags were stuffed under the table and stacked between the table and the window and then blocked by the tramp and cooler
• Access to most of my fiber art WIP which turned out to be moot since I had nowhere to work on them.
• Easy access from my office chair to my notebooks and files
• The intricately organized station with everything in arms reach to the left and the right for crocheting, reading (tree books, ebooks and audio books), taking notes from reading, taking notes from storydreaming, other writing by hand, watching videos on tablets or a portable DVD player, playing video games on tablets, charging station for the electronics, listening to music and podcasts on tablets
• Ability to get on and off the mini-ramp without help thus could only use it during the weekday hours my caregiver was with me
• Ability to get safely to and from the bathroom from my couch/bed in the dark as I'd lost the guidance of the table edge. 

Among the results were a blood blister on the edge of my big toenail after loosing my way crossing the room on my way back to bed trying to avoid stubbing my toes on the tramp legs that were where I was used to the edge of the table being.  I ran into my desk where I'd left a drink bottle which fell on my toe.  I don't have to worry about the tramp legs when it is tucked into this nook as it is not on the edge of any pathway.

I had to give up crochet entirely due to the lighting issue.  Everything else except ebook and audio book reading without notetaking had to be done at my desk sitting in my office chair.  I could have watched video on tablets but only if I was willing to hold the tablet as there was no surface on which to set them down and no ability to keep them plugged in so the battery would stay strong. 

With my vision issues I need the screen brightness at 100 so that gives me maybe an hour before they start dimming it if it isn't plugged in.  My Kindle Fire was the only one that would give me more than two hours of full brightness so I did do some significant reading on the beanbag in the last seven weeks.

I sincerely believe in this moment that if I'm still in this unit when the time comes to break out the cooler again next spring, I'd rather do without than be put through this disruption again.  Of course the first time the temps go over 90 inside I might think again.  But then I'd have to do all that work of the shift in the heat.  Ugh.

I have one possibility in mind and that is to pull the tramp forward about two feet--flush with the front edge of the table.  I think we could fit the cooler back there and point it toward the table so it doesn't blow on my neck.  But I would have to think about the effect of the humidity it kicks out on the stuff under the table where air circulation would be close to zero.

This would throw off the careful calibration of the placement of items within reach to the right and left.  But shifting all those items one or two feet forward would be a smaller price to pay than the massive shift and loss of access and use of so much of my things and my space.

The solution I'm hoping for tho is for my name to reach the top of the waiting list for a one bedroom unit before time to worry about the cooler.

We had to winterize the cooler by October 1st so we did so on the Friday before but I didn't get motivated to start the switch back until Wednesday evening. Last weekend I was pushing hard to finish two Libby library novels that were coming due.  So I had myself a private readathon, reading over twelve hours each day.  I'd even postponed putting up my Round Four ROW80 goals post on Sunday.

Then on Wednesday afternoon as I was preparing to post it, I discovered that ROW80, my writing accountability community, had been unplugged.  The moderator had to bow out and there was no one else to pick up the reins. I went into a funk.  It was real grief.  I've been participating off and on since 2012. 

I wallowed for several hours and found myself too restless to read or watch videos. I needed to be physical.  I needed my tramp which can be a mood regulator for me but it wasn't safe for me to get on it.  So at 7pm I started the switch.  It was a six hour project.  It had been a ten hour project for the first switch.  But I didn't really finish on Wednesday night. 

I needed to sleep.  My neighbor had been snoring for hours so I'd avoided rearranging the shelves against that wall which meant a lot of small items still had no homes. So to free up my bed for sleep and desk for morning pages and the floor of trip hazards, I piled the table two feet high.

Then on Thursday morning before my caregiver arrived I tried to move the beanbag so I could tramp now that I had the table to help me mount and the window sill to keep me oriented in space.  But it was fitted in there too snug and when I took a closer look I realized I'd placed the table three inches too close to the tramp.  But it was not going to budge until I pulled half the items out of the 4x4x4 foot cube of space underneath and repositioned the rest to free up the legs. 

That was not a project to be working on when I was about to be sharing my 400 square foot space with another person needing to be in motion so I saved it for the weekend. I was out of oomph on Friday evening so I didn't start until early afternoon on Saturday.  I had the table repositioned in less than an hour but that was just the first step of many to getting the area back to efficient use. 

I'm still not there.  The only thing I've used the beanbag for since getting it back in place is resting between spurts of activity. I would sit there to plan my next moves.  Sitting there would help me know where certain items needed to be placed for the easiest access whenever I needed to use them or to put them away without having to get up.  Getting up off that beanbag is a bit of a challenge. 

So every time I got an idea for the best spot for an item I would get up to place it there but most times that meant another item was displaced and needed a new home.  Often the best place for it meant another item was displaced and so it went.  Late into the night on Saturday and for several hours Sunday afternoon and evening.

Today this shelf-shuffle spread away from the beanbag alcove into other areas of my unit as I was getting ideas for more efficient placement of items on or around my desk, or bed or kitchen counters.  Somehow in the process I emptied four of the foot square cubicles on the shelves beside my couch and behind my desk. 

I'm still trying to figure out how that happened.  That's two feet cubed of space that was in use and now is not and there is nothing desperately needing a home to fill the space.  This gives me hope that I can bring another box of my tree book library from Mom's.

Meanwhile, I've decided that I do not want to lose the habit of posting just because ROW80 is gone nor do I want to lose the momentum I'd developed with my writing over the summer.  So I'm going to have to hold myself accountable to myself.  I'm going to continue Sunday Serenity and a writing themed post on Wednesdays.

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