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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Crystalline -- Sunday Serenity -- ROW80 Check-In

 

Crystalline

The crystal sculpture pictured above is another of the treasures I picked up at the Highland's Festival in Kelso WA two weeks ago today.  See my Jazzed post for details of that adventure. It is still my favorite post so far this year.

It graces the top today as a symbol for both the Sunday Serenity and the ROW80 portions of this post. 

As a serenity tool it serves a bit like a mandala or any other focus aid.  But in this case it is 3D so i can hold it in my hand to explore its shape.  I can grasp the opposite columns  with index finger and thumb of each hand and spin it watching the light flicker in its facets or hang it under a lamp or in a sunny window and watch the slow light show.

Yes, yet another fidget toy.

For my goals it symbolizes the clarity I've been moving into throughout this round.  Not there yet but then it's about the process not the destination Isn't it?  I mean we have to keep the destination (goal) in focus but then the process needs to serve that goal. That is why my goals for ROW80 have always been more about the process and the elements of my daily life that support the process than about things like word count.

But when the process I set up this round was not working, I blamed and shamed myself for weeks rather than wonder if my process rules had been setting me up for failure.  Some of the rules I'd made for myself weren't even made explicit in the goals list I set up.  Many of them were based on assumptions no longer valid if they ever were.  Some were based on advice I'd gleaned from writing craft books and blogs, from self-help and motivational videos, from the way it once worked for me decades ago.

So in the last month or so I've pulled back into observer mode, watching myself as I interact with my aspirations and with my writing tools, my environment, my routines and myself.  I'm questioning assumptions.  I'm still thinking hard about it but I'm sure my goal list is going to look quite different next round.

These are some of the lessons I've learned about my process:

• Engaging with a task that requires focus is not something I can do in time increments under an hour.  It takes me twenty minutes to get focused.
• I am more productive with the first and roughest of rough draft of a scene with a pen or pencil on paper.  This is how I worked before my first typewriter at age 13 and even after I hesitated to 'waste' the ink to compose on it.  But I think it was about more than my fear of 'wasting' ink and spendy paper.  I think I was a creature of habit and I'd developed a process that worked.
• I am still as always in my memory more productive with hours long sessions at a task.  But that is not sustainable if I require it of myself every day.  So I'm taking a look at the time goals of X minutes per day.  Except for the exercise ones.  For the storyworld bible and file engagement I think I'd do better squeezing those 7 thirty minute sessions into one or two several hour sessions per week.
• I have to be willing to accept the incursion of life events that I can't or didn't predict at the time I formulated my goals post and learn to see adjustments to them as something other than failure or proof I'm not serious.  Flexibility is not a strong trait for those of us on the spectrum.  But finding the balance between accepting the necessary amount and letting things slide into chaos--that is the challenge.

I also had to give myself a bit of grace on several fronts this week as I'm in the second week of cutting back my coffee and other caffeine intake.  That process involves cutting it in half every third to fifth day while learning to accept substitutes.  This has messed up my daily routines and counterintuitively caused both long sleeps and insomnia.  I am now at the place where I need to decide if I can trust myself to maintain a single mug of moderate strength coffee without slowly increasing it again or do I need to eliminate it entirely.

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2023

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

 ROW80 Round 3 Goals:

• Morning pages daily.  Average 40 minutes (ala Julia Cameron The Artist Way and Writing For Life) YES Started May 20.  Probably would not have jumped into NaNo and ROW80 without having had a month of morning pages behind me. But the very fact that I've hung on to this YES throughout the crisis' is PROOF that I am committed to the writing and still belong in ROW80.  Don't worry, I know the ROWers need no such proof.  Only my Stella.
• Storydreaming with notebook for noting ideas for characters or scenes. (ala Robert Owen Butler From Where You Dream)  30 10 minutes per day 2/7  of a yes since last Sunday  (Storydreaming itself is becoming habitual and feeling more natural but the notebook is the key to this goal as without it the storydreams go to the same place night dreams go an hour after waking.) Note: I've adjusted the goal for the duration of the round to ten minutes a day with the caveat that as long as I'm sitting with notebook and pen it counts even if I don't write anything new.
• Working on the Fruits of the Spirit (aka FOS) Storyworld Bible at least 30 10 minutes per day at least 5 days per week.  I'm sure this will expand as I get involved but I need to set a minimum for that jumpstart. YES (except it was one hour on one day.  anticipating next round goals here)   (still hoping to make this and storydreaming  my ROW80 main project for the remainder of this round as I need a substantial start on it in time to use it for Preptober and NaNo next Round.)   Note: I've adjusted the goal to 10 minutes 5 days a week or 50+ minutes on one day with the caveat that I don't need to work into the pristine spiral notebook I bought for this project yet.  The first task is to get a feel for how that notebook needs to be organized and to figure that out I will start re-reading my files with loose scratch paper or note cards at hand to note down every 'fact' I encounter as I read.  I realized one of my sticking points has to do with not being able to visualize exactly what is expected.  But I know what it means to 'read' and 'take notes'  I've been doing it with other people's stories every day for weeks and weeks.  For most of a year in fact.
• Weekly Artist Date (ala Julia Cameron)  This is about doing something to recharge your creative battery.  I'll go into more detail in one of the check-ins.  YES  More 24/7 cams discovered.  Also screensaver vids of color or image in motion.  Some with music excellent for background ambience for writing. Shamanic Drumming to storydream by.  I wasn't possible to go out in public for this this week as my caregiver had been exposed to COVID and until we know for sure that she doesn't develop it we won't know if I've been exposed.so we had to limit certain activities we had tentatively planned.  Always something right?
• A minimum of 5 minutes of physical activity daily.  Either a walk outside with my caregiver or a session on my mini-tramp, or pacing the floor between front and back door. YES (may need to look at upping the expectation soon.  this is getting too easy.)  
• I want to reengage with my blog so: Two One blog post per week besides the two check-ins. Either about encountering other people's stories via print, video or audio which can include formal reviews or about a current fiber art WIP or about one of my personal challenges: widowhood, independent living with visual impairment and autism and issues related to health and aging among them.  Not yet.  Note: I've adjusted my expectations here for the duration of the round.  I removed the theme of personal challenge from the options as it turns out that has been the theme of my check-in posts and those take a lot out of me and a third one would be overloading my readers as well as me. 

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A Notable Week -- Sunday Serenity -- ROW80 Check-In

 

Handmade Leather Notebook

The notebook pictured is one of the treasures I bought at the artisan booths at the Highland Festival I attended last Sunday.  If you missed that post, which is likely because I posted well after midnight last Sunday, you might want to check it out as it was my favorite post all Round if not all year.

I love notebooks in general but hand made notebooks can actually raise my pulse.  I am often caressing them at these artisan booths or stores that sell on consignment but this is the first time I bought one.  I just could not resist.  The dreamcatcher, butterflies and feathers all have spiritual significance for me. 

Now I just need to figure out what to use it for.  And that will be a challenge as one of the reasons I've never bought one is that I know myself so well.  I know that the more I love a notebook the harder it is for me to put a mark in it.

I chose the notebook to preside over this week's post as it so relates to the theme of my week and the theme of this week's goal triumph.  A triumph I practically stumbled into or was pushed by circumstances.  The same circumstances that prevented me from posting a check-in Wednesday.

Last Wednesday I woke up to a glitchy computer.  Every mouse click or keyboard tap took forever to respond.  I spent more time watching spinning wheels, greyed out aps, and 'not responding' or 'end task' messages than I did doing tasks.  This caused me to be late to an important Zoom which had to be conducted except for the last ten minutes via phone. 

By late afternoon, I was worn out by hours of trying to get my computer to cooperate with me and possibly a bit by sleep deprivation so by dusk I was ready for bed.  Then I woke at 2am and opened my laptop and there on the screen was a dialog box saying that my computer needed to restart to install updates and a countdown clock that had about three minutes to go. 

Of course.  Doh!

Over the next day or two I got requests from several aps for installing updates.  So multiple companies were working in the background at the same time.  No wonder there was no RAM left for me.  Stop me before I start my rant about product service personnel invading our private spaces and commandeering our products at their whim. 

Would we tolerate it from our car dealership's mechanic?  Imagine finding your car in pieces in your garage as you rush out to head to work or school. I don't think so.  So why is it OK that once a month for several days the one device that is most integrated into our daily productivity can be made useless for hours on end?  

Ooops.  I ignored that stop sign.

So, returning to the story, I managed to get the two aps that might be irritated by a forced shutdown closed and then with a minute to go clicked 'restart now'.  Then I read for the nearly forty minutes it took to get back to my desktop.  It was what I found shortly after Chrome reloaded the twenty odd tabs that had been closed for the shutdown that put the ROW80 check-in off my radar. 

Open tabs often serve as my todo list and sometimes I don't close them when I'm done with the task so one of my habits after a restart and reloading of the closed window is to close the tabs I know I'm done with and remind myself what is urgent and to bookmark and close things that can wait.  This is how I discovered a tab I'd left as an urgent task but that had still gone off my radar weeks ago.

This was a tab to the Evernote site where I had been trying to find out how to unsubscribe from the paid version and whether the free version was still available and if not, what happens to my notes.  I'd been researching this after getting an email from them in mid August announcing that my annual payment was due on September 16th and it would be doubling.

As if that wasn't bad enough I learned by signing into my account trying to find answers that this had happened once before and I'd never known.  So I'd already been paying twice what I signed up for just before the pandemic for two years and now they were doubling it again?  No!  This is not sustainable on a fixed income.  Stop me before I go into a rant about the subscription economy and how it is creating a balkanized caste system of information haves and have nots.

But that isn't the theme of this post.  This is about me having a fire lit under me to rescue my notes in case I needed to deactivate my Evernote account in order to prevent the autopay from dinging my card on the 16th since I couldn't figure out how to stop the payment.  So at 3am I began moving my notes.

I identified three major types.  There was the web clippings that were either links alone or links with clipped portions of a page or links with notes added.  Then there were three types of text only notes: quotes, lists, writings of various lengths.  The links alone were easy.  I opened them and bookmarked them in the browser.  Links with more I found I could copy/paste to a Google Docs.  The very short text only stuff I copy/pasted to my sticky notes ap and the longer text pieces to Google Docs.

This project took most of twelve hours.  I had to stop and eat a couple times.  I had to stop and watch a screensaver for ten minutes before doing the 40 minute morning pages exercise about when my morning alarms started going off.  I had to stop briefly to get my caregiver started on her tasks.

I moved the last note just after 3pm.  There had been 120 odd.  No way that had been worth what I'd been paying. Not even what I had started out paying.  But that was because my life imploded just after I started the subscription so that I didn't use it how I'd envisioned.

I'd had big plans for it when I subscribed in 2019.  At that time I had multiple devices and was moving from room to room in Mom's house, going to appointments and spending part of every weekend with my husband.  I couldn't always have my laptop with me.  I'd just bought a Bluetooth keyboard that worked with all my devices except the laptop and thus it was finally possible for me to compose on my android devices wherever I found myself. 

I got to use Evernote as I imagined for only about three months before the pandemic which was just the beginning of the shakeups in my life.  Most of the relevant events are covered in the dwindling posts of those years.

After assuring the safety of my notes, I returned to the Evernote tab to start exploring my options once again.  The only thing like a FAQ was a Forum for asking questions and I had to register to join it.  Luckily my questions had already been asked and answered.  Yes the free version was still available and thus my notes would have still been accessible except that any very large ones could not be edited but I'd never uploaded or created anything large.  I would no longer have access via unlimited devices and my limit of data moved shrank considerably but again, I'd never needed the extra MB the way I'd been using it.  I am still unclear whether I can access via two or only one device.  Moving files between devices was one of the ways I used it.  But Google Docs works for that too.

As it turned out the majority of my notes had been via the Web Clipper browser extension and I think that will be the main way I use it going forward.  I discovered that Google Docs was a lot easier to use for the plain text as well as for text with hyperlinks and graphics. 

But if I'm going to start using Google Docs that way I'm going to have to perform a similar task with it as what I just did with Evernote.  Not a note rescue exactly unless you can call organizing files so you can find them when you need them a rescue.  I've been dropping stuff in there willy-nilly for ages.

Meanwhile I hope no one will quibble with me for giving myself a big YES for working with my FOS storyworld notes this week even though it was all done in a single day rather than spread out over the week.  Because the majority of those notes were related in one way or another to my storyworld project from reading notes, character or plot ideas, quotes, research, musings on theme, and even a very rough draft of a potential scene that I completely forgot existed.  Sigh.

Actually I'm thinking I need to rethink that goal for next round.  I was trying to train myself to have a daily or semi-daily habit but that doesn't take into account one of my autism related superpowers: to hyperfocus on one task for many hours.

That goal of 30 minutes five times a week also flies in the face of one of my autism challenges: the fact that changing channels in my mind takes twenty minutes.  Thus for a thirty minute task I'm lucky if I'm on task and productive for the last ten of it and then I'm irritated if I'm forced to quit and change focus again. 

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2023

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

 ROW80 Round 3 Goals:

• Morning pages daily.  Average 40 minutes (ala Julia Cameron The Artist Way and Writing For Life) YES Started May 20.  Probably would not have jumped into NaNo and ROW80 without having had a month of morning pages behind me. But the very fact that I've hung on to this YES throughout the crisis' is PROOF that I am committed to the writing and still belong in ROW80.  Don't worry, I know the ROWers need no such prrof.  Only my Stella.
• Storydreaming with notebook for noting ideas for characters or scenes. (ala Robert Owen Butler From Where You Dream)  30 10 minutes per day 2/7  of a yes since last Sunday  (The notebook is the key to this goal as without it the storydreams go to the same place night dreams go an hour after waking.) Note: I've adjusted the goal for the duration of the round to ten minutes a day with the caveat that as long as I'm sitting with notebook and pen it counts even if I don't write anything new.
• Working on the Fruits of the Spirit (aka FOS) Storyworld Bible at least 30 10 minutes per day at least 5 days per week.  I'm sure this will expand as I get involved but I need to set a minimum for that jumpstart. BIG YES (with the caveat that it was all in one day.  see above)   (still hoping to make this and storydreaming  my ROW80 main project for the remainder of this round as I need a substantial start on it in time to use it for Preptober and NaNo next Round.)   Note: I've adjusted the goal to 10 minutes 5 days a week with the caveat that I don't need to work into the pristine spiral notebook I bought for this project yet.  The first task is to get a feel for how that notebook needs to be organized and to figure that out I will start re-reading my files with loose scratch paper or note cards at hand to note down every 'fact' I encounter as I read: names, dates, descriptions, titles of books and chapters and stories, character quirks, symbolism associated with a character...etc.  It occurred to me that my resistance to this task was at least partially related to not wanting to make a mess in that pretty notebook.  So now I have permission to make a mess with scratch pads and note cards.  Let's see if that makes any difference.  Also there is a trick I'm playing on myself here.  I almost never do a thing for only ten minutes but if I think I must do 30 minutes I balk at starting thinking of all the ways I'm likely to get interrupted or not fulfill my expectations in some unexpected way.  I realized this has to do with not being able to visualize exactly what is expected.  But I know what it means to 'read' and 'take notes'  I've been doing it with other people's stories every day for weeks and weeks.  For most of a year in fact.
• Weekly Artist Date (ala Julia Cameron)  This is about doing something to recharge your creative battery.  I'll go into more detail in one of the check-ins.  A big YES  More 24/7 cams discovered.  Also screensaver vids of color or image in motion.  Some with music excellent for background ambience for writing. 
• A minimum of 5 minutes of physical activity daily.  Either a walk outside with my caregiver or a session on my mini-tramp, or pacing the floor between front and back door. YES (may need to look at upping the expectation soon.  this is getting too easy.)  
• I want to reengage with my blog so: Two One blog post per week besides the two check-ins. Either about encountering other people's stories via print, video or audio which can include formal reviews or about a current fiber art WIP or about one of my personal challenges: widowhood, independent living with visual impairment and autism and issues related to health and aging among them.  Not yet.  Note: I've adjusted my expectations here for the duration of the round.  I removed the theme of personal challenge from the options as it turns out that has been the theme of my check-in posts and those take a lot out of me and a third one would be overloading my readers as well as me.  The main reason I've not posted extra is the same reason I missed the Wednesday check-in: The note rescue caper.  Plus I'm still super busy chasing library book due dates and trying to finish books before the next set of holds comes back my way.  I sometimes feel like I'm chasing my own ponytail around the 440 track. Boy do I miss the days when I could read 100 pages an hour or better.

Read more...

Jazzed -- Sunday Serenity -- ROW80 Check-in

Celtica Nova & The Wicked Tinkers: "The Atholl Highlanders" 

I went to the Highlander Festival in Kelso, Washington this afternoon and sat through three sets of the Wicked Tinkers.  I'm in love. 

With the drumming!!!

I'm so jazzed.  It took me hours to wind down before I could be calm enough to put this post together even though I'd been planning it in my head all day.

The video I embedded was from someone else's  audience experience somewhere else.  My ten second attempt was crappy in several ways and not worth uploading.  Most of what I found on YouTube was either bad amateur video with jumpy image and poor sound or, if more professionally produced, from 6-9 years ago.  Good sound and image but not even close to the ambience of my experience so I went with the Celtic Nova offering.  It has good steady image and tolerable sound and from only five months ago and thus a very good display of the energy of my experience in the performer-audience interaction.

After one set my caregiver, Laura and I, had our picture taken with the band with my cell.  It was only tolerable quality but better than nothing.  I can't believe I did that.  I've never done that.  But I haven't been to that many events and when I was I didn't have someone like Laura with me to ask me if I'd like to have my picture taken with the band and the be bold enough to make it happen. 

This was the only pic from today that Laura took for me that turned out well enough to post and it shows only three members and there were at least four and possibly five.  It was hard for me to count them as neither they nor the audience between me and them stayed still long enough for me to keep track of them as I counted.

One time they all came down into the audience and wandered among us playing.  Imagine having one of those knee-kicked kilts a foot from your knees and the drum knocking on your eardrums. 

Oh my!  A memory indelible.  Even with my eyes and ears.

And the drum so close I could have reached out and touched it.  I could have swooned.

For the drums guys.  For the drums.

I'm serious.  I'm coocoo for drums.  Drums were my first choice of band instrument when I was offered the choice at age eleven but both my parents and the band teacher nixed it.  My parents because "You can't plays hymns on the drums."  The band teacher because, "Girls don't play drums."

So glad both premises have been proven balderdash.  Please oh please don't take our girls back to the 1960s!!!!

Between the sets, Laura and I wandered the artisan booths and I handled a lot of very interesting, well-crafted art in many categories.  Jewelry, crystal and other rock, leather, fiber art and more.  A lot of it on the Celtic theme, of course.  I'm going to dole out pictures of the treasures I brought home over several posts.  It would take me another hour to do the photo shoot and prep the pics and then yet another hour to write about each item and besides this Sunday Serenity and ROW80 focus is on the Wicked Tinker experience.

So what do you think ROWers, does this qualify as an artist date ala Julia Cameron even tho it wasn't just me and my muse?

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2023

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

 ROW80 Round 3 Goals:

• Morning pages daily.  Average 40 minutes (ala Julia Cameron The Artist Way and Writing For Life) YES Started May 20.  Probably would not have jumped into NaNo and ROW80 without having had a month of morning pages behind me. But the very fact that I've hung on to this YES throughout the crisis' is PROOF that I am committed to the writing and still belong in ROW80.  Don't worry, I know the ROWers need no such prrof.  Only my Stella.
• Storydreaming with notebook for noting ideas for characters or scenes. (ala Robert Owen Butler From Where You Dream)  30 10 minutes per day 4/7  of a yes since last Sunday  (The notebook is the key to this goal as without it the storydreams go to the same place night dreams go an hour after waking.) Note: I've adjusted the goal for the duration of the round to ten minutes a day with the caveat that as long as I'm sitting with notebook and pen it counts even if I don't write anything new.
• Working on the Fruits of the Spirit (aka FOS) Storyworld Bible at least 30 10 minutes per day at least 5 days per week.  I'm sure this will expand as I get involved but I need to set a minimum for that jumpstart. 2/5 of a yes   (still hoping to make this and storydreaming  my ROW80 main project for the remainder of this round as I need a substantial start on it in time to use it for Preptober and NaNo next Round.)  This week the life that got in the way is a crochet project for a birthday on Tuesday.  Note: I've adjusted the goal to 10 minutes 5 days a week with the caveat that I don't need to work into the pristine spiral notebook I bought for this project yet.  The first task is to get a feel for how that notebook needs to be organized and to figure that out I will start re-reading my files with loose scratch paper or note cards at hand to note down every 'fact' I encounter as I read: names, dates, descriptions, titles of books and chapters and stories, character quirks, symbolism associated with a character...etc.  It occurred to me that my resistance to this task was at least partially related to not wanting to make a mess in that pretty notebook.  So now I have permission to make a mess with scratch pads and note cards.  Let's see if that makes any difference.  Also there is a trick I'm playing on myself here.  I almost never do a thing for only ten minutes but if I think I must do 30 minutes I balk at starting thinking of all the ways I'm likely to get interrupted or not fulfill my expectations in some unexpected way.  I realized this has to do with not being able to visualize exactly what is expected.  But I know what it means to 'read' and 'take notes'  I've been doing it with other people's stories every day for weeks and weeks.  For most of a year in fact.
• Weekly Artist Date (ala Julia Cameron)  This is about doing something to recharge your creative battery.  I'll go into more detail in one of the check-ins.  A big YES  More 24/7 cams discovered.  Also screensaver vids of color or image in motion.  Some with music excellent for background ambience for writing.  More walks to the gazebo and back with my caregiver and at least one where we sat reading there for an hour where I could look up from my book and see birds or neighbors walking dogs or neighbors having interactions with each other on their porches or the breeze in the leaves which is better than screen savers.
• A minimum of 5 minutes of physical activity daily.  Either a walk outside with my caregiver or a session on my mini-tramp, or pacing the floor between front and back door. YES (may need to look at upping the expectation soon.  this is getting too easy.)  
• I want to reengage with my blog so: Two One blog post per week besides the two check-ins. Either about encountering other people's stories via print, video or audio which can include formal reviews or about a current fiber art WIP or about one of my personal challenges: widowhood, independent living with visual impairment and autism and issues related to health and aging among them.  Not yet.  Note: I've adjusted my expectations here for the duration of the round.  I removed the theme of personal challenge from the options as it turns out that has been the theme of my check-in posts and those take a lot out of me and a third one would be overloading my readers as well as me.  The main reason I've not posted extra is the same reason I missed the Wednesday check-in: I'm super busy chasing library book due dates and trying to finish books before the next set of holds comes back my way.  I sometimes feel like I'm chasing my own ponytail around the 440 track.  Last Wednesday I was still trying to finish the over 800 page Sun House by David James Duncan even tho it was going to be a fail.  I closed in on 70% by the time Libby took it from me but I still needed 13 more hours for that last 30%.  Boy do I miss the days when I could read 100 pages an hour or better.

Read more...

Jelling -- Sunday Serenity --ROW80 Check-in

Live Jelly Cam -- Monterey Bay Aquarium 7am-7pm Pacific
If it's black when you tune in just back it up

 
I've decided to revive one of my old memes, Sunday Serenity, making it the focus of the Sunday post with the check-in like a footnote with little to no essay above the goals section.  Last Wednesday I spent 7 hours on my check-in post and I can't sustain two posts a week like that and then complain I can't get any writing done.

I'm not sorry I wrote that essay.  It was a story I needed to tell.  It was therapeutic and necessary for me even if nobody ever reads it. But if it is wearing me out trying to do that every check-in, I'm sure it is wearing my readers out.  So I'm backing off to one or less of such essays in a week.  And from now on if it is not ready to post after three hours I'll save the essay part as draft and post something fun and writing related above the goals section.  Even on Wednesday.

Well, Sunday Serenity will not always be writing related.  This video is only tangentially so as I have found it useful several times since I discovered it Thursday to reboot my brain, to change my focus from one task to another and most useful for writing was when I overslept and didn't have time to do my morning pages before a scheduled Zoom and I used five minutes of watching the jelly fish to put me back in my dreaming mind.  It essentially erased an hour's worth of encounters with language so I could do morning pages as if I'd just woken up.

 

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2023

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

 ROW80 Round 3 Goals:

• Morning pages daily.  Average 40 minutes (ala Julia Cameron The Artist Way and Writing For Life) YES Started May 20.  Probably would not have jumped into NaNo and ROW80 without having had a month of morning pages behind me. But the very fact that I've hung on to this YES throughout the crisis' is PROOF that I am committed to the writing and still belong in ROW80
• Storydreaming with notebook for noting ideas for characters or scenes. (ala Robert Owen Butler From Where You Dream)  30 10 minutes per day 2/3 of a yes since Thursday  (The notebook is the key to this goal as without it the storydreams go to the same place night dreams go an hour after waking.) Note: I've adjusted the goal for the duration of the round to ten minutes a day with the caveat that as long as I'm sitting with notebook and pen it counts even if I don't write anything new.
• Working on the Fruits of the Spirit (aka FOS) Storyworld Bible at least 30 10 minutes per day at least 5 days per week.  I'm sure this will expand as I get involved but I need to set a minimum for that jumpstart. NOT yet   (still hoping to make this and storydreaming  my ROW80 main project for the remainder of this round as I need a substantial start on it in time to use it for Preptober and NaNo next Round.)  This week the life that got in the way is a crochet project for a birthday on Tuesday.  Note: I've adjusted the goal to 10 minutes 5 days a week with the caveat that I don't need to work into the pristine spiral notebook I bought for this project yet.  The first task is to get a feel for how that notebook needs to be organized and to figure that out I will start re-reading my files with loose scratch paper or note cards at hand to note down every 'fact' I encounter as I read: names, dates, descriptions, titles of books and chapters and stories, character quirks, symbolism associated with a character...etc.  It occurred to me that my resistance to this task was at least partially related to not wanting to make a mess in that pretty notebook.  So now I have permission to make a mess with scratch pads and note cards.  Let's see if that makes any difference.  Also there is a trick I'm playing on myself here.  I almost never do a thing for only ten minutes but if I think I must do 30 minutes I balk at starting thinking of all the ways I'm likely to get interrupted or not fulfill my expectations in some unexpected way.  I realized this has to do with not being able to visualize exactly what is expected.  But I know what it means to 'read' and 'take notes'  I've been doing it with other people's stories every day for weeks and weeks.  For most of a year in fact.
• Weekly Artist Date (ala Julia Cameron)  This is about doing something to recharge your creative battery.  I'll go into more detail in one of the check-ins.  A big YES  More 24/7 cams discovered.  Also screensaver vids of color or image in motion.  Some with music excellent for background ambience for writing.  There was also a walk to the gazebo and back with my caregiver on Friday during which I met two of my neighbors.  Finally.  After two years.  And my adjustment of Cameron's Artist Date rules makes that count for me.  But the BIG one happened Saturday while I was home alone.  I'm usually tied to my unit by fear of stepping more than three steps beyond reach of my front door without an escort.  But months of practice with my caregiver I finally found the courage to push my boundaries.  I walked out to the bench at the end of my front walk and sat in the sun crocheting for nearly an hour.  One of the ladies I met Friday stopped by for a chat.  That was huge.  I can't stress that enough.  Just about two months ago I was almost ready to try that and then on one of my escorted walks I took that fall that upended more than my body for the next several weeks.  My confidence took the biggest hit.
• A minimum of 5 minutes of physical activity daily.  Either a walk outside with my caregiver or a session on my mini-tramp, or pacing the floor between front and back door. YES (may need to look at upping the expectation soon.  this is getting too easy.)  
• I want to reengage with my blog so: Two One blog post per week besides the two check-ins. Either about encountering other people's stories via print, video or audio which can include formal reviews or about a current fiber art WIP or about one of my personal challenges: widowhood, independent living with visual impairment and autism and issues related to health and aging among them.  Not yet.  Note: I've adjusted my expectations here for the duration of the round.  I removed the theme of personal challenge from the options as it turns out that has been the theme of my check-in posts and those take a lot out of me and a third one would be overloading my readers as well as me.  

Read more...

Sunday Serenity - Crocheting Lacy Baby Blankets

Round Lace Baby Blankets for Twin Girls

It's hard to top a 24 hour read-a-thon but a day of crocheting comes close. Plus I can still read with audio books if I choose. Tho I might catch up on pods instead.

Pictured above is a set of baby blankets for twins made in the round. As usual I'm not working off a pattern but sculpting the vision in my head. I guess I didn't realize how similar to Victorian Doilies they would look. Yet I'm still liking. But then I'm weird. I'm not the one who needs to like them.

I'm using a lace weight bamboo yarn. The thread is smaller than size 10 cotton crochet thread by at least half. They each have a solid circle about the size of a dinner plate surrounded with a lacy stitch. The one on the left is done with a center using double crochet stitched between the stems with a stacked V stitch between single chains for the lacy surround. The one on the right is done with straight up double crochet as the solid center with three chain loops and single crochet for the lace.

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Sunday Serenity - More Story Joy

 

My DVD Shelves

The read-a-thon was supposed to end at 5am for me but I read on until 7:30 trying to finish that novel I spent more than twelve hours with during the thon.  I woke up after only four hours of sleep and after coffee picked up the book again--and fell asleep over it waking at 9pm after another 4 hours of sleep.  I finally finished it around 10:20 PM.  

That story is going to haunt me for many more years to come as it had haunted me since the first time I read it in the early 90s.  It was a miracle finding it again as it had gone out of print and I had lost my reading records and could not remember the title or author only snippets of plot and flickers of scenes and the fact it was about rescuing books for the future after a civilization ending event.  I've about talked myself into believing I need to post a review but meanwhile my thoughts on M K Wren's A Gift Upon the Shore as I read yesterday are part of yesterday's thon post.

But for right now I'm going to finally give myself the reward I promised myself for the dedication to writing my story for Camp NaNo thru April and the dedication to reading stories for the thon all day yesterday.  I'm going to watch DVD sitcoms until I fall asleep again.

My DVD Player

There's my DVE player and the little box of DVD taken from their cases.  I call it my line-up.  There 9 of them.  Eight sitcoms and The Twilight Zone. I watch on average one to four episodes per day, working my way through the line-up around six times until all episodes are watched and then switch out for the next-up disc in each series. Very occassionaly and usually because I'm sick, I'll watch through the entire line-up in a single day.

It takes me ten to fourteen days to work through the pile.  As one series finishes I add a new series into the mix.  That happened several times since Christmas but as it sits now it will be months before another series finishes.

The line up: 

• Twilight Zone
• MASH
• Gomer Pyle
• Green Acres
• Mork and Mindy
• Laverne and Shirly
• I Love Lucy
• Mary Tyler Moore
• All in the Family

The common theme: series from my youth that I was discouraged or forbidden to watch at the time.  

Series I finished since I began this foray into comedy and closing cultural gaps:

• Bewitched
• I Dream of Jeanie
• Keeping Up Appearances
• Petticoat Junction

Series waiting in the wings:

• The Big Bang Theory
• Seinfeld
• Beverly Hillbillies
• Third Rock From the Sun

That's just the comedies.  I leave the Dramas, Sci-fi/fantasy and such for another post and the movies and musicals from recent to classical I've just started collecting to yet another.

I used to favor the dramas and sci/fant--the hour long episodes and the movies.  But during the early acute phase of my grieving process after loosing Ed I was watching a MASH episode because it was something we used to do together and he had introduced me to the series after we married.  As I watched one episode I was surprised by laughter in spite of the fresh grief.  

Discussing it with my counselor she assured me it was normal and nothing to be ashamed of and encouraged me to continue exposing myself to the possibility of laughter so that I would not forget that it too was part of life.  It was the most valuable advice I got about how to endure and process grief.  And it became almost like a mission for me to explore these kinds of stories.  It has been an interesting experience and I hope to muse on it some more in future posts

But next up tonight: MTM and All in the Family.  And if I'm still awake the line-up starts over with the Twilight Zone...

Read more...

Sunday Serenity: Wallowing in Gratitude

 

My Happy Place Became My Wallowing Place

After encountering some grief grenades last week followed up by heat whammies and exacerbated by incipient blisters across the bottoms of both feet forcing me to stay off them for several days, I've spent the last ten or more days in a wallow.  With the lights out and the windows and blinds shut tight to lessen the heat impact, it would still top 90 degrees by late afternoon with the fan on high.  I could never open up the windows until after sundown and most nights the air outside did not start to feel cooler than the air inside until midnight.  So after several weeks of go, go, go related to the move, I was suddenly forced to put the brakes on and wait for the red light to change.

The books I read for the read-a-thon last weekend provided the grief grenades and without the distraction of the physical labor of the moving tasks, I had to sit with the feelings in the dark.  Those feelings started to taint the feelings of joy the move and been generating with the sadness of missing Ed and not being able to share my joy with him.

I tried and for the most part succeeded in distracting myself from the grief for periods of time with videos, video games, or ebooks and audio books on devices that did not generate heat. Or even sleeping.  But several times at seemingly random intervals when I was completely entranced by what I was doing--or even asleep--I would be slammed by a sudden vivid memory that transported me into a 3D movie with soundtrack of a moment in time that took place in Ed's apartment during one of our sleepovers. 

This happened at least half a dozen times before I realized the train was always blowing its whistle and rumbling past as it often did when I spent time at Ed's whose apartment was just a few blocks from where I now live.  

After I figured out the trigger, the memories continued to be delivered by the train's passing but they started feeling like gifts rather than gut punches.  They were all from the time before things fell apart again, during the height of the hope in late 2019 and early 2020 when he had been sober for months.  I realized I had been burying those memories as if what had happened later had invalidated them and thus they generated feelings of shame in myself for 'falling for false hope' yet again.

I've decided that is the wrong attitude because it has me second guessing hope on principle and hope is a necessary component of serenity, faith and joy.  And once my thoughts started down this path I eventually stepped into gratitude and regained a healthier perspective on several of the dark thoughts I'd been wallowing in. 

Like:

The Shelves I Built with my Britanica Great Books Set in Place

So what if 95% of my books are still over at Mom's.  I built those shelves and they are still here and my favorite set of books is showing off their glittery spines.  

Don't look at what isn't there yet but rather at what is.

The Blue Shelf Unit I Built Displaying My Crafts

So what if the beautiful blue shelf unit I built out of the parts of two units and then spent hours lovingly organizing, is now going to have to be broken down into two smaller units to make room for the couch being delivered later this week.  

The couch is necessary and beautiful too and once I have it I won't have to sleep on the floor anymore.

My Desk with a Mr. Roger's Neighborhood View

So what if my desk is still jerry--rigged with boards across cardboard boxes.  It has the beautiful and serene view I've always dreamed of having for my writing station.

So what if I have to keep the blinds and window tight shut on hot days.  That is temporary.

Pantry Cupboard 1

So what if it is too hot to cook my favorite meals this week.  I have a full pantry, fridge and freezer because I have a caregiver that took me shopping and a sister who did a Cosco stock up for me and a community that provided food stamps and commodities.

Fridge and Freezer

So I have plenty of food available that doesn't need cooking....

Pantry Cupboard 2

...and plenty more available just waiting for the cooler days when anything is possible.

My Aqua Baking Pan Set

And meanwhile I have the toaster oven and microwave.  And four of the pans in my beautiful new bakeware set fit in the toaster oven for those nights it cools down enough well before midnight to wake up my ambitions along with my appetite.

So what if most of the work I put into making my wallow comfortable and functional for the duration of the heat and blistered feet will have to be undone or reworked.  It was not wasted effort as I had begun to bemoan but rather lessons in what works for a specific set of circumstances and proof that I can create cozy and functional spaces designed to see me safely through a specific episode.

I'm going to miss this cozy nest as it now exists but what happens next is not loss...just change. 

Read more...

Sunday Serenity - Wallowing - ROW80 & NaNoWriMo Goals

 

Ten Years In - 1989

Ten Years Out- 2009

I began the last round with the announcement that I'd just walked away from my 41 year marriage.  This round begins with the announcement that I will be a widow instead of a divorcee.  My last post relates how I got the news and a dream encounter with Ed that woke me right in the window of time the coroner estimates time of death.  Enough to give one goosebumps.

I rejoined ROW80 last round after a several year hiatus.  I found as expected that it was invaluable in my efforts to process the grief over loosing hope in the viability of my marriage and essentially the loss of the companionship of my best friend.  One might think the last four months of grieving was a head start on what I'm faced with now but I'm not so sure.  Tho the mental and emotional sorting out I accomplished in that time may contribute to the sorting out going forward, I'm not feeling one whit better prepared for this blow just because I'd already begun the work of disconnecting myself emotionally from him to protect myself from the repercussions of his unacknowledged alcoholism.

For one thing it was a reluctant choice.  I drug myself kicking and screaming internally into that choice.  And in order to accomplish the goal I had to harden my heart some just to cope with my days.  I had to break my addiction of thinking/fretting about him 24/7 so I practiced distracting myself with projects, chores, reading, writing, crocheting, sorting and organizing stuff and binge-watching videos and social networking.  This worked for the waking hours but left me vulnerable in the moments I lay down to sleep and first woke each day.  So I implemented the practice of a meditation in which I held him in Light and Love during those times.

It seemed to be working too.  Right up until a week ago Friday morning when I woke from the dream I related in this post: In Memorium: Go Forth Ed and Be in Peace.  That shook me so deep it rocked me right back into nearly constant thought of him no matter what I tried to distract myself with.  But it was different than before.  There was none of the fretting and anxiety provoked nightmare scenarios playing out in my thoughts.  Instead I had been catapulted into the past and reliving memories of the early years.  The time when our happiness shed a light so bright it kept the looming shadows at bay until they gathered enough strength to overwhelm us.

I was frustrated with myself for loosing my grip on 'the plan' to learn to recreate my life without Ed in it.  Something I'd never tried to imagine since 1977.  I wondered if the dream Friday morning had been triggered by the extra time I spent thinking about him and composing a email in my mind that I never wrote to wish him happy birthday.  Or the Happy Birthday I dropped in fb messenger and checked several times over the rest of that day to see if he'd seen it.  He never did.  Unless he spotted it in notifications without opening chat. 

Then just after 2pm last Monday I got the news.  And everything has devolved since then.  It was slow at first.  The crying jags were brief and not too frequent.  My distraction tactics seemed to work to bring it under control.  Except at bedtime.  I didn't sleep Monday night as every attempt to pass the hypnogogic stage bounced me back out. I could not afford to let sleep deprivation get an inroad on my life again so I resorted to the crutch of Trazadone Tuesday night.  

But wary of getting addicted again I skipped it Wednesday night and again did not sleep so I took it again Thursday.  I haven't taken it all weekend because Mom has resumed her weekend visits to my brother's so I gave myself permission to wallow.  To allow myself to feel the feelings and remember the memories and spend time gazing at pictures and processing my new reality and practice holding him in Light and Love.

It was the realization of the finality that contributed to how hard this hit me. It was the final blow to the secret hope I'd been harboring even from myself.  I hadn't yet begun to believe it was really over.  And now it didn't matter whether I believed it or not.

I think in the long run it is better than repressing it all and putting on a front.  But I can't afford all these sudden crying jags and long silent weeping spells and spotty sleep while Mom is home and she is due any moment.  She'll be heading straight to bed though and I plan to be ready for bed soon after that and I will take the Trazadone. 

I came very close to passing on prepping this post but I was afraid it would lead to passing on ROW80 altogether.  I actually felt myself teetering that way in my thoughts.  A kind of 'what's the point' fatalism.  I decided that risk was too high, that I needed the symbolic power of proceeding to set my feet back on the path that gives my life meaning.  That is the only thing that will preserve the progress I've made over the past year.

Backstory highlights and high and low notes:

2013 Piles of Painted Echoes

2013 Our Broken Valentine

2013 Together We Are Amazing

2015 My Heart is the Lake of Fire

2020 Who Am I Without You?

2020 Sunday Serenity - Sorting My Stuff

2020 Of Truth and Words and Rude Epiphanies.

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 4 2020

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

NaNoWriMo 2020

2020 Round 4 ROW80 and NaNo goals:

Sleep 7.5 hours Daily Minimum --  This used to be a major challenge for me but I've got it managed since mid March.  Or at least I had until this past week.  Grief has taken a toll.

Move/Breathe/Meditate 15 min Daily minimum  -- proven to provide a high yield return on investment as whenever I've practiced any of them it stimulates creativity, memory, and insight; lowers anxiety, and increases energy, stamina and a positive mood.

Storydreaming with note-taking tools at hand. 15 min Daily MInimum -- This is a technique I learned from Robert Olen Butler in the book From Where You Dream.

Read Fiction 30 min Daily Average

Read/Study Craft 15 min Daily Average 

Social network activities 30 min Daily Minimum (writing Joystory posts doesn't count only social reaching out like reading/commenting on other blogs, guest posts and posting to fb, twitter, pinterest etc) -- something I've a strong resistance to.  The autism diagnosis helps explain this but doesn't let me off the hook.  If anything it makes it more important.  Plus this is preparing the ground for future promotion once I'm ready to publish

30 min Daily minimum engagement with a scavenger hunt though all my creative writing files including Joystory looking for better than shitty first draft scenes, sections, stories, poems and essays and edit, organize and make hard copies. --  It's been years since I've made clean copies of manuscripts in my portfolios and for most of the noveling writing challenges I've never printed hardcopy.  That is a lot of words to mine as between 2004 and 2015 I participated in more than one such challenge per year-- Nanowrimo, Junowrimo, Camp Nano, ROW80 and Sweating for Sven.among them.  That is a lot of novella length WIP just gathering electron dust.  A conservative estimate is over 20.  I've been wondering for sometime now if the neglect of these stories after the challenges were over is at least partly responsible for the storyworld's elusiveness over the last several years.  I'm hoping that this exercise in honoring their existence will cure my character's recent shyness.

To prep for self-pub: Gather all my poems into a single Scrivener file. Minimum one poem per day until all accounted for.  Adding new ones encouraged.  This will take most of the Round as there are over 80. See Poems by Joy Renee Portal.  Another exercise in honoring old work to encourage new work.

Via the above mentioned Scavenger hunt: Collect everything resembling personal essay into a Scrivener file.  Either this will be added to the self-pup poetry ebook or will become the second ebook.  Or a combo of those options.

Personal Journaling 20 min or 500 words whichever comes first Daily Minimum -- This is the heart of the writing challenge.  The preceding provides the structure and the nutrients that nurtures and honors the work which I've learned over time must exist to ensure that this becomes more than just dabbling.

NaNo Novel 1666 words per day on average. Am going to rebel a bit and bring back a previous NaNo WIP and rework it.  It is fitting because it's premise was rooted in the dynamics of my own marriage. I'm hoping this can be an exercise in grief processing. It's title is The Storyteller's Spouse and it was an exercise in 'unreliable narrator'.  The wife in my story is a YA novelist and the husband is a life-of-the-party natural born storyteller aka raconteur aka tall-tale-teller. I think the reason I got discouraged with the effort after that NaNo ended was because I had tried to lay all the unreliableness at the feet of the husband not realizing how much the wife's denial about the extent to which his storytelling was not confined to social gatherings put her squarely in the same camp. Older and wiser now.

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