A few Measly Steps a Day

Dealing with life, a step at a time. D, breathe and tell each issue to "take a number."

I'm whelmed with writing a grant. Seems spring is the grant writing season. Third one in 3 springs. New client, complex application, and always the complexities of building a clear enough image in the reviewers' minds that they award the grant.

Feeling drained from "carrying it around" most of the time and actually working on task about 3 hours a day. Plus, of course, previously planned installation of the new patio sliding door with screen. Cleared and washed the deck. Moved my standing desk. Also, up at 7:15 tomorrow morning to get ready to let them in.

I don't think my Dear Partner appreciates how hard my work is and how consumed by it I need to be to it well. Ideally I'd have an office away from anyone for a month and food left on my front door step.

Well, let's all just carry on,
Revu2

Yes, proofing is too dang hard!

I'm always amazed at the projects you do.

Me - I was going great guns, and then ran out of steam. So no I'm slugging along. Maybe tomorrow will be better. I'm managing to do a little bit every day. which is good. I'm even running out of steam posting here.

I really like your quotes, especially the first one which is oh so true!

Good dental news! (How often does that happen?) My bridge was loose, and dentist #1 tried to pull it off and recement it. Tried several times and couldn't do it. We talked a lot about implants (I can't afford them) plates, pulling teeth, partial plates, and other unhappy things costing a few thousand dollars. Dentist #1 tried to recement the bridge. It lasted about a week. Dentist #2 drilled a hole in the loose crown which held the bridge, sterilized the space inside, and packed it with cement. So far - looks good. Yes! (Cost - about $50.) Today was a low energy day. I'm trying to get a little writing in so the day won't be a total loss.

Hello World,
D, seems dentist #2 knows how to improvise better.

A bit irritable yesterday but a social gathering in person (!) outdoors in a park lifted my mood a lot. Under time and "amateur" pressures so know I'll need to watch my interactions through the week. No fixes, just endurance and attention.

Revu2

R, We need the social interaction, and we need to be outside more. No wonder your spirits lifted. I find I got used to sheltering, and now it feels normal. But it's really important for my mental health to get out and be with friends, so I'm bucking the temptation to be a couch potato (computer potato.) To that end, I'll make two phone calls after I finish this post, and then I'll go for a walk/jog. (consider it my steps for today.)
Happy gathering in person!

So great to get a Big Project done & Delivered. Ahead of schedule. Alas, over the budget the client had set aside in her thinking. Wrestled all day with thoughts of conceding part of my fees. Totaled my hours today and I'll bill all of it & see what she says.

Did order a few small things to cheer me up. Bot a small device about the size of a toaster that's a personal air conditioner. Evapolar brand. Saw it discounted on one of my feeds but their buying process proved too much. So then found it for even less, still new, on Poshmark. Scored it.

It's powered via USB cable, draws just 7.5 watts, and cools by blowing water through a filter. Filters run about $25 and they say refresh twice a year. First, don't need AC all year, Second, even when I do it's about 30 days total across the summer months. So, I'll see. My heat pump AC draws 15,000 watts for comparison, 2000 times more electricity.

The other was looking to solve something. I bought "popping" sorghum, that I can't seem to get to pop. Pivot, maybe I can grind it & blend it in with corn grits. So I had to crush them to the right size. Cuisinart and coffee bean grinders turn it into flour. And a bunch escape intact. Picking them out for another round is a pain. Along the way I bought a strainer from Daiso with the right grid size. Better, still a pain.

Whatever I got needed to be small and hand powered cuz I'm only grinding 1/8 of a cup each time. Salt or pepper grinders! Finally settled on one by PepperMate and got it today. A bit of precautionary cleaning before giving it a drive. Yes, the coarse grind does the trick.

Sometimes I think I must finish a project and buy stuff as a reward. But in another sense, I like buying mid-project because it's a distraction, yet concrete in that I end up with something in hand I can use when I do finish.

Revu2

Beautiful day in California.

A friend offered to help me set up a web site. A step for me - write a mission statement - what am I all about? An interesting question.

I'll goof off a bit more and then go do fun things in my garden.

Hi D, try this site for making a wild computer generated artist statement: 500 Letters - Generate your artist biography

Just used it to create a statement about a fantasy company for a training project. This is what it spewed out:

Pr!meme
Pr!meme (°2010, Austin, Texas, United States) is an artist who works in a variety of media. By parodying mass media by exaggerating certain formal aspects inherent to our contemporary society, Pr!meme makes works that can be seen as self-portraits. Sometimes they appear idiosyncratic and quirky, at other times, they seem typical by-products of American superabundance and marketing.
His artworks often refers to pop and mass culture. Using written and drawn symbols, a world where light-heartedness rules and where rules are undermined is created. With the use of appropriated materials which are borrowed from a day-to-day context, he touches various overlapping themes and strategies. Several reoccurring subject matter can be recognised, such as the relation with popular culture and media, working with repetition, provocation and the investigation of the process of expectations.
His works are saturated with obviousness, mental inertia, clichés and bad jokes. They question the coerciveness that is derived from the more profound meaning and the superficial aesthetic appearance of an image. By using popular themes such as sexuality, family structure and violence, he presents everyday objects as well as references to texts, painting and architecture. Pompous writings and Utopian constructivist designs are juxtaposed with trivial objects. Categories are subtly reversed.
He creates situations in which everyday objects are altered or detached from their natural function. By applying specific combinations and certain manipulations, different functions and/or contexts are created. Pr!meme currently lives and works in Global.

A buzzword generator, only much more sophisticated!

I might be coming to a good writing place. But the question, "Am I any good?" keeps popping up.

On an entirely different subject - I often bury kitchen scraps in the back yard and let them turn into compost. In one of these piles, tubers are growing, and the leaves of the plant look like those of a potato. The tuber looks like a Yukon Gold potato. So I pulled one up and cooked it. Question - What looks like a potato, has the texture of a turnip, and tastes like - nothing? I threw most of it away, but if I don't show up for awhile, you'll guess what happened.

Hi Support Forums, D—keep the toxic hotline near!

Rolling slowly into my next writing assignment, another grant proposal. This one a lot shorter, simpler, and flexible than the last. I like this trend.

Our Kitchen Aid freezer starter slowly warming up, so we went after 8 years of accumulated dust around the coils! Turned off the circuit and pull it away from the walls, opened the back plate and vacuumed in a very cramped space with coils out of reach for complete cleaning. It's now back on and we'll see how it freezes. Hope to dodge a visit by a tech, so the next day or two will tell.

Not much time or energy for more personal stuff. Oh, saw that Sprint is being killed off by T-Mobile and beginning to prepare for what that will mean for my flip phone pay-as-you-go-a-very-low-monthly-service. Virgin Mobile sold to Sprint, then VM/Sprint was no help transferring my active phone and account to their system, so moved to Tello. Seems Tello is challenged by this shift, so next might try US Mobile.

Funny, when I put my numbers in for my now dead phone into Tello's "use your own phone" page it showed up available. Sprint/VM/T-Mobile missed their chance. But I'm such a small market, they could care less, just like they're acting.

US Mobile seems to have the lowest rates, including pick your own plan for $2 for 100 minutes; $3 for 150 minutes. And choice of ATT or T-Mobile networks, to boot!
Revu2

Still alive. And I still say it looks like a potato.

I'm getting together in person with my book club and one of my writers' groups. And we're going to have a barbeque on the Sat. before Father's Day. It feels weird. Good, but weird. I'm so used to not doing anything, that acting normal feels abnormal.

Your friend.
Me.

Hi WWW,
D, enjoy the change.
Steps today: slowly get into this grant. Sorted through some papers and realize I'll have to reprint one of the other grants. Nothing's like flipping through paper when looking for a section of text. Or for making margin notes.

I'm going about it with a alter-tasking approach, do as much as feels right, when energy wains, shift and do something else. So far, put in half an hour and had a flash of text come to mind. Grabbed my USB recorder, and got it "laid down." Also along the way found several other docs that may prove helpful for speeding the work..
I have 3 questions (all multi-part), so will address 1 every 2 days. A good pace to get ready for a call with my client who is handling the budget and pacing questions.

Article: Forget Focus—Here’s When Task Switching Makes You More Productive

Some tips I caught:

1. Four hours max on the most intense daily goal. This is my limit, often I'm clocking out at about 3 hours.
2. Intentionally switching tasks is productive if each task gets our full attention.
3. Chip away at boring but essential stuff during switching times.

And making this note was my intentional switch for now.
Revu2

I think I've always switched tasks after about two or three hours. I never thought about it.

Today, I went to the magic all-you-can-eat Indian/Pakistani restaurant, and worked like crazy.

Wed, 6/9 - a bit behind the pace I thought I could hold, but nothing's doing. Fatigued. Know from laying down for a few minutes ... only to awaken 4 hours later.

Adding some sleep aid tinctures (valerian & St John's wort) to my last sips of water and hope to put down some quiet ZZZs and get back into this tomorrow with more vim.

Plus, spoke to a potential new client this morning. I'm pre-vetted by the county and will draw twice my customary rate, if approved.

Pending developments,
Revu2

I'm glad things are going well for you. I'm plugging away at the writing and ignoring the marketing. I'm heading for a part of the story where I'm vague about the plot line. Hopefully it will clear itself up as I approach the tricky part. I'm planning a back-yard party and barbeque on the Saturday before Father's Day. More steps.

Off the intensity of the past 5 weeks for a refreshing rest. Rained in today, so just read idly and napped.

Don't know, D, if you keep a dream log, but as you approach your murky section your dreaming mind might hint at ideas.

I know mine does. Most times I sweat the approaching hard stuff, but most times I get a bit of support during the night.
Happy writing,
Revu2

Hi world. 5 worrisome, wearying weeks wind down with the end of my edit/drafting duties on the latest grant. Curious how I will relax with Monday being a working day with several necessary things to do.

I'll just have to find out. There's a month of all sorts of things I've put off, some duty, some pleasure, some social.

Plus the piles of books I've collected from the free libraries. And books I've pulled from the public libraries.

Soon, I'm off to sleep, perchance to dream,
Revu2

HI, Rm

I've been curious about St. John's Wort. It's an antidepressant, I know. I thought it was a stimulant rather than a sleeping aid??????
I've been going out more. Eating at restaurants with friends and family. I had my first back-yard party last week. Fun. Remember the fixing the swing saga? My son-in-law and my grandkids sat on it swinging and laughing and eating. I'm so glad someone got some enjoyment out of it besides me. The big plus is that it forces me to clean up the house and garden. My housekeeping became very lax, I have to admit, during the COVID months.
As for my writing - it's moving along. Every so often it has to pause when I hit a snag in the plot line. I've decided to focus more on typos. In the past, I've left them to the end figuring five or six, or fifteen rounds of editing with take care of them. That doesn't seem to work, as I still find typos and eventually just say, "it's good enough." I'm going to try aiming for perfect in the beginning and see what happens.
I've joined "Hanging Out" again. I'm not getting as much out of it as I did the first time around, but it's still fun getting a snippet of Barbara Sher and a computer chat afterwards.
That's all for now. Happy Stepping.

Nanowrimo starts tomorrow. I'm excited. I'm writing some each day, and I like where i'm going with it. Hope the world out there does too.
Otherwise - I'm catching up on all the medical appointments I've been putting off last year. Yes, it does seem as if I should be all caught up with them right now. Not the case. In August, I'll start physical therapy for my stiff knee. I need a shingles vaccine and the bridge in my mouth came loose again. I think there's more, but I'm too lazy to get up and look for the doctor list. Also, I need to get someone to replace the line from my house to the main sewer, and I need to get my stove fixed.

On the fun side, I have a couple of parties coming up in my back yard. Also, the gym has reopened, but I'm leaving that for a bit later.
I'm easing up on my social life for the next two weeks. At my book club we were all happy to be back in action. We hugged and had a good time. Then my flight attendant friend told everyone that she didn't believe in taking the vaccine. Oy vey! So I'm wearing a mask everywhere, using sanitizer, cutting back on things like going to the gym and visiting my MIL (nursing home.) It's probably overkill. It's not as if she was sick. But geez! Flight attendant! it makes me think twice about taking a plane ride.

Hi D, and The World Wide Web. Parties be good. Our state (WA) just today lifted the last restrictions for vaxxed folk. Interesting to hear your friend the flt attendant won't vax. Some businesses are requiring it—get ready courts.

My city's Parks Dept is putting our weekly bridge game in the Japanese Gardens because our regular place will be overrun by kids. Further away for me, but manageable. Already plotting beautiful trips through the arboretum by bike to get there drenched in sweat.

I've fancied an ambition to interview someone, and now, with time opening up, I'm getting moving. Ordered 3 of his books today. Interesting, the Kindle price was 10% (marked down) of the used book price. Still, got the books because I have challenges getting digital books to bookmark and highlight in a way that feels intuitive.

Our freezer's motor is kaput. Called the repair folks and they may come mid-week, next week if all the parts and service hours align.

I'm a subject in a medical research study and they've had a lot of problems. Let that not be an omen for the freezer.

Revu2