A few Measly Steps a Day

I'm feeling really sad today about my procrastination. I know everyone deals with it, but my procrastination affects my life in really huge ways. I don't feel any way to approach it today.

Today's goals:

• clean window for later painting (muck out, vacuum, wipe clean).
• Vacuum a bit around apartment.
• walk with a friend
• trim off some email files

About that last one, I had a whole folder of maybe 1000 email messages I had filtered out of my inbox. All were pre-pandemic. Trashed.

Letting myself breathe and rest, knowing this too will pass.

Revu2

HI, everyone,

I'm so glad to see all of your posts.
Most of the time, I don't really mind staying at home. I'm surprised. I thought, I'd get depressed not seeing my friends. But today, I got really squirrelly. I took off in my car, just for an attitude adjustment. Said "hi" To my auto repair friend (from the car - I didn't get out. And now I'll get a little bit of work done on my novel, and then maybe clean up a bit of my garden.

I figured out how to do the fire pit. It's a ring of attractive rocks, and there's a place in the middle for the ugly but safe and legal metal container which I can hide in the wisterias when I'm not using it. I wish I could have someone come over.

Happy stepping, everyone

Unaluna, I love your log on.

Scout2, did it feel strange to be posting here instead of Barbara's Boards? I'm glad you made it. I know it's really not much different here from the Boards, but it took me a bit to get used to it.

Getting threatening emails really jolted me. It took a couple of days to recover. Funny - I used to be so calm. Nothing bothered me. I could do almost anything. I couldn't understand how people got so nervous about little things. Now I understand. My mind knows there's nothing to worry about, but I wish someone would tell that to my nervous system.

I do have some steps for today.

1. Finish my mini-story for my writers' group.

2. Work on my fire pit before it gets too hot.

3. edit.

See you all later.

All steps completed.

So slight a line, all steps completed. Like Cheers for that!

Today I ticked off how much I've managed since about December 2017. Back then I was in the middle of a project that eventually would test my skills about as much as my patience. The recladding of my condo was mired in complexity that later would be shredded by the lack of involvement of owners and had to be rebuilt fresh; I didn't know how I might continue to consult to supplement my retirement savings, and I wasn't playing nearly enough bridge.

I eventually wrote up a report of that project that the client never released; the residing is in it's 4th week of a 6 week project to be followed by redoing our roof; for my client I've written two grants—one has already been awarded and the other is under review—that will keep me busy till 2023; and with a goal of playing bridge 9 times in 2020 I got in 10 games before the parks department shut everything down.

So, what now? Having finished my will in 2019, I'll work on my health care directive. Mine is complicated. I suspect an Indiegogo campaign of fraud and so will be writing pieces, blogs, and letters to get my money back or the thieves brought to trial so we can get the facts out of them.

All of that will keep me busy till about Thursday next, then what?
Revu2

Revu2 I remember the siding saga. It was a long haul. Congratulations.

Me - I did a couple of minutes of editing and a lot of procrastinating.

The path leading from the street to my front door was seriously overgrown with ivy. I had a great gardener take care of it the last time, but I couldn't get hold of him, and it needed trimming. I used to be able to clean up the whole front of the house in an afternoon. Today, I got the path cleared - not completely but well enough that the poor mailman wasn't risking his neck to deliver my mail. And that was it. You'd think I ran a marathon. I was exhausted.

I'll try to get a couple more minutes of editing in tonight, and then I'll goof off shamelessly.

Hi steppers. Thanks for the congrats.

Getting to the Advance Directive (A D) took a bit of search. As in, where is my more recent draft? I couldn't find it on two computers, so resorted to my back-up disk and it was there. I think I last worked on it on a file on a stick drive. In 2008! Which is actually good news as the last printed draft before that I found was from 2004.

A few of the references suffered "link rot," meaning they are no longer live. For one I found the replacement site, for the other, perhaps the most interesting one, I found several medical journal articles but just a few measly links on archive.today that didn't say much. So I took the reference out.

Reading over my instructions to my Care Team teared me up. Essentially, I say if I am in a coma contact this set of experts & try 4 times to establish communication. Then, "I accept the consequences of what happens if the body that once was me should not respond that fourth and final time."

Curtains, kiddo!
Revu2

Today:

1. two conference calls
2. a recording to get transcribed
3. posting or getting as close as I can to posting something on linkedin

This linkedin piece is interesting. I am the harmed party, defrauded $129 in a crowdfunding scheme that raised $2.7 million dollars. Yet, a few of the voices in my head caution me, "don't do this, people will call you a fool and laugh at you."

Isn't that something? Someone tricks over 20,000 thousand people into sending them money for a product they have no intention of making, but it's the 20,000 that a few bullies will attack. Well, I guess the scammers are sliding bullies their cut to keep the discerning at bay.
Revu2

Kudos for standing up for what you justice. And on finishing your advanced directive. (It made me feel a bit weepy, and I've never met you in person. I have day dreams about getting published and going on book tours, and visiting all the people I know who don't live near me.)

But I digress.

My steps for today - an online doctor's appointment, and some editing.

Got my linkedin piece done. Disabled the comments. R

I'm starting to get a bit squirrel ish from not being around my in-person friends for so long. I have a zoom group in a couple of hours. I'm going to brave zoom again. If all they can do is send emails to me with attachments that shouldn't be opened, I'm okay. Plus I think hosting the meeting was what triggered the threats.

Meanwhile - the doctor I talked to deals with sleeping disorders. I haven't slept well in years. So the thought of a lot of good nights has me hopeful.

Otherwise - same o same o.

Happy stepping along.

On Monday felt, oh, this is a new decisive mood.
On Tuesday, I put calling dental surgeon on my list.
On Wednesday, I looked over my biorhythms to find my strongest days.
On Thursday, my companion and I mapped out open times.
On Friday, I made the appointment.

Ta Done! x 5.
Yuck list stuff, as I'm not going gentle under the knife.
Revu2

Hello folks migrating from Barbara Sher's forums. I had a nice personal message of welcome from DocJohn, the site's founder. He happened to know about archive.org that works to preserve much of the internet. He shared the link for their record of the whole Barbara Sher site in May 2019.


BarbaraSher.com • Index page That's a snapshot of the content from May 2019.


Not that bad, huh?

Revu2

I got an sad email from Barbara Sher's friends. In case you didn't already know, she passed away. She made a difference to so many people including me.

Barbara lived as she coached. She worked hard, helped many, lived well, and I hope died contented.

Revu2 or Lynx on her site.

I checked out the Barbara Sher link. A blast from the past - that's the best way to describe it. I was expecting a page, not a whole month.

So about me - I'm getting sucked into to the stay at home and do nothing mode. It feels okay, but I can tell it's not good for me. Tomorrow, I'll have a couple of errands to do.. usually, once I get outside, my energy goes up, and I can get things done.

Today, however, will be a garbage day. I did get some editing done, and a wee bit of gardening in. Maybe I'll do some more editing, or clean a room or write a letter or all of the above before I hunker down and watch TV.

I took a few steps backwards with my editing. I found a place on the Internet that said you almost never put a comma after "and" So I used "find and replace" to remove any commas that came after "and" or "but". In case you're not bored with punctuation, (I am.) the commas in question came when a clause followed the "and" and "but" - as in - And, in spite of my better judgement, I removed the commas. Took another look at the grammar rules, and, sure enough, the commas belonged in the sentence., so I've spent the last few days, adding all the commas back in. (Which takes a lot longer than removing them.)

Hope I'll be more productive tomorrow.

Delightful, you're grappling with the Oxford comma. And also the oft quoted line that a writer worked hard all day. Spent the morning putting in a comma, and the afternoon taking it out.

Here's the Comma Queen on the topic: YouTube

Revu2

I got everything done on yesterday's list. The housekeeping is sketchy, and not good enough for company, but it's good enough for me. Okay, back to editing. I should be done with the comma snafu by the end of the day.

Everyone, good wishes to you.

Today's steps: one call and two online conference calls; check out car battery (light came on) + window washer fluid levels; & process turkey tail mushrooms we just picked. Processing is boiling down for an hour then adding 95% alcohol vodka in a jar with a tight lid. The last part is letting it sit for 5 weeks, shaking once a day.

Plus, take a sign in for remaking to Fedex.

Much todo, bye.