A few Measly Steps a Day

As regular viewers of This Tangle Called My Life know, I'm in an intense battle with the mayor of my fair city (with my client). Yesterday its rumored that the mayor lied in a press conference and said she had an agreement with us on her terms. I'll spare the details but there's no agreement, as in, a document signed by her and us.

Along the way in back office meetings with city staff, a particular item was initially "on the table" then at our insistence withdrawn. Near the end of the talks I I asked about it to make sure I was going forward with that agreement in place. The mayor's rep said to my face, "X was never part of this discussion." I suspected he was lying, and now she shows he was.

I'm angry at him for lying in my face.

Now a curious thing sometimes happens. I express this anger congruently with tone and posture, and people I'm talking take up what? Support me? Or implicitly support this absent third person by tossing up theories about why he lied. I've learned to say, "you're defending a liar? When did you become his spokesperson? Leave him to defend himself." But this conversation distracts from the main work and leaves me doubtful of the values of the person defending a liar.

Clearly there's a slippery preference being tested: supporting me in my moral outrage is LESS important than dulling my anger.

I'll be damned. I don't want his lying explained, it want the truth from him. As I do everyone. My default is everyone speaks the truth. What comes for anyone's mouth is 100% their responsibility. Should their boss ask them to lie, they have their choice to make. He made his.

Here's the thing. My Anger is my Shield—my early warning system. Anytime I have anything to do with the liar an inner sentry whispers "this man lies." Now if I take this sentry off duty and whisper instead, "have compassion. He grew up in a den of liars. Why, his mammy and pappy were the best liars in three counties. It's not his responsibility what he says and does" I'm left Wide Open to More Lies. This is never good for me because when will the abuse end and what will they steal or destroy of mine in the process?

So this morning I resolved to say very calmly, "hm, he lied to me. Looking me in the eye. How about that?" And leave out my Anger-Shield-Sentry because it's enough I know at least one person in the world he will take advantage of if I don't take it personal—me.

Revu2

I hate being lied to. I consider it a form of disrespect. And I hate being angry. When I'm angry, I have a hard time letting go. I'm sorry you're dealing with all that, but it looks like you're dealing with it in the best possible way. And it looks as if lying is becoming an accepted way of handling problems. The trouble is, once someone has been found out to be a liar, everything he/she says after that is questionable. Good vibes to you, Revu2. (That rhymes.)

I successfully set up a contest on Facebook. Sort of. I need to add some details, and I can't find how to edit the post. Also, I added a link to my blog but I can't get into my blog to write comments. At least I can view the blog, so I can copy and paste all the things I posted there before.

My dislike/hatred of new technology makes me think. When I entered college, I was afraid that I'd learn everything there was to learn, and there'd be no more new things learn. After a couple of weeks in college, I decided there wasn't much danger of that. Now, many years later, I don't want to learn new things. I just want to be able to hand on to what I do know. Where is that young thing with all that curiosity, that thirst for knowledge. I'm the same person. What happened? I suspect the answer is that I always did well in school. If something was difficult, I just worked at it and tried harder until I got it. But real life is harder than school - for me at least. Wrong answers seem to abound. I am trying to embrace new technology - trying is the operative word - and it's frustrating. I have to tell myself that sometimes I do succeed. But I am afraid of the failures, especially the failures involving hacking. And there are mistakes with really bad consequences.

So for today, my steps are - resolve blog issue - either start a new blog or get on my old blog.
get into the cover part of Kindle and make sure I know exactly what KDP needs for it's photographs.

I did start working on yesterday's steps, but I didn't get very far. I wish I had an in=person person guiding my steps.

Just got word that we've secured another grant I wrote! This time for $450,000 to establish to "evidence-based" standards a dance program keeps seniors moving, supple, and standing (not falling). Till Dec 2023.

WooHoo! No sooner had I finished my celebratory Whoop than Dear Partner reminded me of all the hassles ahead dealing with temperamental artistic personalities. Then I remember a bumper-sticker sentiment from my early adult times: if you don't have hassles you don't have a job.

But wait—more success mounting up: our front siding on the condo is 99% finished and the fresh roof is 100% done. Yet to do the walk around to sign off on the work and kick in the warranty period of one year, add new lights, and paint the deck walls with water resistant paint. In due time.

Back around March I began to look into possibly changing our insurance company for the whole building. We currently pay State Farm $13,800, with earthquake (EQ) coverage included—along with a whopping $25K deductible! SF regularly presented how lucky we were because very few carriers offered EQ coverage. I pointed out to my fellow owners that we should check that out at SF has two motives when they talk with us: answer our factual questions and prevent us from dating other carriers. Nobody tells me who to date!

Even the commercial insurance staff person at the insurance commissioner's office thought our deal was just fine and that it would nearly impossible to do better. Well, it wasn't easy, but when is something worth doing super easy? Found a carrier that offers comparable coverage, with EQ with a 5% deductible, and just $10K for all else. More? Same? No, No. Less! around $2,500 less.

So, I'm feeling that steady work sometimes delivers.
Enjoy the weekend, R

Steady work sometimes delivers. Yay, R, I remember many a frustrated post about the siding. So congrats. And congrats for the grant and insurance. I know how hard you worked. I'm glad for your success.

Me - all I can say is I'm at the steady work stage. And sometimes it's not so steady. I might have some interesting posts in about a week (I hope.) For now I just need to remember "steady work sometimes delivers. If I can just keep working steadily, and if nothing bad happens . . .

okay, to the page. Actually, I have a couple of chores to do first. Then, to the page.

A few days ago, I read sixty pages without finding a single error. And today I read fifty pages - different pages without a single mistake. Now in between the two days, I did find errors, but, for me, this is huge. Steady work sometimes delivers. Much more steady work to do. "Miles to go before I sleep. Another good thing - Camp Nanowrimo starts in a few days, and I always get a lot of work done at virtual camp.

Happy stepping

Stepping back in. Delightful, steady goes the editing.

I applied and got accepted to present at the annual Design in Public Festival this August. I'm guessing I've gone to seven of the past 9 festivals. Run by the local architecture chapter. Now I have to settle on my final text and come up with an image. Got ideas.

Steady as we go,

R

That's fantastic. Wishing you a great presentation.

This pales in comparison to what you're doing, R, but I'm going to upload my novel to find out how many pages it is to calculate the width of the spine so that I can give info to the people in the contest who need to know the specifications for the photo for the cover.

Are hugs like "likes" on Facebook? An encouragement to the person who posted. Or does it mean anything else?

Dunno myself. Most times it seems they work like sympathy or support icons.

Had a tooth pulled by complex, expensive surgery today. According to the docs it was to the best. According to me, it was costly, painful (not by much) and groggy-minded. That was the entire todo list for today. The rest, some reading and catching up, is bonus.
r

Hi World of PsychCentral,

This thread migrated from Barbara Sher's forums before she closed that site. A few months after that she died. The Mother of Modern Coaching, more than anyone else she nudged many fench-sitting wannabee creatives of all varieties into action. RIP Barbara, you won your long rest the hard way.

I like to mark the start of a new month as a month is a decent cadence for many. A week, day, or hour may work better for you.

Revu2

THREE GOALS
- Drink 100 ounces water
- Do 3 gratitude + 3 encouragement journal entries
- Do deep breathing + stretching pre-bed

Hi, Noexcuses2020, Please keep coming back. Having us cheer you on really does help.

I'm doing something that - for me - is really hard . I wish SquarePegGuy was around because this involves photography. And it's nowhere near as challenging as what you're facing, Revu2, but it's hard for me. I'm trying to host a photography contest on Facebook. - coral reef photos. In order to do that, I need to know what to tell the contestants. So I need to know what KDP needs for the photo, so I'm trying Canva.com to try to get a photo that will work for KDP. This is all convoluted, since the best layout for KDP doesn't include the title and name of the author on the front cover. ????? That means I have to add words to the photo. But I can't do it in word, because word docs have poor resolution, so I have to add words to a JPG, hence trying Canva. This ain't going to be easy. I'm glad that I wrestled with photography when I wrote The Molly Chronicles, because I did learn some things that are helpful for this. I tried using Photoshop once, but couldn't figure out enough of it to be useful.

I hope this isn't an exercise in frustration. A good chunk of yesterday was spent spouting cuss words. I'm really going to have to get a handle on that habit. The baby next door doesn't need to hear #$%@.

Happy stepping along, everyone.

I had good intentions, but did not meet my three goals. It’s okay, that’s why I’m now in this forum. I’m trying to create these three new habits. I can do this!

Yes, you can, Noexcuses2020,

By the way, 100 oz of water sounds like an awful lot! If you did more than you would have done otherwise, you are ahead of the game because you challenged yourself.

Me - I did figure out how to add words to a JPG in canva. So that's a step closer to my goal. The next step is to try to use what I made in KDP's cover creator. At the moment, I can't get into cover creator. I got an email asking me if I'd changed anything in KDP, so I probably can't get into it because they think I'm a hacker. I procrastinated all morning, and now I will try to get into cover creator and use the photo with the words I added. If I can do that, I'm ready to host my contest. For me this is all very challenging and frustrating. Okay, here goes.

It's working! I'm almost done and ready to post the contest. I just want to take my time and make sure I don't have any mistakes.

Well, the post is on Facebook, so that's good. The bad news - I can't find my own timeline. The contest is on Molly's page. (Molly was my dog.) I'll try to untangle the mess tomorrow. If you haven't figured out, I'm not very adept at social media.

Hi Crew. Noexcuses2020, luv that handle! Welcome in. This stuff is harder than it ever seems.
Delightful, delighted that you figured out how to get at least the contest stuff posted. Somewhere in Facebook land is your timeline. Ask Mark Z.
My client is having another Big Meeting with the Mayor's staff tomorrow to review our deadlock.

Meanwhile, I noticed one tire was low today. There's been a lot of construction about my place so I want to take it to Discount Tire for a complete check-up. Hoped to do that today, but they were booked. Tomorrow after my other meeting.
That'll cover 24 hours for me.
R