A few Measly Steps a Day

hi, R.

Big vs Easy. IMHO - They're both valid. Without Easy, your brain explodes. Without Big, your brain shrinks. What I'm hearing - and I could be completely wrong - and if I'm wrong, please just ignore me - you want to take a break from Big and your conscience/mother/father/whatever is yelling at you.
What do you want to do????? Feel free to use me as a sounding board. That's what we've been doing for each other for the last ?????? years.

Me - I have a great name for my blog. What does my life mean.blogspot.com
That's what most of us struggle with so much of the time. That's what I'm asking myself now. When I wrote Temporary Address, I thought it was good. I really did. When I went back to it, I was embarrassed that other people had read it. And I'm wondering about the sequel Through Unfamiliar Waters. I'm not sure that it's any good either. I think that the writing is good, but I'm not sure about the plot.
A few days ago, I read a tweet from our pres, the fecal sample. And it shot my blood pressure up about twenty points. My husband and my friend wanted to talk politics and complain about the stool sample. As a result my blood pressure shot up another twenty points. And I haven't been able to sleep well for about a week because I'd wake up with the blood pounding in my ears.
What my writing is about: I'm writing stories. My characters are fictional. And in the stories, current events happen. The point of the stories is to expose the lies that are said, but in a way that brainwashed people can absorb. I think that's our only hope. They're not horrible people, and they're not completely wrong.
I believe that to do the best job running the USA, we need both sides working together conservative and liberal. We can take care of the environment and preserve the economy. Science and faith can coexist. And so on. And we need honesty. That's why I've been writing. And I think the conservative end has gone off the deep end and only wants to rule, destroy and win. In case it's not clear, I'm on the liberal end of the spectrum.
Last night, I slept well, and today I woke feeling peaceful.
So I guess I'll write for a little while longer. I know I won't make a big difference. I probably won't make a difference at all. But I won't make a difference playing solitaire either.

I hope this peace lasts me the rest of my life.

A weird post, but this is the only place I can think of to express it.

Good wishes to you.

Good blog name, D. What meaning we create is up to us. Doesn't quite fit well but there it is. I think when people who had drifted suddenly catch meaning due to a life event like escaping danger or the birth of their child, the shift in feeling startles them. I fear this happened to my dad who, at about 30 yr old finding himself a new father, left the drift style and focused on something to do professionally. Methinks he took parenting a bit too seriously.
I'm watching this Big Thinking in myself as outsized goals are a driver for the type of mania I used to suffer. Interestingly enough, I use the I Ching for life coaching. Of course, my most recent hexagram spoke to this question. I got Hex. 46: Ascend step by step. At one point it said this: This reminds me of the Dalia Lama before his crowning. As a boy, he once was outside with his tutors being asked questions about the Dharma. His mentors posed a question he didn't know the answer to. So he just sat. They asked another question. Didn't know that either. So they all sat in silence some more. It got cooler and someone asked if he'd like to move the session indoors. He said yes and they all moved inside. When they had reassembled he looked up at them and said, "That's the type of question I like."
R

Well, uhm. That was a distracting half-year since last post.
On the plus side, no one that I've talked with personally has fallen to the plague, though friends of friends have.
Anxiety symptoms that I hadn't had for years returned -- as load of (insert cartoon punctuation cursing here) exceeded what I had gotten up to handling.
Got help, both profesional (and web meeting rather than office visit), some med changes, -- and encouragement from partner and friends, and managed to do some constructive stuff.

Then worked on census. I had done the 2010 census in Los Angeles. Went out in one week of good weather, and then Extreme Heat and Extreme Smoke, and dragged through doing less than I had hoped -- but got some stuff done. I'm pleased that I made the effort, and I will also be very relieved when it's over. any day now.

Washington state was up to 99.7% complete earlier this week. So, while we have the bonus days of enumerating through October 5th, not much action likely locally. My body is collecting I.O.U.'s.

And the census director is energetically taking advantage of the bonss days. People are being flown in from around the country to the dozen states that have the lowest completion rate. These are almost entirely southern, republican ones. I expect the incoming horde of enumerators will especially work on the areas the local government would be most pleased to see undercounted.

My mother had her 90th birthday in August. Visting is out, but regular cheering phone calls are in.


My Nanowrimo efforts had crashed in November 2016, as had a lot of creative work. A daily goal for this month is to do the nanoprep for October so that if we have good enough news in November I'll be good to go. (And I should be cheered by that deliberately hopeful effort to be more constructive on the Must do stuff.) For today -- what's left of it -- my Nanoprep steps will be to reply to local group about virtual write-ins, and to read some of the Nanowrimo emails I've been not getting around to.

To be continued, aiming for tomorrow rather than next year.

Lyndon
Typingpractice on Nanowrimo

Hi, True,

It's good to hear from you. How do you like the new Nanowrimo format? I'm getting used to it now, but it threw me some curves at first.

R and I are still here and still stepping. R, I like your post. "A smaller sacrifice, or a more modest goal, or being less severe with yourself can work fine, as long as your dedication is honest." It's the only way we get anywhere.

Me. I'm impatient. My proofs didn't come yesterday. Note - these are the proofs of "Through Unfamiliar Waters," the book I've been working on forever. And I'm still working on rewriting the prequel. it's better, but I don't think it will ever be good. I'll have to settle for a more modest goal. I want so badly to say that "Through Unfamiliar Waters" is available on Amazon, and I can't because it isn't.
Onward to the rewrite. Good luck and good wishes to all of us.

Oh good, moderator approved my post. I'm new here! -- and haven't built up a track record of being reasonable.

I haven't dug into Nanowrimo enough to have a firm opinion. this should change.

Census turned into a "But wait! There's more!" Continuing through October 31, which will give a much better count. And be better for my finances. It should be less grueling going forward, as Washington works on the last 2 or 3 per thousand locations that didn't get enumerated yet -- and is doing more quality control stuff that it had had to triage.

I got a second visit to local Nanowrimo group's forum, and here. Doing things consistently two days in a row! Who knows where this will lead?

to be continued

Hello True, good to get a bit of catchup. I didn't get anything from the census this round. Is that concerning? Should I 'reach out' in any way to find out if there was a miss? In WA (Seattle) and would like to see that number 99.44 percent, like the soap brand.

BIG WIN WooHOO Alert: the siding project is done. At about 12:14 yesterday afternoon the stucco painters departed the building after applying the second coat of paint in our new color on the patios of 6 units. Began to look into redoing the siding in 2011. Offered to be part of a committee, and when people dropped off, carried on alone (with the help of my partner, the current board president). Not rehashing more, just noting its finished.

Relief. Celebration. Feeling the weight lift away. Will composed the Award and Obit ¶¶ in a day or two.

Sticking to sleeping late and letting the strains float away in dreamtime for the time being.

Yay, for the siding, R I remember the siding issue popping up many years ago.

Please add a period after "R" to the post above.

Impossible - difficult - done. No, I'm not done editing the prequel, but it's moving from impossible to difficult.
I had an epiphany, a breakthrough, courtesy of the conservative press. Allow me to explain. There's a trick the newspapers use to slant their reporting. A smiling person is someone you tend to trust. When we humans - and this is true of almost all humans - relax our faces, we look bad. Some of us look so bad, we're downright scary. Newspapers use this. They get a clip of someone with their face relaxed, and then they use that picture; and the readers automatically mistrust that person. Yesterday, they did that to Rachel Maddow. I can use this. It's the perfect transition between Johanna getting dumped and Johanna taking up journalism.
This solves three problems in one fell swoop.
To the page.

Yes, D., it's been a haul. Found Barbara Sher's Refuse to Choose! in a free little library today. I just picked up snippets on her site as people shared through the years.

With this lump of relatively quiet, it's time to look to what I'm not going to be doing.

I'm not ever going to sleep in one of those tube room hotels in Tokyo.
I'll never spend a night in a submarine.
I'll never sky dive.
I'll never raft down the Mississippi to get to New Orleans to try to free my wife from the slave traders.
I'll never carry Esmeralda into Notre Dame and yell "Sanctuary."
Heck, I'll probably never get to yell "Sanctuary" anywhere. Is anything considered a sacred protected place?
I will not move to Santa Cruz and take their six month organic farming course.
I'll likely never see my hometown again. No real reason to go back.
My best drug-using years are behind me, and I didn't abuse them at all well.
I'll never kiss Jane Fonda.

R.

I'm having a really depressing day. My book got published. That's great, right? No. The cover is boring, really bad. No one's going to want to buy it. I do have an answer to the cover problem. In a month, I'll design another cover, and issue a second edition. A friend designed the cover for free. So I feel like a heel for not liking the cover. And I'm not a professional designer.
I'm trying to publish an e-book edition, but so far it's not working.
My husband just bought a pig. He pays for the cost (we pay for the cost.) of the feed, then the pig is slaughtered and we get the meat. All 200 pounds of it. We pay to rent a freezer, and we keep paying for it until the meat is all eaten. There are two of us , and I don't eat much pork. Do you see a problem with this scheme?????? Tom has had heart problems and shouldn't eat pork, although this pork is probably healthier than what you get in the store.
Meanwhile, I read the prequel to the book I just published, and I hated it. The good part is that the writing has improved. But the prequel was already published, so there are people who read it and probably won't want to read anything else i've written. I'm working on upgrading the prequel, and it's going well, but, the hard part is that when I published it, I really thought it was good.
Then there's COVID and the fecal sample who calls itself a president.
Then there's the hacker who just said that my passwords have been compromised and I should check them. I almost fell for it.
I had to log in with a password into psych central and into Nanowrimo. I usually don't have to so that leaves me wondering if someone has my passwords or is trying to get my passwords.
I'll try to be happier next time.

P.S. kissing Jane Fonda, heavy drug use, freeing wives from slave traders, and sky diving are overrated.

Would you like some free pork?????

Alright. Breathe.
Every step holds its energetic opposite. I just read a piece that had a metaphor of every wind contains an inner wind blowing in the opposite direction. Some of that is just so much puffery, so let it blow by. This may well be the early signs of a big shift to a better gear. Let that be too.
About Mr Pig. Your husband loves a bargain more than logic. And you love your husband. He also likes reserves more than having to "hunt" too much.

Here's a blog from Vt on the costs of raising a pig.
Cost to Raise a Pig in Summer

• Purchase Price $100
• Feed Costs $115
• Slaughter $60
• Butchering $100
• Total Cost: $375

Finished hanging weight was approximately 150 pounds per pig, which means about $2.50 per pound hanging weight. And that only the summer raising, not the overwintering costs or costs of a freezer to store the meet.

Locally, I get bacon for $4#, ham, sliced, for about $5, and various sausages from $4 to $6#. We have a small freezer. Hm, I think you might want to look around for a local place to donate.

Could be terrific fodder for a blog or two.

###

I have made my piece/peace with the pig.

I will eat about 15 pounds of pork in one year. Tom will eat about 50 pounds the first year, and 5 pounds the second. He will try to smoke the pork for ham and bacon. He will make sausage. He will pay someone to smoke the pork belly for bacon. He will be sick of the whole thing by the end of the first year, but he'll keep the freezer rental because otherwise he'd have to throw away the meat. We will be paying on that freezer for about ten years or until he dies. If I die first, he'll keep paying for the freezer. We will buy a lot of coolers for transporting meat. The coolers will get filthy, and we'll buy a new cooler each time we need one.

On the bright side =

My daughter and her family would probably take a roast on two or three different occasions. If his cousins will take a roast or two that would whittle the amount of pork to a more manageable amount.
I would donate to a food bank, but it's tricky to donate perishable food.

p.s. About a year ago, I bought a thirteen pound pork roast. It provided three roasts and four steaks. Of that meat, I have two steaks left. I'm cooking one of the steaks now, and I'll still have one left in the freezer.

p.s. Total cost of the pork about $20 per pound.

Just read this DB story. First sentence: My wife want a dog.

Eventually, you can guess, she'll wear him down and they'll get a dog. At the pet shop the breed of dog the wife wants run "295 per, with papers." The narrator wanted to joke and ask if they had any illegitimate children for less, but could see the joke wouldn't land.
Anyway, this thing with the pig reminds me of the punchline of the story: they will wear you down. I'm puzzled how to stop an idea that really doesn't 'pencil out' as the developers say, but the Other really keeps pecking at you to agree to.

Example at the condo. While on the board, one of the board members wanted to carve into our lobby a box to leave outgoing mail in. Some story about the convenience. I think the cost of the carpentry and patching ran to $800. I really felt we'd be better off keeping reserve cash in, er, the reserves, but what could I say?

So, We put it it. It's been broken into several times, now the lock is missing, and I keep it from flapping about with masking tape. Oh, she's moved out to live with her daughter, so I am left to deal with something that wasn't even my idea.
Back to the pig. I see you're at peace/piece with this. I'm just riffing to keep my mental acute.

At this stage, the best place to stop the cash burn is limiting the freezer rental, I guess. The fastest way to do that is to sell off what you won't eat yourselves as fast as possible. My father was great at tapping the informal markets for stuff. I remember runs to get tamales and sausage. I say informal, as these transactions where handled at the screen door, so I doubt think sellers has so much as a food workers license.

Much to chew on as you chew the fat of the bacon.
##

I'm just hoping he doesn't decide to buy a freezer. Ha ha chew the fat! Good one.

Me - I'm ignoring the porcine conundrum and focusing on writing because that is more productive and if I'm going to get upset, I'll find something better to get upset about. I'm spending most of my productive time improving my prequel. I have to try to market the sequel, but that's more challenging and more stressful. I started working on a marketing strategy. I have some fuzzy vague ideas of what I want to do, but they're fuzzy and vague. So this is where my fat-chewing energy is directed.

Happy stuff. Sorry about the mailbox miscalculation.

Take care.

Writing is terrific as it's all about the writer. The agony and the tedium, gnashing and tweaking, marketing & rewrites. Somewhere there pops in enough moments of sheer joy it pays back for the rest.

So, with my work with my client's effort to get this property transfer at a stage that I don't have much to do with, I'm feeling some energies returning to do other stuff.

Part of me has taken the Serious Road for much of my life and used the Fun Road for vacations. Serious Roadtrips stuff now:

#1. Reading most of Dee Hock's blog and then summoning the heart to get in touch with him and have a couple of chats. He's 90 and talks up the stuff I also think a lot about. Rather Urgent. Oh, I also want to copy this site into a couple of archives.

#2. Reading Thomas Paine's works. Not Urgent.

#3. Watching all of Fred Allen's Meeting of Minds shows. Serious and also Fun. Already watched the first 2: Cleopatra, Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Aquinas, & Thomas Paine!

Fun/Serious Stuff.

#1. I have an idea that a game can be made of group discussion and decision making.

#2. Take the gamification course on Coursera to get some insights.

#3. Find places to pilot it.

#4. When it feels pitch-able, find support.

#5. I wonder if there might be grants for this? Hm.

#6. It would be fun to recruit a Muse for this. I wonder if Jane Fonda is available. Afterall, she kicked off the aerobics craze, so knows something about infusing fun with serious.

R

I have about six pages of a brief dalliance with morning writing in long hand a couple of weeks ago. Every time I glance at them and think, I need these typed in, I shudder. So, long hand to computer is NOT the method for me. If I could I'd laser beam thoughts right into the minds of readers.

My income is very low right now and I'm waiting to see what's shows up. A sort of happy-go-lucky way for a bit. Maybe just a week as this council vote might get set for Monday, 10/19.

Re Census: my partner reminded me we did ours with the mail-in version a long time ago. This is good news because I don't recall it at all. We have a catchphrase: memory is social. Yup.

Today: I may take up a free Coursera class on Gamification. I need my own word, though, as gamification is no fun. Screams "academic." Interestingly, most of the articles I've glanced over are very dull and have no use of the gaming tools to enliven their text.

Off to a nap.
R

Watched yet another Laurie Santos video on her researched proven tips for getting through our shelter in place. 1. Exercise. 2. Gratitude. 3. Sleep. 4. Social. 5. Process stress with:

R - Recognize your feeling something
A - Accept the feelings
I - Investigate what may have brought them out
N - Nurture yourself (I presume after doing something)

Ha! Drifted away for several hours. Hope this survived the inactive meter.
R

Yes, to Laurie Santos. That's what i do when I get depressed.

R, have you ever had this happen. When I upload an attachment, the computer uploads an older version. The obvious cause is that either I didn't save the changes, or there's another version of the document somewhere, and I'm downloading it by mistake.

But this has happened more than once and the older version does not exist.

Any thoughts?????

I'm going to try making more changes and saving them. And then deleting the new changes and saving that. And I'll see if I can upload what I want to upload.

Any thoughts???

Hi D, that's happened a couple of times when I got confused about what was the best/latest version. Especially with many reviewers and that track versions/reviews tool in play.

Sometimes I've shifted the current version to a new folder but forget I did that. Or I make a small change and delete the wrong one.

Seems you understand it's the wrong version after you upload it. You might experiment with different file names so you know by the name. I typically use "draft," "review," and "final." Sometimes with fast cycles I use the date: filename 10-16.ext

I work a lot on Google because it allows me to collaborate across all my devices everyday, and if the need arises to share stuff with other people. It's got a version history tab which allows me to see the dates and changes I made and name particular versions. It also means the current version is the active one. Google docs, sheets, and slides are subsidized (free to users) by their ad revenue.

I just got a notice that MS WORD 2016 for Mac will no longer be supported. I guess it'll have to stop drifting and finally get a job. MS said I could pay their subscription to the 2019 package for life, I suppose, or buy their suite for use on one machine.

I guess MS wanted to make this decision really easy.
R.

Today's steps:
Goal: weaving game element into other contexts
step: read more on dungeons and dragons
possibly: next lesson on cousera on gamification (funitize, to me)

G: good person
S: take notes at meeting
S: attend class (online)

G: save money
S: shop at Grocery Outlet

G: dance at the edge of frustration
S: see if there's a way to embed a countdown clock into a google page or google doc. Try for 20 minutes early in the day when I'm more frustration proof.

R

"Dance on the edge of frustration" - I like that.

For me - goal for today - writing - get rid of crossed out part and XXX parts. (Where my writing is bad, and I've memo-ed myself that I need to fix it.

do one step on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or setting up a blog.
On step toward red-doing my will.

I seem to always be falling off the edge of frustration and landing in the middle of frustration.
Happy stepping.

Curious news ... it seems that my client's transfer will come before the City Council on Monday, Nov. 2 @ 2 pm; with a Briefing this Monday @ 9:30 am.

The past couple of days have been intense with drafting something to put in the Councilmembers (CMs) packets. Also, a week or so ago I sent an announcement to my network which I had to recall when the first date we were told didn't prove out.

Now, it seems ON, so the message will go out one last time.

In the process, found the solution before my frustration fired up for putting a countdown clock in a google.site webpage. In spite of all the annoyances with technology, when different companies makes stuff that work well together, it's a type of happiness.

Not getting to my Stoic Week materials this time due to the urgency. Catch up this weekend I suppose.

Oh, taking a fun non-accredited set of classes through the Canlis (restaurant) Community College. Tonite the parents of the two men who currently run it were on demonstrating their famous Canlis salad plus prawns in butter with garlic & Vermouth. Two dishes, not one mixed together.

Learn so much watching these classes. They did sell "kits" with everything in it, including 3 bottles of wine. Didn't buy. But did just shop the college store and bot their notebook with 3 Blackwing pencils. Souvenirs.
Revu2