A few Measly Steps a Day

Thanks Delightful for passing this through. We're peddling along here on Support Forums to continue what we began on her site.

Wishcraft solidified for me how crucial support would be for my life. Positive-side support to offset the "hit bottom" X Anonymous approaches. Good stuff.

I was always thrilled when she piped up in a discussion.

One of the joys of jubliglee is contentedly sitting in the stands and watching how others take to getting things done. I'll be curious to see the creative ways which emerge to carry forth Barbara's work, but in some random way as I'm eager to cull my email inbox.

My partner is coming back from her 2-week retreat on the WA peninsula on Saturday. Did I get my long sought rest? Not really. She left me with her 340 pg memoir to review/comment/edit. Grrr! Not really her problem or fault, just annoying as it pushes off for later any sense that I hold no major commitments to anyone.

Hm, how will Friday, my last full day, unfold? I'll check back with a report.

I spent a couple of hours on the Barbara Sher Zoom conference. (a conflict - I didn't stay for the whole thing.) A couple of people from the Boards were there - Lyndon and Karen Lu. ( probably misspelled her last name.) Probably others that I didn't recognize.
BarbaraSher.com is mostly about on-line book clubs, Hanging Out, and on-line workshops now. The focus was how to bring Barbara 's message to the world. It was boring at first and then got interesting. I mentioned the Boards, and that three of us were still meeting online.
We thought that we should be reaching out to the younger crowd - under forty. Patty asked how many of us were under forty. Three out of forty-one raised their hands. We all talked about modernizing the look, and having a main page and having all the activities available from there. One of the younger three talked about Instagram, Tic Tock YouTube and other sites more popular with the younger crowd. I was interesting in this re promoting my books.
They talked about rebuilding the Boards. Yay! But don't hold your breath.
And we all thought that the most important thing we got from Barbara was the importance of a supportive community.

Patty Newbold heads all the Barbara Sher workshops, etc. now. You probably know that. Money is a problem, and designing websites, etc. costs $. That's why they probably won't bring the Boards back. I pointed out that Barbara always said there are ways to get around money. Bartering. One lady suggested college students as a source of work and ideas for not much money.

Thx for the update. I haven't followed Sher's legacy and never paid for anything she offered except for a book or 2 along the way. I might have paid something for the support forum as they ever asked.

Looked at Patty's site. She's been busy, and a success. Cool.

As you've learned, social media takes a lot of attention, skills, and even luck.

The past 3 days I've kept a very slow and slow profile. Mostly runny nose; COVID negative. And a cough every once and a while. My immune system enforcing a time out to allow itself to reset after so many years of nearly unbearable stressors.

Using the time to scan the upcoming annual film festival. 100s of films in lots of genres. I've picked out a set and my partner has hers. Thinking of getting an annual membership to lower the prices, plus I get 5 bags of popcorn as a benefit. Yum.

-snip-
Seems like a good strategy -- there are more Gen Y and Gen Z than there are of us

Post-COVID, there was that "Mass Retirement" (or whatever it was called) and folks wanted to earn a living by doing something meaningful. These would be good folks to target.

Ahoy! The 50th edition of the Seattle International Film Festival is going strong. I've attend 2 films, with a 3rd slated for tonite. That will bring me to half of the 6-pack I bought. My criteria is weighted towards stuff I'm interested in. Went to the first shorts program because I'm in a film chat group and might catch a rising star early. The other one was "Agent of Happiness" and set in Bhutan, the only country with a happiness index. The main character is having an unhappy time, ironically, because he has no citizenship due to some ethnic conflicts from when we was a child. This means no long-term jobs and also limited marriage prospects. It was interesting seeing people actually turning prayer wheels and reciting a mantra. I always fear I'll be caught out when I do this when given a chance.

Tween movie shows I'm hauling out excess stuff. Today it's glass bottles and jars. No worries, we'll start collecting more before sundown, it seems.

I also want to take photos of our panasonic transcription machine. Very handy for grad school interviews and such ... 30 years ago. Ay!

A transcription machine from more than 30 years ago! I'm just sitting here pondering that.

Lots poppin about the place. Finally ultimatumed our handyguy to come and patch and paint our walls. I said, if you're too busy and need to pass, let us know. He wanted the check, but even then he inserted a couple of errands for other projects on the day he was supposed to be here. Good worker, nice guy, and as gently as I could I hinted this is not ideal for his reputation. People think because I will grant a delay or nod when they say something more important is afoot I am not seeing what's going on.

A friend is out of town for a few days so I offered to stay at her place to keep it occupied. She said yes, and today is the start of my stay (till Sunday). Laundry, some dusting, packing, and a [raw] milk run and I'll be all set to take a nap! Tonight I'm at a personal story event then a movie till late.

Lots for a single day.

Teeth issues persist, but I'm going a cheaper route. I was going to do implants, with the endodontist replacing all the upper teeth in my mouth. I got nervous when I felt that the the dentist resembled a snake oil salesman, and I got a second opinion. The second opinion made more sense to me. One of the issues was that the first dentist wanted to do the surgery while I was awake, six hours with valium and Novocain shots for pain relief. There were others.

I am having a terrible attack of lazies. Today, I'll get my paperwork done. (been putting it off.) Also, yard work - enough to count as exercise - laundry, and start working on the final proof of second edition of Unfamiliar Waters. Does that really sound like a lot of work? It doesn't to me.

Me, signing off.

I've been doing laundry before I start work on my Work From Home days (when I get up extra early). I was up today at 5:40am, so I got the whites done.

And now I dosing off as I type.

Somehow, I managed to volunteer for way too many things. It's not that I don't have time to do them all. It's that I tend to forget stuff when I have to much to do. Like making phone calls. or bringing things I need to bring. Wish me luck.

Well then, good luck!

Hey teamsters. Ms. D. keep at it. I find sometimes its requires 2 or 3 runs at getting something done before I recall everything I need and have it ready when needed. Yes, I do remember to take my memory pill.

I also find that too much of a relaxed attitude lets things slip my mind. This is a true puzzler, because being calm and relaxed feels great, and getting annoyed because I forgot or misplaced something feels horrible. So, self, what's smallest level of attention that feels both relaxed AND tracks the tiniest of details? Lists are a kind of common ground tween the two selves, so I build 1 or 2, sometimes 3 every day.

I've been making spaces and it's going great. Just 1 something a day ... a corner, our collection of paper and plastic bags, a box of collected books from the free libraries, or even clean a shelf in the fridge. Every random while I let a day pass with no advances, but I only allow 1 day breaks.

When I passed that mysterious line where progress became apparent, my partner got into the spirit of it and we got rid of lots of stuff we'd been contemplating letting go for years.

Good for you, R!

Hi, guys,

Caught up on some of the things I've been putting off.

A day.5 hijacked! A tree fell across our power lines and created some odd results, total loss of power in a hall, and some units having partial power, some full.

The power co. thought they would have it done by 2 pm yesterday. In real time, they got it done about 11 am today.

The funny part was people in the condo started emailing/texting me about when it would be restored! So I sent out the link for the power co. outage reporting page.

The crew showed up, and for about 60 minutes we all had zero power. Reading by natural sunlight. What a strange idea.

Reading by natural sunlight. it actually sounds wonderful. I hate that we're so addicted to electricity. Don't get me wrong - I love cooking with a microwave and using a computer. But it's so frustrating when we can't just plug something in and go.

My very bad news. We have property at the lake, and our dog got poisoned. She died yesterday.. She was off her food for a couple of days, but otherwise seemed healthy. Yesterday she collapsed, and in the end the vet put her to sleep. It was so unexpected. Luna was a young dog.

This blows.

Hi D, yes that blows big time.

Take matters slow to make space for your grief.

Revu2

Oh no, delightful! I'm so sorry!

Thanks for the kind wishes. Tom has adopted another baby blackbird. The nest fell out of the tree, and the baby was hopping around in trouble. (as in could be a meal for a cat.) I'm hoping that Tom will release it as soon as it can fly. He had a hard time letting go of Scruff, a baby mockingbird.

Me - not much going on.

Good wishes.

The update here is that my wife tripped over the cat about two months ago. She landed really hard and bruised a bone but didn't break it.

Surgeon opened up the hematoma to release the pressure and drain it, but the skin tore easily into about a 3" gash. And so I'm back to doing wound care.

I'm having fun at work learning mechanical design. Turns out there are free versions of a lot of the major programs we use, so I can work on fundamentals on my home computer.

Taking on a few long put off remodel issues. For a few hours a couple of weeks ago we thought our fridge was kaput, but quickly saw it was a power outage due to a tree falling over the power lines.

We learned that fridges in general are running quieter but at the cost of shorter life spans (12 to 20 years). Ours is 12 years old. We're a little off the market as we don't need or want icemakers and water spouts.

On the other side of the thermometer, our wall heater had started randomly working. The electrician determined that it was the thermostat, but also that the wall unit itself was only rated for 10 years, and ours was over 16. So the options were to replace just the thermostat (for about $110) or swap in new controllers and heaters for both bedrooms at about $1K. We forked over the $1000.

We are also mid-way through replacing another set of windows. I forget how much that will cost, but it's several 000s as well.

The lucky thing is that with new windows you can't help but see things brightening up.

Square Peg, You're having fun learning new programs. That's my version of torture. Mechanical design does sound interesting, though. Good wishes for your wife's recovery. R, good luck with your remodeling. And that must have been one humungous tree!!

Me - I'm having guests staying over for four nights. People do this all the time. The last time I had guests overnight was my daughter's slumber party. (forty years ago.) Hope all goes well.