Done for the Week: Winning by Showing Up

Toward the end of last week, my mood went south. It seems unlikely that this was unrelated to spending less time exercising, meditating, being outside, and relaxing. Work was particularly stressful, especially when the websites I manage were both suddenly taken down--after I had spent considerable time redesigning both--because of an expired domain name. Communications concerning this impending action had been sent to obsolete addresses and unknown persons involved with the original site set up. This unexpected disaster took another half-day to resolve.


Life with my teenagers and my work-addicted spouse was not exactly a walk in the park either.

In the midst of it all, I got the following done:

Done for the Week:  Oct. 18-24

1. Completed tapering week of 5K training, ran twice
2. Completed 5K race, won my age group
3. Finished The Swimming Pool, by Holly LeCraw; To-Do Lists of the Dead, by Jonathan Katz; The Imperfect Birds, by Anne Lamott
4. Continued significant support to transitioning nonprofit organization
5. Worked my two part-time jobs--made significant progress on second website, strategically skipping a scheduled meeting to do so
6. Published 5 blog posts
7. Meditated 2 times
8. Wrote 3 Gratitude Journal entries
9. Wrote 3 Morning Pages
10. Spent 3-1/2 hours working on my novel
11. Continued reading aloud Elizabeth George's In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner with my husband; went to Happy Hour, and to see The Social Network
12. Attended 2 yoga classes
13. Took my dog to the dog park once
14. Attended church
15. Helped sew grandson's Halloween costume
16. Called my mom twice
17. Spent time cleaning two of our three bathrooms

My most important accomplishment of last week, in red above, was completing the 5K I ran yesterday.  In the rain.  I won my age group, and for the first few minutes of post-race confusion in announcing the results, it appeared that I was my age group, until another woman came forward to claim second--and last--place.  Clearly, the secret to becoming a successful athlete, at least for me, is to continue training, stay alive and keep having birthdays.  My recent birthday put me into the advanced age group where I rose to the top!  But accolades aside, deserved or not, I was happy to complete the race in the 39 minutes I had set as a goal, and to run the entire time.

Last week's focus goal, as that of the previous week, was to spend six hours on my novel.  I managed less than four (#10 highlighted in green).  I did manage to adhere to my scheduled writing time, though the press of website work lured me into violating my rule of not doing other work during that time--thus, 3-1/2 instead of 4 hours.  Again, the plan to spend two hours writing "sometime during the weekend" was dashed on the rocks of my busy household and my emotional reactions.  I ended up spending time reading the novels of others, instead of writing my own.  This week, my focus goal will be to spend four hours writing.  Since I am meeting or coming close to meeting that goal, and since I need to feel successful, it seems prudent to aim for what appears to be realistic at this point in time.

Again, my secondary focus was and will continue to be exercise, meditation and housecleaning.  I fell short of my desired goals in all three of these areas.  (#1, #2 and #7 above, all highlighted in green.)  This week, I have decided to be more specific about what I'm aiming for.  I plan to meditate 4 times; exercise 4 times; and concentrate on catching up the laundry (which will involve donating a large portion of it), and cleaning and straightening one room.

And to keep showing up.