I have not taken so much time off from blogging since beginning Put it to Bed on the last day of 2009.
I had read about blogging fatigue before I began to experience it sometime this spring. For me, I think it is exacerbated by an approach to blogging which is in conflict with some core beliefs I hold about life and its rhythms.
I have been attempting, for the last sixteen months, to follow the lead of bloggers I read and enjoy, who seem never to take time off. As a reader, I grow concerned if their posts are not up by the usual time, or when, God forbid, they miss a day! Did she fall under a bus? Were her children hospitalized? Is he experiencing insurmountable technical difficulties?
I think I have harbored a secret fear that if I didn't go all out as a blogger, I wouldn't maintain this new activity and the identity that goes with it. I would no longer be a serious blogger. And let's face it, someone writing about "putting things to bed," and all things procrastinational clearly has a few issues with sustaining effort.
But in the wake of my first whole week off, preceded by two three-posts-only weeks, I am in the process of reconsidering my personal blogging rules. In the meantime, here's the list of what I got done during this period of relative blog drought:
Done for the Last Two Weeks: April 18-May 1
- Continued off-season race training; completed Weeks 8 and 9 of C2K--six training sessions
- Ran once with my new training partner, back from her vacation
- Resumed swimming
- Finished Happenstance: Two Novels in One About a Marriage in Transition
, by Carol Shields; Finger Lickin' Fifteen
, by Janet Evanovich; Lake News
, by Barbara Delinsky
- Continued significant volunteer support to transitioning nonprofit
- Attended a celebration of the completed effort to file enough signatures to trigger recall of my state senator
- Continued to work my two part-time jobs
- Published 4 blog posts
- Saw The King's Speech
with my husband
- Took a one-week blog vacation
- Finally arranged and took trip to New Orleans with one son, to visit with my Mom, my sister and her family
- Got my Mom's cell phone activated
- Had my first long-distance cell phone conversation with my Mom
- Saw Arthur
with my Mom and sister
- Meditated 7 times
- Got one son and husband to the gym with me once each
- Attended 1 yoga class
- Had dinner date with my husband
- Cooked for my Louisiana family
- Shopped for groceries
- Caught up on laundry
- Watched two heartbreaking basketball games, and followed an overtime victory online
- Colored Easter eggs with my three children and one grandson
- Completed 5K Brownie Shuffle, walking with my daughter
- Met with website client
- Planted hydrangea
- Spent two hours picking up glass shards remaining in our yard from a glass table shattered in a windstorm
- Skipped four scheduled events
- Watched two Treme
episodes with my husband
My focus goal for the week of April 18 to 24 was to complete Week 8 of the Couch Potato to 5K training program, with the three required sessions spread more evenly over the week.
I succeeded in meeting this goal, and went on to complete Week 9 while on "vacation" in Louisiana. For this week, I will focus on transitioning to triathlon training, in preparation for the Danskin Triathlon on August 21. My training schedule will need to accommodate my increasingly busy work and volunteer commitments, a more balanced attention to family, home and self-care, and my training partner's hours--a logistical feat in itself.
The most important thing I got done over the last two weeks was finally managing to get myself and one son to New Orleans to see my Mom and my sister. As she reminded herself and my, my mother is eighty-three years old. Having lost my father, I think of the opportunity to visit with my Mom as a limited-time offer. I am grateful to have a spouse who encourages me to spend the time and the money necessary to travel to see her with some frequency.
A week of glorious and unexpectedly less-than-blistering temperatures, with time to read and chat and walk and eat and work jigsaw puzzles and remenisce and eat, was lagniappe--in New Orleans parlance,
I succeeded in meeting this goal, and went on to complete Week 9 while on "vacation" in Louisiana. For this week, I will focus on transitioning to triathlon training, in preparation for the Danskin Triathlon on August 21. My training schedule will need to accommodate my increasingly busy work and volunteer commitments, a more balanced attention to family, home and self-care, and my training partner's hours--a logistical feat in itself.
The most important thing I got done over the last two weeks was finally managing to get myself and one son to New Orleans to see my Mom and my sister. As she reminded herself and my, my mother is eighty-three years old. Having lost my father, I think of the opportunity to visit with my Mom as a limited-time offer. I am grateful to have a spouse who encourages me to spend the time and the money necessary to travel to see her with some frequency.
A week of glorious and unexpectedly less-than-blistering temperatures, with time to read and chat and walk and eat and work jigsaw puzzles and remenisce and eat, was lagniappe--in New Orleans parlance,
a small gift given to a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase (such as a 13th donut when buying a dozen), or more broadly, "something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure."
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