Done for the Week: Another of Life's Little Detours

I'm still up to my neck in four-year-olds this week.  That is to say, I've been spending the better part of my waking hours with one very talkative, very energetic, and very dear little boy, and trying at the same time to be as much help as possible to his mother--my daughter.  Her new baby turns two weeks old tomorrow, although by rights she shouldn't really be born for another seven weeks. 

My brilliant advice to my daughter, which I'm trying to remember to follow myself, is to take this challenging period one day at a time.  It seems that's the best I can come up with.  Really.  In the meantime, here's what I got done, somehow, last week:

Done for the Week:  Oct. 17-Oct. 23, 2011

1. Continued 5K training with my youngest son, in preparation for his first race--Finished Week 8 of 9 Week Couch-Potato-to-5K program
2. Took my son shopping for new running shoes, and running gear
3. Cheered my son after he came in 5th in his age group in the Fall Classic 5K, and 24th overall! 
4. Won my age group , beating last year's time by 3+ minutes
5. Ran three times (including race), swam once
6. Read Where the God of Love Hangs Out, by Amy Bloom, Once Upon a Time There Was You, by Elizabeth Berg, and Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk:  A Modest Bestiary, by David Sedaris
7. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
8. Published 2 blog posts
9. Continued significant work on current clients' projects
10. Continued to give nearly full-time support to my daughter and her family as they coped with early arrival of their baby, and my daughter's continuing health problems
11. Helped my son purchase required laptop for school
12. Celebrated my son's first day in technical college automotive program
13. Went out for happy hour with my husband
14. Saw The Ides of March with my husband 
15. Watched first episode of Boss with my husband
16. Did laundry
17. Continued reading Elizabeth George's A Traitor to Memory aloud with my husband
18. Paid our household bills
19. Vacuumed several dogs worth of hair off our living room carpet
20. Entertained my out-of-town stepdaughter and her two sons, and arranged a family tennis outing
21. Took my grandson to his swimming lesson

Once again, the "most important thing" I accomplished last week was continuing to help my daughter and her family deal with the demands and difficulties of her medically complicated postpartum period and the needs of her preemie infant in a Level III NICU miles away.  We continue to refine the schedule and strategies for dealing with this temporary situation, and to marvel at the resilience of this tiny being as she matures and sheds one tube after another on her way to coming home in a couple of weeks.

I am working hard, but not minding the commitment or its requirements.  For whatever reason--probably the rewards of having had my own surprise children, and the lessons of relinquishing control when it was denied me--it is easy for me to take the long view.  This time will be here and gone before we know it, along with its special opportunities.  I am grateful to have the freedom and flexibility to be able to support my daughter in this way.

Last week's focus goal, in the midst of this adventure, was to "fit in three runs, in preparation for Sunday's race."   I managed to run twice before the race, and to swim once while taking my grandson for his swimming lesson.  Not ideal preparation for our race, given that I had only trained once the previous week, but the best I could do.  And good training in acceptance.

Next week's focus goal is to resume meditating.  Period.

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.

Done for the Week: Time to Clean Up My Act

Monday again.  Feels like about six minutes since last Monday.  A new week stretches before me, also about six minutes long, but with about six months worth of "have-tos" and "really oughtas."  I'm not sure how to reconcile this, but I know it will require meditating, culling, and further efforts to quiet my brain and my adrenal gland.  

Here's what I can remember of what got done in the six-minute whoosh of time that was last week.

Done List--Week of May 10-16

1. Continued 5K training, mostly on recumbent bike due to foot injury
2. Finished The Last Time I Saw You, by Elizabeth Berg; The Total De-stress Plan:  A Complete guide to Working with Positive and Negative Stress, by Beth MacEoin
3. Took my blood pressure daily
4. Attended monthly organization meeting
5. Published 5 blog posts
6. Meditated 5 times
7. Prepared adolescent for prom date; attended prom parent functions; waited up for late curfew
8. Made coffee for, attended and gave presentation at my congregation's annual meeting
9. Attended bill signing for transitional jobs legislation
10. Attended daughter's graduation (something of a miracle, because of schedule conflicts, an impoverished gas tank, stimulus-funded road construction and resulting traffic snarls, and downtown parking challenges) 
11. Helped son look for a car
12. Worked on new website for fledgling jobs group
13. Supported my mom by phone through week of feeling ill
14. Took my dog for several walks
15. Wrote Morning Page three times
16. Began gratitude journal
17. Survived spouse's acute depressive state
18. Practiced yoga once
19. Began household cleanup campaign
20. Tried, and mostly succeeded, not to stress over teenager's first solo driving trip out of state  

Last week's focus goal was to try to disentangle myself somewhat from the ups and downs in the lives of my two teenaged sons.  Three items on the above list, highlighted in green, are related to this goal.  The two car-related accomplishments, (#s 11 and 20) both pertain to my older, nearly adult son.  I did a better job distancing myself from the half-day road trip than from the car purchase process.  He is tending toward "cool" cars befitting his preferred self-image, while I would like him to buy something safe whose purchase and upkeep won't compete with impending student loans for his and our resources--what he calls a "Grandma car."  I'm trying to breathe deeply, and remember what kind of car I purchased at his age--and the fact that my parents had to live with my ill-considered marriage at that same age.  The younger teen had to listen to lots of mini-lectures prior to prom--somewhat earned by previous questionable choices--and to contend with a bit too much hovering.  In the end, I bent more than I was planning to on the matter of curfew.  Progress, probably.

My biggest upcoming challenge in this long passage to mother-of-only-adults is standing back while my elder son decides whether or not to enter school this summer, as planned, or to spend a little more time transitioning.  I confess to a whole range of physiological stress symptoms whenever I visit his future in my mind.  Again, deep breathing is in order, I suppose.  And probably less attention to the whole issue.  It is, after all, his life, and as much as I might wish to protect him from the failure I fear, or the difficulty of what feels to me like massive change, he will need his own failures and successes to grow.  And besides, if I know so much about how life should be lived, maybe I should be applying more of that wisdom to my own quandaries.

In red above is what seems, from the vantage point of this particular Monday morning, as I sit here surrounded by the dirt and dishevelment left by my household of four humans, one canine, and two frequently visiting preschoolers, to be last week's most important achievement.  So important, in fact, that I have decided to make its continuance this week's focus goal.  I have been doing a lot of things to try and address my need for peace of mind in ways that concern my own body and mind.  But the external disorder surrounding me is disrupting my internal state.  I recall an episode of the TV drama Family that I used to watch many years ago--when I probably should have been working on my dissertation.  The mother, played by Sada Thompson, with a semi-permanent wrinkle of concern perforating her forehead, said to her grown daughter, herself a single mother of a toddler, that hers (the daughter's) was "not the home of a happy woman."  Or something to that effect.  I have remembered that little snippet of manufactured conversation for so long because it spoke to me then.  As it speaks to me now.

I think it's time to make my home that of a happier woman.  So I can be.

My Blog About Blogging

In her second place essay for Procrastinating Writers' "How I Overcame My Procrastination This Year" essay contest, Alanna Klapp tells us 

To battle and overcome procrastination on a daily basis, I keep a log, eat a frog and write a blog.

 The "log" part of her formula is adopted from Kelly L. Stone's Time to Write, and consists simply of documenting the amount of time she spends writing each day, and a weekly total goal.  The "frog" she eats should be familiar to regular readers of Put it to Bed.  Ms. Klapp  refers to Brian Tracy's advice, in Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, that we begin our work day by tackling our largest, most important task--our frog.  The "blog" component is Wandering the Mind of Alanna Klapp, which she began, as I began Put it to Bed, in December of 2009. 


Today's post is the 100th for Put it to Bed.  In the nearly five months that I have been writing it, Put it to Bed has served as log, frog and blog.  It seems an appropriate time to reflect on its usefulness for me, and for a few others.  


When it was suggested to me, several times in the past few years, that I consider writing a blog, I demurred, reflecting my total ignorance of the blogging world.  The few blog posts I had run across in the excessive hours I spent online appeared to be 1) the workings of obsessive and sometimes dangerous-sounding persons, or 2) amplifications of all I find repellant in the kind of Facebook posts that celebrate the minutia in the lives of the exceedingly self-focused.  ("[insert photo] cooked an amazing meal using exotic but politically correct ingredients, while her kid was preparing his valedictory address."  Or "[insert photo] wonders how she found the time to add 50 recent publications to her already impressive vita.")


But I was wrong.  So wrong.  And it took Therese Borchard and Julie Powell (in her film persona, played by Amy Adams) to show me that a blog could be real writing.  I have mentioned before how important Therese's Beyond Blue blog has been in dealing with my own mood battles and those of one of my children.  I found it when I was searching online for ways to deal help my child deal with anxiety, and later referenced it for myself.  But I began to read Beyond Blue regularly because of the quality of the writing, as well as the content.  


Around the same time, I saw the movie Julie & Julia, and was caught by the premise that doing a blog was a way to write regularly.  Since I don't cook any more than I have to, and Therese Borchard was already doing a great job covering a subject I know too much about, I spent some time pondering what I could write/blog about.  And it didn't take long to recognize that I know a lot about procrastinating.  And not as much as I wanted to know about not procrastinating.  And thus, with a frisson of excitement and at least as much trepidation, Put it to Bed was born.


This blog has got me writing, and taking myself seriously as a writer.  And it has pushed me in other ways to get off the dime.  And to learn why I sometimes stay planted squarely on said ten-cent coin.  I am reading more, meditating more, thinking more about my important relationships and how I want to spend my time, and exercising regularly.  I am not sure I would have completed my first almost-5K without the public declaration of my intent to do so.  I have learned that I can find/make the time to do what I care about, once I figure out what that is.  


And I have heard from people who have found some value in what I have to say, which is really gratifying.  My following is not deep, but it is wide, extending over several continents--though some find their way to Put it to Bed in search of images or references to themselves and their work.  At least one of my children is a regular reader, and thus gets to experience Mom in a nonparental guise.


All in all, a worthwhile enterprise.  And one that I pledge to continue.  Happy 100th, Put it to Bed!

Done for the Week: My Race is Run (Literally)

Time for taking stock again.  

Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project blog, and the bestselling book by the same name, works from her insight that "The days are long, but the years are short."  As the weeks whiz by, I know what she means.

I continue to struggle with my nervous nature, and my crowded life.  I continue to try to grow, and to learn, and to figure out what matters in the short and long runs.  Here's what I got done last week.

Done List--Week of Apr. 19-25

1. Completed 4.6K
2. Finished Opal on Dry Ground:  A Novel, by Sandra Scofield; Awakening from Grief:  Finding the Way Back to Joy, by John E. Welshons; Sarah Conley:  A Novel, by Ellen Gilchrist; Mortal Acts Mortal Words, by Galway Kinnell 
3. Took my blood pressure daily
4. Attended one meeting
5. Published 5 blog posts
6. Meditated 5 times
7. Succeeded in napping resistant 2 year-old twice
8. Helped say goodbye to failing grand-dog
9. Helped celebrate son-in-law's beleaguered birthday
10. Posted essay contest entry, 1 day before deadline
11. Rooted for my two winning teams in the NBA playoffs
12. Walked my dog daily
13. Mothered daughter through child's concerning illness, and putting dog down
14. Mothered one teenager through job crisis, another through illness and major decision process
15. Spent two afternoons relaxing and reading in the (chilly) sun

Last week's focus goal, for the third straight week, was to meditate five times.  Number six above, highlighted in green, is the goal met, once again.  Time to move on, I think, to a new emphasis.  But not to move on from meditating.  I am committed to making this practice routine, like showering for my mind.  

In red, at the top of the list, is what I consider my most important accomplishment of the week--completing my first ever race outside of gym class.  Not because running, or entering events that reward me with cool shirts and bags and after-race refreshments, is the highest value of all those that moved my actions this past week.  Several of the things I spent my time and energy on were more meaningful to me overall.  But accomplishing the run brought the satisfaction of having met a goal I had set months ago and worked toward faithfully, resurrecting my training after a several-week illness.  It was something my daughter inspired and encouraged and supported, to the extent that she ran with me yesterday at a pace far slower than she would have run alone.  We crossed the finish line together, with smiles on our faces.  

The late April weather added a challenge, with threatened rain becoming a sprinkle before the finish line, and the temperature just under 50 degrees.  The course was beautiful, even under a gray sky, but wet, and muddy, and fraught with uphill segments and tree roots I had not encountered on my gym's manufactured oval.  We began with a long uphill stint which leveled briefly and then was followed by a steeper climb.  My chest was bursting at the start and I huffed and sweated through the conversation my daughter kept going with no observable strain.  But what I thought was the halfway mark turned out to be closer to two-thirds.  When we were close enough to hear the yelling as runners came in, I knew I would make my goal of running the whole way.  

I had jokingly said that my race day aim was to finish before dark, and without paramedics.  I was thrilled with my 13 minute mile pace, and not at all embarrassed to finish 103rd out of 130 in the "fun run"--even though most of those who finished after us--many minutes later--were walkers.  The event, which included a 20K race, was a memorial fundraiser in honor of an accomplished endurance athlete, a 48-year-old woman who was killed three years ago by a drunk driver while biking.  Proceeds fund bicycle safety and anti-drunk driving efforts.  

My focus goal for the coming week is to do more writing.  Longer blogs don't count. 

Done for the Week: Into the Breach

This past week, I struggled.  Part of it was probably reentry, since I had been away the previous week.  Part of it, I imagine, was the emotional aftermath of visiting my mother in the home she shared with my father, whose death I am only now beginning to deal with.  And a significant part of it is living with three males who are themselves floundering in various masculine versions of angst.  

Whatever the cause, it was a keep-putting-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other kind of week.  But not without its blessings.

Done List--Week of Apr. 12-Apr. 18

1. Completed 9th and final week of Couch Potato to 5K training 
2. Finished  The Day My Father Died:  Women Share Their Stories of Love, Loss, and Life, ed. by Diana Ajjan; Swann, by Carol Shields; A Fatal Grace, by Louise Penny 
3. Took my blood pressure daily
4. Attended three meetings; scheduled none
5. Reconnected with four friends
6. Published 5 blog posts
7. Meditated 5 times
8. Spent two afternoons relaxing in sunshine with a book
9. Called my mother
10. Walked my dog daily
11. Made coffee for church services and meeting
12. Nursed sick pre-launch teenager, with a light hand
13. Put in extra hours at two part-time jobs
14. Began to recover my house from the chaos of several weeks of being sick and overcommitted

Last week's focus goal was to meditate 5 times.  Item 7 on my Done List, highlighted in green, shows that I met this goal, for the second week.  At the risk of boring myself and readers following this saga, I have decided to repeat this focus goal for at least one more week.  The stress in my life at present requires all the equanimity I can muster, and I believe that meditation can help.  And I have observed that I have difficulty giving it the priority it needs.  For whatever reason, I am motivated to achieve my focus goal.  So meditating 5 times this week it is.

I have identified in red text above what seems to me to be the most important thing I did last week--finishing The Day My Father Died.  I have been looking at the book for the several weeks that I have had it out of the library, through two renewals and into the grace period.  Planning to read it, but never making the time.  Retrieving it from under the chair I most often sit in to write these blog posts.  Replacing it in my current stack.  On Friday, it was time.

Since completing the book Saturday afternoon, I have felt particularly wretched.  Sad, and drained, and edgy.  In grief circles, this kind of bad is good--the "going through it" which will, theoretically, get me to the other side.  All I can do right now is trust.  And keep on going.  

Procrastination on Vacation

I have had few true vacations in the last couple of decades, though I've done a fair amount of traveling--most of it to New Orleans, to visit and support family in a recently devastated community.  I have usually had at least one child in tow, and once five.  I have participated in a Habitat build, nursed an ailing parent, helped move my parents three times, been their handy woman of choice, transported one or the other to the emergency room and to surgeries, arranged a funeral, and shopped for a casket and a burial plot.  Last summer, I traveled with my daughter and grandson and my two sons, and pulled significant Nana-duty when my daughter caught her child's virus.  None of these trips were devoid of pleasure, but they were at best working vacations for me.


This time I am here by myself, and my main purpose is to have a good time.  I am looking forward to seeing my Mom, my baby sister/best friend and her family, and of course, the three canine members of my extended family who live here.  I am also going to see the touring Broadway company production of Wicked with several grown-up women, an outing that will include dinner in a restaurant, and the wearing of an actual dress and fancy shoes.  I may even put my contacts in!  And who knows?  I might go totally wild and apply makeup!


On either side of this decadent occasion are one day of flying and one day of relaxed visiting.  I worked hard on clearing some major decks before embarking, though I did not succeed in completing all blog posts for the week as I had hoped.  I still plan to work on my focus goal for the week of meditating five times--I'm at three already--and to continue training for the 5K nineteen days from now.  (I ordered the t-shirt and everything, so it looks like I'm doing this thing.)


But other than those three things, I have decided to take a break from procrastinating--and from thinking much about procrastination.  If there's very little I am supposed to be doing, or expect myself to do, then I don't have much to postpone.  I am removing the "occasion of sin," as I was taught to call it in my Catholic youth.


I don't think this is the kind of relapse an alcoholic might experience by taking a break from sobriety.  That kind of recovery is more of an either/or scene.  This is a bit like "Stop the World [Treadmill].  I Want to Get Off!"--but just temporarily.  I won't be procrastinating, just not sweating procrastination.  


I expect that I might return to my recovery project with renewed energy, and maybe an insight or two.  At the very least, I will be able to see things through some other lens for these few days.  For now, I'm not putting off coffee on the deck in the warm Louisiana morning for one more minute.