Done for the Week: Leaps and Bounds, and a Bit of Limping

February was full of celebrations, this year even more than usual.  And as I am working with my physical therapist to repair my "gait mechanics," I am challenged as well to negotiate the choppy rhythms of my days with strength and grace.

March should present a more even surface.

In this last week of February, in between snowfalls and tantalizingly warm days, stress and happy moments, I managed to get the following done:

Done for the Week:  Feb. 27-Mar. 4, 2012

1. Biked once; used elliptical trainer once; swam once with my workout partner
   
2. Continued physical therapy for foot injury
3. Continued reading Elizabeth George's A Place of Hiding aloud with my husband
4. Read The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender
5. Continued reading Proust's Remembrance of Things Past
6. Continued to work my two part-time jobs
7. Finished participating in BlogHer's NaBloPoMo for February
8. Published 5 Put it to Bed blog posts
9. Published 2 ReVersing Course posts
10. Invented NaJusWriMo, to keep myself motivated to write; and signed on for March
11. Began to participate more in the BlogHer community
12. Continued work on current clients' projects
13. Attended two yoga classes
14. Had dinner with friends; baked and brought a (not particularly sad) lemon cake
15. Did laundry 
16. Continued college conversations with youngest son
17. Meditated 6 times
18. Straightened my work room
19. Took my dog to the dog park
20. Made and communicated the decision to leave my current church, coincidentally on Leap Day
21. Celebrated our Leap Day anniversary with a small late-night Champagne party for two on the actual day
22. Made arrangements to explore joining new church
23. Attended new church with my husband and a friend
24. Saw Art Museum's Accidental Genius exhibit of self-taught artists with my husband
25. Celebrated our Leap Day anniversary two days late at the County Clare Inn
26. Watched an episode of Eureka with my son
27. Watched Devil in a Blue Dress with my husband

Successfully finishing the February challenge of BlogHer's NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), and establishing my own NaJusWriMo (National Just Write Month) in order to continue the writing momentum inspired by NaBloPoMo, constituted last week's most significant achievement.  I am looking forward to continuing to take my writing more seriously, and to making more regular time for it.  I am beginning to believe that writing constitutes, at this time in my life, the deep yes I wrote about searching for some weeks ago.

Last week's focus goal was "to strategize; to figure out how to apply what I know and am learning to the problem of wanting and needing to meditate, but not making time for it."   

For whatever reason, I ended up skipping past the strategy part, and going straight to the meditating.  However, some semi-conscious tactical work appears to have taken place.  The key elements of last week's almost daily meditating, after weeks of wishful thinking about meditating, appear to have been these:

1. I identified a time of day that had worked for me in the past, slotting in my practice as close as possible to that time.
2. I forced myself to meditate before lunch, which in turn preceded leaving for my afternoon job three days a week.  In this way, lunch served as a buffer that promoted the feeling of having enough time to meditate, and as a reward for having done so.
3. I lowered the bar in three ways, so that meditation didn't seem so daunting as it had become:  a.  I shortened the time from 20 minutes to 10;  b.  I relied on relaxation videos of nature scenes and sounds as a way of easing into a time of quiet; and c.  I skipped the cushion that had become a nemesis, and did my sitting on the couch in my workroom.  I view these measures as a form of training wheels to facilitate my return to this "bike" I had become so accustomed to before.  My intention is to continue using them until the habit is stronger, and then to remove them one at a time until I am once again sitting unsupported.

 I observe that I am feeling somewhat calmer--though perhaps only because I am not spending as much time flogging myself about not meditating? 

For the coming week, I am focusing on writing and meditating, continuing the approaches that have been working recently.   

What comes to mind is Michelangelo's purported description of how he created his sculpture of David:  "It's simple.  I begin with a piece of marble and remove everything that isn't David."  I feel like I am engaged in the attempt to unearth myself from all the busyness and clutter that keep me from being who I want to be.

Done for the Week: Still Climbing, Ala Winnie (Churchill, not Pooh)

The quote I put up for this week is from Winston Churchill, who said:

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

This, from a man who was famously hounded by "the black dog" of depression--which, in my book, lends some weight to this "sunny side" aphorism. 


Last week, as ever in the midst of my never-ending ascent, I was occupied with the following:

Done for the Week:  Feb. 20-Feb. 26, 2012

1. Biked once; swam once with my workout partner
   
2. Began physical therapy for foot injury
3. Got my husband to the gym with me
4. Continued reading Elizabeth George's A Place of Hiding aloud with my husband
5. Read Willpower:  Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy Baumeister & John Tierney
6. Continued reading Proust's Remembrance of Things Past
7. Continued to work my two part-time jobs
8. Continued participating in BlogHer's NaBloPoMo
9. Published 7 blog posts
10. Continued work on current clients' projects
11. Met with communication team
12. Attended two yoga classes
13. Participated in phone call about my husband's retirement plans
14. Did laundry 
15. Babysat for my grandchildren, for their parents' first "night out" since new baby's arrival
16. Continued college conversations with youngest son
17. Meditated 2 times
18. Straightened my work room
19. Took my dog to the dog park
20. Gave my husband minor assistance with taxes
21. Scheduled my Leap Day anniversary celebration
22. Scheduled potluck with friends

Last week's most important accomplishment was successfully completing 26 days of BlogHer's February NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), which required posting a blog entry each day.  I am still relearning how much joy I glean from maintaining my blog.  And how much time I can make for writing when I make up my mind to do it.  

The week ahead will bring the end of this NaBloPoMo challenge.  I see from the BlogHer community that a lot of bloggers "re-up" at the conclusion of a NaBloPoMo month.  I am trying to decide whether to take on another month, in order to "set" my new work energy and orientation, or to move to re-focusing these assets on other writing projects.   I'll keep you "posted." [I know.  Groan.]

My focus goal for last week was intended to play to one of my strengths--reading.  I planned to finish reading Willpower:  Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Baumeister & Tierney.  This goal represented a kind of backing up with respect to my recently failed attempts to meet a focus goal of meditating regularly.  The idea was to retreat to an achievable rung on this apparently too challenging ladder, to experience meeting the goal.  I was anticipating some take-away from the book that would make it easier to re-establish and keep up with a meditation practice.

The good news is, I did read the book.  Though I didn't find it as "sinfully delicious" as its hype portended, and some of what the authors unveiled I had seen before, I did learn a thing or two.  I am still digesting what I read, and culling through the findings and suggestions.  I know I will write about at least one of the book's lessons in the near future.

As to meditation?  My baby-step focus goal for this week is to strategize; to figure out how to apply what I know and am learning to the problem of wanting and needing to meditate, but not making time for it.

Will to [Will]power

So, I'm reading Willpower:  Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney--as I said I would, at the beginning of this week,  having identified some continuing difficulties of my own with this elusive capacity.

I'm clipping along, encountering one fascinating aspect of self-regulation after another.  And picking up some hints along the way, aimed at enhancing my less-than-steel will.  I've been reading about David Blaine, holding his breath for 17+ minutes;  encased in ice for 63 hours Times Square; and generally engaging in professional displays of self-torture--in between personal bouts of desuetude and self-control lapses.  

I've been reading about research subjects experiencing all sorts of tests, deprivations and stimuli designed to measure and manipulate willpower, from radishes to boredom to sexual stimulation.

And I've been reading about Drew Carey hiring productivity guru David Allen to put him through his GTD [Getting Things Done] paces.  For some unmentionable amount.  And apparently to great effect.

I have certainly been entertained thus far, as the book's dust jacket promised.  And I have learned a lot about human will, and some elements that may strengthen it.  But it remains to be seen whether or not I have the willpower to implement what I'm learning.  Or even to digest the material and translate it into some discrete steps to launch my reprogramming.

I don't have Drew Carey's money.  Or David Blaine's nerve and monomania.  And I really don't like radishes.

On the other hand, I am drawn by the vision of my life with a bit more purposeful action.  So I'll keep reading.  I have at least that much self-control.  Er, willpower.

Done for the Week: The Frailty of My Powers

Twenty-one years ago, my middle child was born in the early hours of Valentine's Day.  And into a complicated family structure that has meant multiple celebrations.

Add to that our culture's Valentine's Day hype and promotion, which lays on a host of rituals and expectations, from personally addressed cards for the classmates of each of our children to blissful romantic rendezvous with our mates.  Stir in a little perfectionism, a pinch of über-mothering, a spouse's long-distance commute, and an abundance of sugar (what with all the cakes, and the chocolate), and . . . voila!  My February crazies.

Of course, now that he's 21, and his brother is not far behind, we are not preparing 20+ Valentines each, or sending birthday treats to school.  My son bought donuts himself for his new workmates.  But it was a special birthday, requiring a bit more than the usual fuss, and entailing a rite of passage or two that invited parental "guidance." 

In between icing cakes and hosting parties, I tried to get a few things done.  Here's the list:

Done for the Week:  Feb. 13-Feb. 19, 2012

1. Biked twice; swam once with my workout partner
   
2. Finally chased down diagnosis of foot injury (not wonderful, but not fatal)
3. Got my husband and one son to the gym with me
4. Watched two basketball games with various family members
5. Continued reading Elizabeth George's A Place of Hiding aloud with my husband
6. Read Death of an Expert Witness by P.D. James
7. Continued reading Proust's Remembrance of Things Past
8. Continued to work my two part-time jobs
9. Continued participating in BlogHer's NaBloPoMo
10. Published 7 blog posts
11. Continued work on current clients' projects
12. Met with my adbook successor
13. Met with new communication team's members
14. Attended one yoga class
15. Did laundry 
16. Celebrated son's twenty-first birthday, at 3 separate family gatherings/outings 
17. Continued college conversations with youngest son
18. Meditated 2 times
19. Straightened my work room
20. Attended board meeting
21. Took my dog to the dog park
22. Gave my husband minor assistance with taxes
23. Celebrated Valentine's Day with my husband, in the background of Valentine's Day birthday observance

As in the previous two weeks, my most important accomplishment last week was continuing to participate in BlogHer's NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), which required posting a blog entry each day.  In the relative ease with which I am managing to stay with this undertaking, I am rediscovering how much I love blogging, and how much time I can make for writing when I commit to it.  When I am truly into it, it is the kind of work that doesn't feel like work.  I am learning something here.

Last week's focus goal was to try to meditate most days first thing in the morning.  Number of mornings on which I meditated?  One.  And that's using the word "meditate" loosely, to include some nearly pre-conscious, and all too brief focus on breathing.  My grade in this area?  F-

I don't think it's that I don't want to meditate.  In fact, at times I long for it.  Just never when I could actually be doing it.  

I've decided to move the book Willpower, by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney, to the top of my book pile, since 

1.  Daniel Gilbert--of Harvard, the PBS series This Emotional Life, and the book Stumbling on Happiness says it is

sinfully delicious . . . .[and a] fascinating account of the exciting new science of self-control, told by the scientist who made it happen and the journalist who made it news.

and

2.  Regular meditation is supposed to grow my willpower/self-control/discipline, and I can't make myself do this first thing.

Reading Willpower is my focus goal for this week.  Since reading is one of the things I do instead of meditating, this one should be a slam dunk.  And after weeks of dismal focus results, I am in desperate need of a win.

Done for the Week: "Not great, but not horrible."

Is it just me, or have we in the midwest experienced a couple of changes in season over the last week?

This has been such an odd winter that I've never really habituated to proper cold weather dress.  One day it's a jacket, no hat and no gloves.  The next, I'm digging in the closet for a warm scarf to wrap around my face, and clumping around in boots and mittens. 

Our recent snow fall, the day after a somewhat freakish warm spell, was welcome enough, especially to my four-year-old grandson and my lab/greyhound.  But the sub-zero windchill over the weekend, we could have done without.


Just when my personal foliage had started to bud, and my work to benefit from an infusion of life, it's back to the cave.  But we're holding our own in here, and getting stuff done anyway.

Done for the Week:  Feb. 6-Feb. 12, 2012

1. Biked twice
   
2. Played phone tag with orthopedist, unsuccessfully trying to obtain results from MRI of foot injury
3. Watched two basketball games with various family members
4. Continued reading Elizabeth George's A Place of Hiding aloud with my husband
5. Read The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie; The Uncoupling, by Meg Wolitzer; A Pocket Full of Rye, by Agatha Christie
6. Began reading Proust's Remembrance of Things Past--my third attempt; made it to page 97, farthest yet
7. Continued to work my two part-time jobs, putting in extra hours
8. Continued participating in BlogHer's NaBloPoMo
9. Published 7 blog posts
10. Continued work on current clients' projects
11. Referred potential client to colleague 
12. Met with organization's fund-raising committee regarding ad book
13. Attended one yoga class
14. Did laundry 
15. Rescheduled college visit, previously cancelled by cold feet
16. Traveled to college visit with my son and husband
17. Went out to dinner with my husband 
18. Meditated 3 times
19. Cleaned wall-sized bathroom mirror
20. Straightened my work room
21. Spent 1/2 day with my grandson, shoveling snow, walking a dog, & playing trains
22. Planned birthday celebrationS for almost-twenty-one-year-old
23. Saw an old friend for coffee and catching up

My most important accomplishment last week was continuing to participate in BlogHer's NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), which required posting a blog entry each day.  What I hope to gain from this project is two things:  1) a reinvigoration of this blog, which has been languishing a bit from lack of attention; and 2) reconditioning of my writing "muscles."  After twelve days, I am beginning to see results on both fronts.  


Despite a long string of career makeovers, all I've ever really wanted to "be" was a writer.  And since, as last week's quote from George Eliot reminds us "It is never too late to be what you might have been," a writer is what I'm determined to be.  I claim the label only when I'm writing, or have recently written.  Walter Mosley, creator of the Easy Rawlins mystery series and author of This Year You Write Your Novel, says “If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day... You don't go to a well once but daily. You don't skip a child's breakfast or forget to wake up in the morning...”



So I'm using the NaBloPoMo challenge to train myself to write daily.


And discipline is a muscle necessary to this practice. 

Last week, I planned to focus on figuring out some kind of workable meditation schedule, and on meditating as many days as I could manage.  Also requiring/developing discipline.  So how did it go with this focus goal?  As Becker's least-favorite patient Mr. Ehrlich whines in the "Lucky Day" episode, "Well, you know.  Not good, but not bad.  Not great, but not horrible."  (And yes, I watch too many Becker reruns.)

Some months ago, I was relying on a routine practice of meditating immediately after lunch.  Apparently, that midday time is compatible with my biorhythms, or whatever, because it did work for me more days than not.  Unfortunately, my work schedule changed so that my morning's writing time is abbreviated, and lunch is on the run.  I have not been able to establish a different regular time that I stick with.  This week, I'll focus on trying to meditate most days first thing in the morning.  On those days that I have to be out of the house early, I will shorten the sitting. 

Namaste.

Procrastinating on the Sabbath

About a year and a half ago, in the midst of a siege of anxiety, I spent a weekend alone with my husband in a friend's country home.  While there, I happened upon a copy of Sabbath:  Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in our Busy Lives, by Wayne Muller, among my friend's stacks and caches of reading material.  I suppose I was primed to pick it up by a sermon or two on the subject by my since-departed minister.

As a late-life Unitarian, I no longer ascribe to the mass-on-Sunday sabbath rules with which I was raised.  But I have experienced, over the course of the many unchurched years of my adult life, and since, what I now think of as a "sabbath hunger."  

Muller's book addressed this.  

Amazon's notes give a flavor of what Muller was about with this book:

In today's world, with its relentless emphasis on success and productivity, we have lost the necessary rhythm of life, the balance between work and rest. Constantly striving, we feel exhausted and deprived in the midst of great abundance. We long for time with friends and family, we long for a moment to ourselves.

Millennia ago, the tradition of Sabbath created an oasis of sacred time within a life of unceasing labor. Now, in a book that can heal our harried lives, Wayne Muller, author of the spiritual classic How, Then, Shall We Live?, shows us how to create a special time of rest, delight, and renewal--a refuge for our souls.

We need not even schedule an entire day each week. Sabbath time can be a Sabbath afternoon, a Sabbath hour, a Sabbath walk. With wonderful stories, poems, and suggestions for practice, Muller teaches us how we can use this time of sacred rest to refresh our bodies and minds, restore our creativity, and regain our birthright of inner happiness.

An enticing vision, yes?

And yet, in the eighteen months since reading Sabbath, I have managed to dodge its message.  I have avoided creating anything like a practice of sabbath.  Any "free" time I come upon is vulnerable to takeover by my never ending store of uncompleted tasks, the near constant stream of demands from those I love and some I don't, and my own laziness that would substitute mindless time-wasting activities for satisfying rest.

Why this procrastinating?

Muller writes that some of us who postpone meaningful rest, and the silence which is often part of it, fear that

if we stop and listen, we will hear this emptiness.  If we worry we are not good or whole inside, we will be reluctant to stop and rest, afraid we will find a lurking emptiness, a terrible, aching void with nothing to fill it, as if it will corrode and destroy us like some horrible, insatiable monster.  If we are terrified of what we will find in rest, we will refuse to look up from our work, refuse to stop moving.  We will quickly fill all the blanks on our calendar with tasks, accomplishments, errands, things to be done--anything to fill the time, the empty space.

Having recently experienced a two-year bout of grief and depression, his words ring true for me.  And there is at least a part of me that is persuaded that I recovered by outrunning the darkness, by keeping busy, by focusing on others, by moving.  

But now, I think, it is time for some ritualized rest.  And time to screw up the courage to attempt it.  

Muller ends his book, and I this post, with these words from Wendell Berry:

Whatever is foreseen in joy

Must be lived out from day to day.

Vision held open in the dark

By our ten thousand days of work.

Harvest will fill the barn; for that

The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled

By work of ours; the field is tilled

And left to grace.  That we may reap,

Great work is done while we're asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood

Rests on our day, and finds it good.

from Sabbaths, by Wendell Berry.  Copyright ©1987 by Wendell Berry.  

Done for the Past Two Weeks: The Heart of, er, Family

Another week, and in this case two, done.  Another year gone. 

If I were trying to cut a wide swath through life, I might be worried at my lack of "progress."  But since I believe more in being awake for the journey than in racing to its endpoint, I am learning to be content with my small moments.

Here are some recent achievements, as I closed out 2011:

Done for the Past Two Weeks:  Dec. 19, 2011-Jan. 1, 2012

1. Finished Christmas shopping
2. Finished Christmas decorating, minimalist style 
3. Packed for taking Christmas on the road
4. Got our dog settled in his vacation digs
5. Traveled to New Orleans--surviving a hectic departure, which included delaying a plane full of people while my husband ran for the gate
6. Spent time with my sister and her family
7. Celebrated Christmas with my mom, my husband and my two sons 
8. Took my sister and her family out to dinner
9. Watched four basketball games with various family members
10. Held a Polar Express party with my grandson 
11. Celebrated New Year's Eve with my daughter, her husband and two children, my husband, and one of my sons
12. Reunited with our dog after a week away
13. Took my dog to the dog park with my husband, and on two long walks  
14. Watched Kung Fu Panda II, with my son and husband
15. Continued reading Elizabeth George's A Traitor to Memory aloud with my husband--only a couple of hundred pages left
16. Went to dinner with my husband
17. Unpacked
18. Biked once, walked five times
19. Read The Dante Club, by Matthew Pearl;  My Life as a Furry Red Monster: What Being Elmo Has Taught Me About Life, Love, and Laughing Out Loud, by Kevin Clash
20. Continued to work my two part-time jobs
21. Published 1 blog post
22. Continued work on current clients' projects
23. Spent 6 hours working on recall campaign
24. Attended 2 yoga classes
25. Did laundry 
26. Meditated 6 times
27. Began moving our bedroom, exchanging rooms with my son
28. Shopped for new bed
29. Communicated with my mom's investment advisor; used trading authority to make needed adjustments
30. Looked into reverse mortgage for my mom
31. Confirmed my mom's dental insurance coverage
32. Began sorting books, in preparation for offloading a couple of hundred no-longer-needed volumes

As for many people in this most family-oriented of seasons, my time for the last two weeks was focused on family.  The efforts I made, and the experiences we shared were the most important things that were done during the past two weeks.  Our holiday wasn't perfect, but no lives were ruined in its making.  I count myself blessed to have spent these days surrounded by people I love, who love me and each other.  As always for me, the challenge is to come off such intense absorption in family to make room for my separate existence.  I am currently reading May Sarton's A House by the Sea, one of her journaled odes to solitude, which may help in retrieving my inner life.  But then May Sarton didn't share her home with three large male humans in various (and fluctuating) stages of maturity. . .

My focus goal for this period was to make time to exercise at least three times, and to meditate daily.  To be clear, that goal was meant to cover the first of the last two weeks.  Since I didn't get around to blogging last week, by extension the goal targets should be doubled.  

I did manage to get some exercise in, and in the process to baptize my new running shoes.  With the New Year, it is time to kick it up a notch, and to resume, gently, a more strenuous training regimen.  My tri training partner opened 2012 with a lovely e-card, and a separate email detailing all the races she wants to do this year--including one I haven't yet warmed to, a muddy 5K obstacle course slog called the Dirty Girl!  But my injuries are mostly healed, and my excuses used up.  So it's back to the track, and the pool, and the bike trainer this week.  My focus goal?  One session each, running (sort of), biking and swimming. 

As for my meditation goal, well, I did take lots and lots of college math so I know that daily meditating for two weeks would have resulted in a few more than 5 sessions.  The first week, however, was the crucial one, with all its built-in challenges and demands.  I meditated four times that week (twice while squished into an airplane seat that was a tight fit even for my diminutive self), but only two times since returning home the middle of last week.  

My New Year's resolution is still in draft stage (stay tuned), but is going to require regular meditating. 

Done for the Week: Shit Happens, Once Again

Another short week.  And a huge bite out of the middle of it.  (See item #6 on the list below.)

I'm not sure I have more than my share of mini-crises, though I have been told that my life reads like a bad soap opera at times.  And here we are at the beginning of December, and my family is on its second baffling medical mystery and third fairly significant trauma since October.

The challenge for me is to respond each time with love and courage and flexibility--and not to completely abandon my life plan in the process. 

How am I doing?  Not great.  But not awful.

Done for the Week:  Nov. 28-Dec. 4, 2011

1. Biked twice--still recovering from injury
2. Read No Signposts in the Sea, by Vita Sackville-West
3. Continued to work my two part-time jobs
4. Published 2 blog posts
5. Continued work on current clients' projects
6. Spent 24+ hours in a clinic, a hospital emergency room, and the hospital with my son, ruling out Guillain-Barré syndrome
7. Spent a day catching up on lost sleep and recovering from stress
8. Meditated three times
9. Attended 1 yoga class
10. Went to my tap class
11. Watched one episode of Eureka with my son
12. Watched one episode of Boss with my husband
13. Continued reading Elizabeth George's A Traitor to Memory aloud with my husband
14. Made Sunday soup
15. Saw my doctor for injury evaluation
16. Went to dinner with my husband
17. Did laundry 
18. Orchestrated hanging of our outdoor Christmas lights
19. Read draft of my husband's journal article
20. Took my grandson on his day-long birthday train adventure 
21. Printed out a copy of the Unschedule

A great deal of my energy last week was spent "rising to the occasion" of my son's frightening physical symptoms, which came on suddenly midweek.  Doing what needed to be done to shepherd him through the medical system and support him in enduring the necessary workups and tests and procedures, including approximately thirty attempted blood draws in his dehydrated state, was the most important thing I got done.  At this point, we don't really have an answer as to what caused his progressive numbness, or why it began to abate after 48 hours.  But the scariest things have been ruled out.  And he is back at school, though the ordeal has put him behind at the end of the semester.  We will continue to follow up with doctors, and hope to put the experience behind us.  And I have yet another chance to learn how to move forward from the periodic derailments that continue to visit my life.

Last week's focus goal was "to resume work on my novel."  Ahem.

It was once suggested to me, rather unkindly I thought, that the drama in my life, both good and bad, served the purpose of protecting me from the risk of failing (or succeeding?) at my most important work.  Never mind that the person making this suggestion didn't know me well; mistook for my "most important work" the work she thought I should be engaged in; and was most ultimately offensive in focusing on the adoption of my son as the great interruption she saw it for. 

I think it bears examining the pattern even a stranger, albeit a rather perceptive one, could observe in my bumpy history.  For whatever reason (Could it be the six kids my husband and I share?  my large, close extended family?  the dark intensity of my Irish-Catholic roots?  my embrace of a slightly offbeat lifestyle, grounded in the '60s? bad karma? psychological instability?), I seem to have a penchant for "coming a cropper," as they say, and for being blown off course in the wake of personal and family disasters. 

Perhaps I need to start seeing this stuff as, in Thomas Moore's words, "nourishing to the soul."  And perhaps I need to draw on all this unsolicited nourishment and develop a routine for righting myself in the aftermath.

So once again, I need to get back on the horse, and focus on resuming work on my novel.  I don't want to believe that I choose or allow the frequent big-deal interruptions to "my work," but I do admit that they have functioned, at times, to let me off a hook or two.  And I vow to get better at resuming my work, and my focus on it, in the periods of calm between the storms.  This week, I will try to make better use of what calm spaces there are, to more proactively protect my time, and to complete at least a chapter of my novel.

Done for the Week: Resisting Hibernation

It's back!  That time of year when I struggle to get out of pajamas, and out of the house.

It's dark well before dinner, and chilly temperatures have us encased in increasingly heavy clothing when we must venture out. 

Add to that the accumulated fatigue of the last year's onslaught of crises, from the personal to the political, and my inner child is threatening a strike.

I am still managing to put one foot in front of the other, if slowly, and to be semi-productive.  Here's what got done last week:

Done for the Week:  Nov. 14-20, 2011

1. Ran once, biked twice
2. Read All Passion Spent, by Vita Sackville-West
3. Continued to work my two part-time jobs
4. Published 2 blog posts
5. Continued significant work on current clients' projects
6. Welcomed my new tiny granddaughter home, after 5 weeks in the hospital!
7. Participated in Occupy Milwaukee event marking national day of economic emergency
8. Participated in Recall Walker Kick-off Rally
9. Began collecting signatures on recall petition
10. Volunteered to staff Recall office
11. Attended my organization's annual public meeting
12. Watched two episodes of Boss with my husband
13. Did laundry
14. Cleaned out entryway closet
15. Cleaned refrigerator
16. Continued reading Elizabeth George's A Traitor to Memory aloud with my husband
17. Went to Happy Hour with my husband
18. Planned trip to spend Christmas with my mother
19. Booked plane reservations
20. Held family meeting to plan Thanksgiving dinner
21. Cooked Mexican Chicken Lime Soup

Two really important things happened this past week, only one of which I can list as a personal accomplishment.  The first is that my new granddaughter finally came home, after five weeks in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit.  She and her family are doing well, for which I am thrilled.  My son-in-law is on paternity leave through this coming week, so my own support duties are minimal for the time being.  When my daughter goes back to work, after the first of the year, I get to start remembering how to care for an infant and a preschooler simultaneously.  (I'm taking my vitamins.)

Last week's other important thing was that I began to collect signatures on the petitions to recall our governor and lieutenant governor.  After ten destructive months in office, many of us are committed to putting an end to their consistently undemocratic campaign to radically undermine what's left of the safety net for our most vulnerable citizens.  I expect to work hard while our 60-day countdown clock ticks.  Wisconsin--Forward!

Meanwhile, I will continue to be engaged in trying to live my own life.  And I will need energy and stamina.  Apropos of this concern, last week's focus goal was "to work out at least three days."   I did manage to bike twice and run once, but one workout session combined biking and running--so actually I only worked out two days.  Our recent time change means that most available workout time is after dark, when my strong hibernation impulse kicks in big time.  All I really want to do after dinner is read, relax with my family, and go to bed early.  I don't even have basketball to keep me awake this season.  But I intend to continue the effort to get to the gym--my focus goal for the coming week.

It helps that I am surrounded by challenged fellow-exercisers, including my husband, my triathlon training partner, and both of my sons.  I need to take advantage of the guilt I feel when I let them down, as they often don't exercise if I don't.  I plan to accept more of their invitations.  I will also try to walk my dog on days when I don't work out, and to exercise earlier in the day when possible.  

It will be easier to work in working out if I can be in a bit more control of my time (more feasible since my granddaughter is home), and complete regular tasks, like blogging, before noon.  

Whew!  I just made it.

Done for the Week: The Short List

Literally.  A very short list.  One of those weeks again.

Done for the Week:  Nov. 7-13, 2011

1. Read Separate Beds, by Elizabeth Buchan
2. Continued to work my two part-time jobs
3. Published 2 blog posts
4. Continued significant work on current clients' projects
5. 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
6. Traveled to Houston on the weekend with my husband to see friends
7. Saw Andrei Molodkin's Crude installation at The Station Contemporary Art Museum in Houston
8. Visited Project Row Houses in Houston
9. Saw Experimental Exhibit at Houston's Watercolor Art Society Museum
10. Had a delicious dinner at Baba Yega Restaurant in Houston
11. Did laundry
12. Packed and unpacked
13. Continued reading Elizabeth George's A Traitor to Memory aloud with my husband
14. Finagled financial support for both sons in their separate educational ventures
15. Took my grandson to his swimming lesson
16. Meditated three times
17. Took some time alone during trip with my husband
18. Ordered room service breakfast

As in previous weeks, helping 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 was still my most important accomplishment this past week.  Enough said.

Last week's focus goal was to "practice positive, non self-indulgent self-care, in whatever form I can."   I did manage to meditate three times, to spend some time alone while traveling with my husband, and to order room service breakfast.  All good.  However, I did not succeed in maintaining my exercise schedule in the face of the continuing demands of family support.  

I have worked too hard at incorporating regular physical activity into my life, and attaining my current level of fitness, to let my new found athletic life slip away.  So my focus goal for the coming week is to get back to training, and to work out at least three days.  Because I need it.