Done for the Week: Ready to Reconnect

While I was getting around to finally getting this post up, it turned into the first day of September.  And the first day of my intended blog reform.  My worst week of blogging, followed by cleaning up my act.  That's the plan, anyway.

I did get some things done last week, and here's the list:

Done for the Week:  Aug. 22-28, 2011

1. Relaxed and enjoyed my post-triathlon glow
2. Tracked down my bike pump lost on bus at the triathlon
3. Returned rented wetsuit, and made plans to purchase
4. Attended introductory spin class
5. Went to outdoor water park with my kids and grandson
6. Launched 5K training program with my youngest son, in preparation for his first race
7. Babysat while my daughter and her husband watched the Brewers beat the Cubs
8. Went out for breakfast with my son
9. Finished Good Things I Wish You, by A. Manette Ansay
10. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
11. Provided technical assistance to nonprofit organization
12. Published 1 blog post
13. Continued reading Elizabeth George's In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner aloud with my husband
14. Continued significant work on current clients' projects
15. Purchased new laptop tote for my new business
16. Attended 9 to 5 National Day of Action
17. Helped my husband prepare/pack for trip to Kenya
18. Joined my husband's family (in his absence) for lunch
19. Did laundry
20. Called my mom and sent tri pictures

Last week's focus goal was to "come down gently, and as little as possible, from Cloud 9-3/4."  I can honestly say I pretty much devoted myself to that pursuit.  I even managed to continue reveling while helping my stressed-out husband survive the start of a new semester and leaving for a ten-day international trip.  

I realized, in the process, that it has been a long time since I have had that feeling that "God [or whoever] is in her/his heaven, and all is right with the world."  I should probably try to stay in practice more, so I don't get the spiritual bends ascending to this relative height.

I believe my most important accomplishment last week, supported by my happy mood and my less-training-intensive schedule, was the attention I was able to give members of my family.   I know I have missed them, and I believe they have missed me, as the amount of time I spent training and preparing for the triathlon, working on a recall campaign, and accidentally starting a small business, has engulfed my recent weeks.  

It seems that the way balance works in my life, when it does, is as a wild ride--consisting of going too far in one direction, and then taking drastic action to right things by going too far in the opposite direction.  I'm not sure if I can, or should, learn another way. . . .

Next week's focus goal? Resuscitate the blog I have neglected over the summer.  My recovery plan is to post four days a week, Monday through Thursday, taking off time for major holidays and traveling.

It's September, "back to" time.

Done for the Week: Getting Into Getting Out of Stuff

For the first time since I started this Done for the Week feature, I am a day late (if not a dollar short) in posting it.  I may have some fine-tuning to do on this whole laying back thing.

I am still, however, getting some things finished, of the many that matter to me.

Done for the Week:  June 20-26, 2011

1. Completed Week 7 of 15-week triathlon training program; ran twice; biked twice; swam twice
2. Swam once, ran once with my training partner 
3. Got my son to the gym with me once
4. Finished Motherless Brooklyn, by Jonathan Lethem
5. Attended 2 yoga classes
6. Participated in final interviews for organizer position 
7. Participated in hiring decision
8. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
9. Planted orphaned begonia
10. Put in backyard sandbox
11. Cut back summer blogging schedule
12. Stepped further back from organizational overcommitment
13. Blew off a couple of meetings 
14. Published 4 blog posts 
15. Meditated 2 times
    
16. Had lunch date with my husband
17. Went to Happy Hour with my husband
18. Watched two episodes of Treme with my husband
19. Took care of my out-of-town daughter's dog and house, days 3 through 9 of 11
20. Got various family members, including our dog, to walk temporary foster dog with me
21. Met again with major new website client
22. Went out driving with learning teenager several times 
23. Participated in driving my not-quite-licensed-to-drive son to his job
24. Volunteered with recall campaign
25. Continued spending time on, and making progress with, yard recovery project
26. Spent time outside in my swing, reading and relaxing
27. Continued supporting my 20-year-old in his return to the academic environment
28. Made progress in cleaning/straightening/decluttering work room, bedroom & kitchen

Last week's most important accomplishment, in the opinion of this overworked and under rested blogger, was the jettisoning of some items that have been clogging my agenda of late--this was by way of embracing summer, and its legendary opportunities to sit quietly on the planet and revel in its glories.  Now if I can just keep myself from indulging my busy-ness tic and signing up for replacement obligations, I may begin to recover some much-needed energy.

My focus goal for last week was to begin to declutter our house, and to involve my housemates in the excavation.  The plan was to start with the kitchen, my work room, and our bedroom.  As you can see, in green above, I did make some progress on this goal.  But I am almost always (my family would say always) too ambitious.  Our nest has been neglected for too long, and by too many of us, to be rewoven in a week.  Or two.  Or three.  So I am extending this focus goal at least into next week.  After I have unearthed a modicum of surface space, I intend to fight the impulse to move on, until the hordes of stuff have retreated significantly.

Taking Time for Summer

One take on chronic procrastination might be to redefine our to-do lists to reflect what we're actually likely to do.

Along those lines, I have observed in recent weeks that I am more likely to publish 3 or 4 blog posts per week, than I am to achieve my self-established standard of Monday through Friday, 5 posts a week blogging.

I have therefore decided to relax my blogging rule for the summer, and to aim for 3 to 4 posts each week.  This reflects more sensibly the time I have to give, what with two recall elections, one triathlon, and work for a major new web client vying for my energies.  It answers my "heart's desire" for a more leisurely pace than the one I've been keeping.  And it will instantly improve my rate of success, and transfuse my flagging self-esteem.

I may be, as some have suggested, a bit of a troglodyte.  But I savor memories of summertimes past, when life slowed, routines fell away, and there was time to read, to garden, and to play.  I am lucky enough to live in a house filled with books, with two well-stocked libraries nearby, just in case.  God knows my "garden," in a state of utter neglect, needs me.  And one of my favorite people in the world is three years old, and treasures his "long-Nana-days."

I trust the world will survive with one or two less bulletins a week from me, for the next couple of months. 

Done for the Week: Less is More

I spent some time last week learning to do nothing--something I'm not so good at.  I've always been the whirlwind, the one with all the balls in the air, the "busy person" you go to to get something done.  

But I'm determined to master this new art.  Before I self-destruct.  The week's "done list" is still fairly long, but closer examination will reveal a certain amount of breathing room.

Done for the Week:  June 13 - 19, 2011

1. Completed Week 4 of 15-week triathlon training program; ran once; biked twice; swam twice
2. Swam once with my training partner 
3. Organized training schedule
   
4. Finished Saving Peacock Prairie, by Bernice B. Popelka; The Charming Quirks of Others, by Alexander McCall Smith
5. Attended 2 yoga classes
6. Attended Issues Night meeting
7. Continued to work my two part-time jobs
8. Created chains for two necklaces 
9. Took two "just because" days off blogging
10. Stepped back from organizational overcommitment
11. Published 3 blog posts 
12. Meditated 2 times
    
13. Had lunch date with my husband
14. Paid monthly bills
15. Attended high school graduation of son's friend
16. Celebrated Father's Day with my husband and sons
17. Celebrated youngest child's 18th birthday
18. Met with major new website client, made schedule for project
19. Went out driving with learning teenager several times 
20. Participated in driving my not-quite-licensed-to-drive son to his job
21. Volunteered with recall campaign
22. Continued spending time on, and making progress with, yard recovery project
23. Spent lots of time outside in my swing, reading and relaxing
24. Saw my therapist
25. Supported my 20-year-old in his return to the academic environment

The most important thing I got done last week, I believe, was getting on track with my triathlon training schedule.  It was an almost daily battle to pry myself off the couch and get to the gym, or to hit the streets, the track, or my indoor bike trainer.  The weather was uncooperative, my schedule was jumbled, and my training partner was sick.  

But this is where the triathlete is made, in my limited experience.  The discipline, the focus, and just plain wanting it more than not, will get me to the appointed day in August, eleven weeks from yesterday, ready to run my race.  And along the way, I will get stronger, faster, readier, and more resolute--not to mention, calmer and happier.  All good.

And all traits that will serve me well in living the way I want, and doing the work I choose.

Last week's focus goal was to get organized for the summer, and particularly to trim the list of things for which I am holding myself, or allowing myself to be held responsible.   As you can see, the items I have highlighted include some not doing, which is a kind of progress, given my frazzled state.  I have more to do in this area. 

My focus goal for the week ahead is to begin to declutter our house, and to involve my housemates in the excavation.  I have been feeling the need to clear the decks for some time now, and it has reached the critical stage.  Visual clutter has blossomed into dysfunctionality, just in terms of space for work and rest.  It is also seriously interfering with peace of mind.  The priority areas for attention this week are the kitchen, my work room, and the bedroom I share with my spouse.  

And in between the necessary expeditions, I'll be on the swing. . .

Done for the Past Two Weeks: Way Off My Beaten Path, for Once

A good chunk of the past couple of weeks was spent traveling, an accomplishment in itself, as you will see.  

While getting ready to leave, while away, and since returning, these things got done:

Done for the Past Two Weeks:  May 30 - June 12, 2011

1. Continued training for triathlon; biked 3 times, ran 4 times
2. Ran twice with my training partner 
   
3. Finished TheWorld According to Bertie, by Alexander McCall Smith; The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, by Alexander McCall Smith; People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks; Life After Loss:  Conquering Grief and Finding Hope, by Raymond Moody and Dianne Arcangel
4. Went to "Train Day" with my daughter and grandson
5. Attended 1 yoga class
6. Provided last-minute emergency assistance with major annual project
7. Survived eleventh-hour travel plans disaster
8. Succeeded in enjoying first real vacation ever with my husband of fifteen years
9. Met my cousin, her husband, and new in-law for brunch in Seattle
10. Walked and biked and ferried around Seattle with my husband
11. Mailed postcard to my mother
12. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
13. Attended the Bead & Button Show with my sister
14. Took extra "trip recovery" day off blogging
    
15. Published 5 blog posts 
16. Wrote 2 gratitude journal entries
17. Got my husband to the gym with me once
    
18. Meditated 12 times
    
19. Oversaw completion of bathroom electrical work
20. Had lunch date with my husband
21. Completed website in time for client's book launch
22. Contracted with major new website client
23. Watched six playoff basketball games with my sons and husband
24. Went out driving with learning teenager several times 
25. Participated in driving my not-quite-licensed-to-drive son to his job
26. Began spending time on, and making progress with, yard recovery project
27. Spent lots of time outside in my swing, reading and relaxing

My focus goal for the past two weeks was to meditate and relax.    

During the years when I was overwhelmed with the challenges of raising a bright, sensitive, dyslexic child, a favorite resource was Rick Lavoie's video, How Difficult Can This Be? F.A.T. City--A Learning Disabilities Workshop.  The question posed in Lavoie's presentation, which called on teachers to apply compassionate understanding in working with "LD" kids, seems an apt one to put to myself, in this context.  How difficult can it be to consistently attend to my own need for peace of mind?  Not rocket science, surely.  But a struggle for me, nonetheless.  

On vacation, I managed to meditate every day, without benefit of routine.  And I squeezed in a fair amount of relaxation while gone, and since returning.  Then again, I was sheltered for much of this time from the gazillion demands that fill every non vacation day.  I think it best, however, to rest on what laurels I have at this juncture.  So I'm gonna say done, and done.

My most important accomplishment of the past two weeks, hands down, was having a wonderful time with my husband on the first real vacation we've taken, without kids, in fifteen years of marriage.  Turns out I retain my splinter abilities to travel, to explore new and even novel settings and experiences (somewhere short of bungee jumping, I admit), to spend extended periods of time solely in the company of (more or less) mature adults, and to connect romantically and intellectually with the man I married.  (Whew!)  And turns out my kids survived.  And that I didn't worry about them.  (Whew, again!)

For the coming week, my focus goal is to get organized for the summer.  Part of reentry from vacation was facing the realization that my everyday agenda is scattered, superfluous, and downright overwhelming.  I intend to look at all the things I have committed to do, and the things I want to do, and the things I have to do, and then to do some serious pruning.  I aspire to narrowing the gap between how I feel and live on vacation, and the rest of my life.  (Especially important given the dearth of vacations I have experienced in the course of my current family life, and the unlikelihood of that changing drastically in the near future!)  The level of dread and exhaustion that have been dogging me lately is motivating change, if nothing else.

Vacating My Post--Finally!

No, not my blog post.  Although I will be doing that too, tomorrow, but not "for the rest of [my] life," (as Humphrey Bogart's Rick warned Ingrid Bergman's Ilsa).  Just until next Wednesday.

No, the post I'm referring to--in the sense of "job, employment" that Thesaurus.com tells me is synonymous with "appointment, assignment, berth, billet, office, place, position, [and] situation"--is that of full-time mother.  I have occupied this post, up-close and from afar, on- and off-line, for more than thirty years.  Most of us who attain this position, whether through careful calculation and arrangement or, as in my case, by backing into it--not once, but three times!--never stop being mothers.  But I have been reluctant to stop mothering, more so than your average (Mama) Bear.  

Some would (and have) call(ed) much of what I've done smothering, or brand me with the disdainful sobriquet "helicopter mom."  I would (and have) counter(ed) that I have placed a high priority on parenting, and that my last two, in particular, have been relatively "high needs children."  School years and adolescence have been bumpy--to say the least--for my two-years-apart male offspring, the tag ends of a not-so-blended family.  Their older mom was "sandwiched" between their own and a geographically distant elderly generation of family members requiring major support.  And these boys both came with their own charming but challenging traits and difficulties.  It has not been The Brady Bunch, by any stretch of the imagination.

At twenty and breathing-down-the-neck-of-eighteen, however, they are as ready as any their age that I can imagine to spend several days on their own--in each other's company, even!  They can cook and launder their own clothes, if not clean up religiously.  One can drive the other to work, or to the emergency room.  A sister who won't hang up on them lives nearby.  There is food in the house.  The dog will get them up every day.  The setting and their own amazing maturity will keep them as safe in my absence as I can when I'm here. 

My nest is not empty--yet.  But I am the one leaving it.  For my own good, and theirs, and their father's.  But not for good.

Beginning to put to bed a long and (mostly) lovely part of my life. . .

Done for the Week: By Tempests Tossed

More irregular time this past week.  Family difficulties.  National holidays.  Unforeseen work emergencies.

This obstacle course required me to continue working on agility, while I got the following things done:

Done for the Week:  May 23 - 29, 2011

1. Continued training for triathlon; biked once, swam once, ran twice
2. Ran twice with my training partner 
   
3. Finished A Weekend to Change Your Life, by Joan Anderson; Recovering From the Loss of a Parent, by Katherine Fair Donnelly
4. Attended search committee meeting
   
5. Did extra babysitting for my grandson
6. Held jobs action
7. Met for debriefing
8. Completed major annual project for my organization
   
9. Called my mother
10. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
11. Went to see Jane Eyre with my daughter
    
12. Published 4 blog posts 
13. Wrote 1 gratitude journal entry
14. Got my husband and son to the gym with me once
    
15. Meditated 4 times
    
16. Kept my new garden flowers alive, and planted more
17. Contacted contractor to schedule bathroom electrical work
18. Had lunch date with my husband
19. Caught up on laundry
20. Watched two playoff basketball games with my sons and husband
21. Went out driving with learning teenager several times 
22. Finished long-distance support of my mother, during my sister's vacation
23. Participated in driving my newly re-employed son to his job
24. Continued planning for trip to Seattle this week with my husband
    

Last week's focus goal was to "hang on, and continue to meditate, and breathe while I do both." I did manage to hang on.  And apparently to breathe, since I'm sitting here writing this.  I meditated more days than I didn't, but only just.  When I stuck to my mid-day meditation "routine," I succeeded.  When the day got away from me, and I allowed its middle to be trodden by others' agendas--four of seven days last week--not so much.  I made time to meditate (prior to falling asleep) on only one of the four disrupted days.  

I have started reading Martha Beck's The Joy Diet:  10 Daily Practices for a Happier Life , and find that her first "menu item," the one she wants us to begin with, is meditation--though she coyly refers to it as "Nothing."  It seems that most of the nonfiction books I pick up these days, in my relatively undisciplined search for peace, wisdom, self-correction, and amusement, involve meditation in one way or another.  All roads, it would seem, lead to Om.  Either meditation is saturating our culture, or, as The Secret's Rhonda Byrne would have us believe, I am drawing these personally needed messages to me.  But in any case, the importance of meditating is being hammered home to me again and again.  So I will keep on striving to "do nothing," for at least twenty minutes of every day.

And here's a test.  The morning is waning.  I am working on yesterday's post, so that I can progress to today's.  I am trying to get ready to leave town in two days.  I have already missed an important meeting so that I could attend a more important yoga class (I missed both classes last week, in favor of meetings and other work obligations).  And I am due at work in less than an hour.  But it is mid day, my meditating witching hour.  And so I am going to put aside blogging, so that I can do nothing.  For twenty minutes. . .

And now, I've meditated, lunched, and worked.  And I'm ba-aack.

Last week's most important accomplishment, I believe, was holding the jobs action I conceived and helped to plan; and meeting to debrief afterwards.  And for the same reasons that the previous week's most important accomplishment was planning said action:  the potential significance of changes we intend to effect in how jobs are being allocated in our city; and my own desire to graduate from being seen primarily as a techie with secretarial skills in an organization in which I contribute ideas, knowledge and skills outside that narrow realm. The action represented a significant step in our bid to learn more about the barriers to employment, so that we can take effective action to overcome them.


As of Thursday, I will be on vacation until next Tuesday.  I will resume posting on Wednesday, June 8.  Until then, I will focus on meditating, and on relaxing.

Giving In to the Snow

In the middle of what our local media are referring to, variously, as "Snowapalooza," "Snowmageddon," and "Snowpocalypse," I am face to face with a personal demon.  An evil inner voice has come to seduce my inner snow angel with promises of productivity, self-improvement, and achievement.  I could be getting so much done!  What better time to start to dig out the basement, to declutter the kitchen, to catch up on the health insurance and medical bills mess?

Fortunately, I still have two of my children at home, and my three-year-old grandson living just blocks away.  So if my soul is in too weakened a state to recognize the mandate to play and re-create, delivered as a cold, white wallop, they are here to remind me.  

How did I get to a place where a statewide--nay, regional--snow day puts me in a state of distress as I stew over how I'm going to get everything done?  I remember a time, not so very long ago, when my heart did a little dance at the thought of the world stopping for a day; when I stopped too, happily, willingly.  Snow days were for baking, maybe.  For building snowmen, and forts, and having snowball fights.  For movies, puzzles, board games.  If I left the house at all, it was for a sledding hill, or to walk in the sparkling streets. 

My son, who I raised to know better than me, it seems, has just commanded me to let go today, and to accept the gift of being snowed in.  My grandson wants Nana to help build "snow persons."  And so, although phones and email can penetrate our fortress, I'm going to follow the lead of our local schools, libraries, and coffee shops--and close for business.  Just for today.  Cocoa, anyone?

Life Management 101--All Work and No Play is a Waste of Time

With this post, Tuesday's Life Management 101 concludes our look at Laura Stack's Find More Time:  How to Get Things Done at Home, Organize Your Life, and Feel Great About It.  This week, Chapter 8, "Mastering the Eighth Pillar--PLAY."

In this final chapter, Stack advises us to resist our society's push to "confuse your job with your life."  Another of her books--Leave the Office Earlier:  Do More in Less Time and Feel Great About It--deals more extensively with this issue.  But here the focus is on the rest, relaxation, and re-creation that we make room for when we tame the omnivorous work monster.  


As with the previous chapters in Find More Time, each centered on one of Stack's eight pillars of productivity, self-assessment provides the architecture.  (Stack's productivity quiz can be found in its entirety on her website.)  For me, this measure showed that Play was tied with Paper, together my weakest pillars.  My cheerless score resulted from rating each of the following ten quiz items as:   1) to no extent; 2) to a little extent; 3) to some extent; 4) to a considerable extent; or 5) to a great extent.  My responses are in red.

To what extent do I . . . 

• Close the mental office door and turn off work each day.  [2]
• Leave work on time, so I can get home and enjoy my personal life.  [2]
• Keep my stress levels low.  [2]
• Rest, relax, and play daily. [1]
• Go on a long vacation each year.  [1]
• Create fond memories with the people I love.  [2]
• Have a regular family time with loved ones.  [2]
• Make time for a favorite hobby.  [2]
• Force myself to slow down and stop rushing around.  [1]
• Take care of myself on a regular basis.  [2]

In my humble opinion, this is Stack's best chapter.  She does a great job of making the case for play, and tells us that finding time to spend on "leisure, wellness, fun and stress reduction. . . is one of [her] book's main goals."


To me, her enthusiasm for this pillar was evident in the loving detail with which she described suggested approaches and activities.  As a play-challenged person, I was seduced by many of her recommendations.  I am especially eager to try her brief stress-management techniques, including this one:

REST YOUR EYES.  Try this one for instant stress relief.  Anytime your eyes are tired, like when reading or working on the computer, pause to give your eyes a rest.  Rub the palms of your hands together in a vigorous fashion to generate energy and heat.  Then quickly place your hands one over each eye socket, so that your eyes are at the center of your palms.  Let your eyes relax in this warm darkness for one full minute.  Instant relief.

or this:

BREAK YOUR FOCUS.  When you're stressing out over something, force yourself to stop thinking about it.

• Say or write the alphabet backward.
• Close your eyes and hum a song.
• Drink a glass of water in exactly twenty-seven sips.
• Close your eyes and think of a color.  Now picture seven things that have that color.
• Try to recall all the objects in your purse, wallet, or briefcase.  Write down as many things as you can in one minute.
• List six things you've enjoyed most in the last week.
• Picture a room in your home and write about it as if you're describing it to someone else.

For those of us who work in more standard employment situations, Stack offers some practical ideas for negotiating more sane expectations in the workplace.  It has been a while since my work life was bound in this way, but I found her thoughts useful.  It was, however, dispiriting to see just how deeply workaholism has permeated our culture, and how much strategizing is necessary to achieve so little in the way of self-preservation.  The trade-off I have made in stepping back from mainstream full-time paid employment has meant extremely suppressed income.  (I am fortunate that my husband's compensation for the workaholic efforts he wouldn't dream of giving up anyway allows me this choice.)  The gain is that I escape the usual strictures so many of us have to work with.  My challenge is to stop acting like my own difficult boss, and to stop flunking "play."


Stack strongly encourages her readers to take annual vacations, either involving travel or of the "stay-cation" variety; to create memories; to nurture family relationships; to cultivate a hobby; to stop rushing--by moving slowly, cutting back on commitments, scheduling personal days, and "seizing the moment"-- and to take care of ourselves.  All of these are things I need to do.


But right now, I'm going to try the eye thing.  So I guess I'm done with this post, since I won't be able to see to type with my palms over my eyes.

Done for the Week: Keeping the Faith

Another week gone.  Another year behind us.  When this post is published, I will be on my way to our state capitol to protest our new governor's pre-inauguration moves, which have taken our state several giant steps back in the struggle to create badly needed jobs.  As I contemplate this macro level rejection of progress, my little list doesn't seem so earth-shattering.  But I suppose the trick is to think and act locally and globally, while still living our own important-to-us lives.

I cling to the notion that what I do matters.  Here's what I did last week.

Done for the Week:  Dec. 27-Jan. 2

1. Continued off-season race training; biked three times 
2. Succeeded in getting husband to gym with me once
3. Finished No Graves as Yet, by Anne Perry; Unattended Sorrow, by Stephen Levine
4. Resumed providing minimal volunteer support to transitioning nonprofit
5. Worked my two part-time jobs, with sporadic hours due to holiday week schedule
6. Published 5 blog posts
7. Wrote 7 Gratitude Journal entries
8. Wrote 6 Morning Pages
9. Meditated 2 times
10. Watched our two favorite basketball teams play 4 games, with son and husband
11. Foraged for food at the grocery store several times
12. Attended two yoga classes
13. Took my grandson to the museum, along with other family members
14. Negotiated safe and responsible New Year's Eve celebration with teenager, and stayed up for his return
15. Celebrated New Year's Eve at home with husband and other son
16. Spent New Year's Day in my pajamas, mostly reading
17. Walked my dog three times, including New Year's Day family trip to the dog park 
18. Attended press conference for transitional jobs program
19. Attended social justice meeting/social gathering
20. Did significant work on website I designed and maintain as volunteer
21. Attended "cafe" service at church

My focus goal last week was "to post five blogs, exercise four times, meditate six times, and make the time to resume writing the novel--before I forget what it's supposed to be about."  The extent to which I succeeded in, and fell short of meeting this goal can be seen in the items highlighted in green on the list above.  Five blog posts, check.  Exercise was edged out by eating and reveling more than it should have been.  Meditation continues to be pushed to the bottom of my agenda on too many days.  And once again, novel-writing did not happen.  

I am keeping the same "first things first" focus goal for next week, but with a couple of tweaks.  First of all, I am going to copy my focus goal onto a small piece of paper and clip it to my daily calendar/to do list.  Second, I am going to wear the Serenity bracelet I made a couple of years ago as a daily reminder of the importance of meditating.  Apparently, I'm an "out of sight, out of mind" kind of girl, so maybe the visuals will help.  I am assuming that the resumption this week of my normal, non holiday schedule and routines will be enough to prompt the resurrection of the novel-in-progress that I have been neglecting for a month.

Because so much of the week was spent running hither and yon--like so much of many of my weeks this last year--I regard spending New Year's Day in my pajamas, reading, (in red above) as the most important thing I did last week.  It taught me just how much I am in need of cooling my jets.  I am thinking of trying to spend one day a week not leaving my house in the service of others.  It remains to be seen whether I could actually pull that off.


And now, to bed, so that I can snatch enough zzzzs to arise early enough to--paraphrasing Eliza Doolittle's father--"get me to the [bus] on time."

Procrastinating 101: He Doesn't Have to Tell Me Twice!

This week's chapter from Marshall Cook's Slow Down . . . and Get More Done is entitled "Spending Time With Books."  Here, Cook tells us that, in 

. . .seeking the wisdom to be found in slowing down . . . . [t]here's a great deal to be said for regular, reflective reading.

I love it when someone gives me advice I'm already taking.  Well, mostly.  It's not so cool, for example, if a friend recommends that I get a decent haircut--when I just did, or thought I did. Or if a colleague urges me to learn how to set up a website--when I'm our organization's web designer and website manager!


But this chapter on reading books is news I've been using since I cracked the alphabetic code.  


Cook begins with a defense of books, something we've heard more and more of in the seventeen years since he wrote this book.  Cook had been exposed to arguments concerning the "death of the book," though he was writing before ebooks, Kindles and iPads.  These devices undercut, somewhat, the strength of his assertion that 

[y]ou could never, for example, cozy up on the couch or sit under a tree by the lake with a good hypertext.  You can carry a book with you and read it anywhere. . .

--but not a hypertext, in those days.  Though his point that

[y]ou can check a book out of the  library[1] for free, and you don't need  fifteen thousand dollars’ worth[2]of technological intervention to crack it

still holds up.

Although I share Cook's affection for the printed page--making me something of a troglodyte, in my  i-everything husband’s[3] view--I don't really distinguish between forms in which people might "read" books.  This more democratic position has been reinforced for me by raising a dyslexic child, and having a literature-loving father whose vision was doubled by a late-life stroke.  Listening to books, for example, although it is dependent upon technology in most instances, actually harkens back to our oral narrative roots.  It challenges us, as do text-based books whether paper or hyper, to "make mind pictures," as Cook enthuses.  Cook distinguishes reading from other forms of entertainment as being active, and depending upon a learned ability. I would argue that listening to books requires the same. 


Cook lists the following as reasons for reading:

• Reading for knowledge
• Reading for experience
• Reading for fun
• Reading for beauty

All of these, to my mind, can motivate listening to books as well.  Or reading them in electronic/digital form, for that matter.


He describes two divergent approaches to selecting what to read--either serendipitous, or planned.  Most of us probably do a little of both.  I admit that sometimes the look or feel of a book sitting on the library's discards-for-sale table calls to me, and its contents find their way into my brain in this unanticipated way.  I have been known to pick up and read books "left behind" on trains and planes.  I learned about a more "planned" version of such opportunism or happy accident from a story on NPR's Weekend Edition several years ago.  This phenomenon involves booklovers "releasing books into the wild" by leaving them in public for others to find, and then tracking them online at bookcrossing.com. 


However we end up "deciding" what to read, we probably all have favorites, books that have stayed with us since reading them, even "changed our lives," in some cases.  For Cook, the list includes:


The Secret Panel, a Hardy Boys mystery by Franklin W. Dixon
The Boy Scout Handbook
the Bible
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
A Death in the Family, by James Agee
Light in August, by William Faulkner
The Human Comedy, by William Saroyan
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers
Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey
Afro-American Literature, ed. by R. Hayden and D. J. Burrows
A Christmas Memory, by Truman Capote
A Short History of a Small Place, by T. R. Pearson
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
PrairyErth, by William Least Heat Moon


Cook counsels his readers to "reflect on what we read" to extend the benefits of the time we spend with books, in one of three ways:  incorporating thoughts about what we've read into journal writing; thinking about what we've read while walking or biking; and discussing what we've read with friends, colleagues and family.  For many of us, pre- and post-Oprah, this third method has taken the form of book clubs or groups.  I am currently groupless, having broken up with my last group when their lives became sane and prosperous while mine headed into a fairly deep ditch.  I miss some of our discussions, but not those where a book's plot and/or characters echoed the troubles I was living with at the time, and group members expressed disbelief that life could be like that.  Maybe later for another book group.


At the conclusion of his Chapter, Cook directs us to

• list a few books that have made a difference in your life
• list a few books you'd like to read
• circle the name of the book you'd like to start with.  Go find that book and read it.

I resist his first instruction, which seems a bit too much like naming your favorite child, or having one, if you are the parent of more than one offspring.  However, the book that I can say made the greatest difference in my life was War and Peace, which I read at age thirteen, because it made me see myself as a serious reader.  I have to admit, however, that the lofty influence that led me to attempt the book was the film Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation, in which Jimmy Stewart's character lugged Tolstoy's masterpiece to the beach with him each day.  Hobbs used the book to cover his ogling of women in their bikinis, to hide from stressful family interactions, and to impress people.  I read it in the back of the family station wagon on the way to Yellowstone, for two of the same reasons. 


I am currently on the bump-into-it-at-the-library plan for filling up my reading list.  And at any given time of late, I am well into four or five books.  So I don't have to find a book to start with.  I am never without a book.  At present, I'm reading Yoga Beyond Fitness, by Tom Pilarzyk; The Sweetest Dream, by Doris Lessing; It's Easier Than You Think, by Sylvia Boorstein; and In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner, by Elizabeth George.  On my way out of the library today, Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna jumped into my hands, along with Till I End My Song:  A Gathering of Last Poems, edited by Harold Bloom.  


Thank you, Marshall Cook, for helping me to acknowledge one way in which I've been slowing things down for years.  And since today is so blustery where I live that my hair nearly blew off my head and my coffee from my cup as I walked down the sidewalk earlier, it's a good day to curl up with a book or three.  In any form.

---

[1] In competition with my church and the mountains for designation as my “most sacred space”

[2] I don’t know where Cook was shopping for what technology was available in 1993, but either his estimate is    

                   hyperbole, or he isn’t much of a comparison shopper.

[3] Does he think of me as his i-spouse?  Or would such an item be preferable to him?