Recreating What Works

I had a routine and life style that worked well for me when I ran my daycare. I've been striving to find a way to recreate that-which-worked-best for me ever since. 

As I wrote my way through my morning pages this morning, I realized some of the key ingredients to my daycare days routine are finding their way back into my life.

Routine. Plain and simple, routine is where it is at for me. As much as I strived toward a routine during my bookkeeping days, I didn't have a firm schedule. I could work around getting my work done in a way that allowed flexibility. I appreciated and enjoyed that flexibility. I have missed it now that I have a work schedule and firm work hours to adhere to. Everything else has to work around that. And it does.

Meal planning, regular meal times and trying to work in all the food groups into the day was another positive about managing the appetites, nutrition requirements and needs of my daycare crowd. I'm doing much better providing myself some of the same benefits. I love making extra on the weekend so meals are a breeze throughout the week. I crave "real food" - homecooked verses frozen prepared entrees wins every time. If chocolate bars were considered a food group, I'd have it made in the shade. My diet isn't perfect but I'm eating better than I have for a very long time.

Writing. I started writing for myself (morning pages) three months ago. I started writing out loud just over a month ago. Writing rewires the way I process the world. I start creating stories within my thoughts as I think of how I could retell this in writing. I piece together little bits and pieces of life-as-I-see-it and I amuse myself with the absurdity of my little stories. My inner dialogue is much cheerier than it has been.

Noticing all that Mother Nature has to offer. During my daycare days, we marveled at watching ants, counting lady bugs, collecting stones, making wishes blowing the dandelion puff ... These were the little highlights that found their way into almost every day at daycare. I am entertained by nature's critters again. I love when the birds swoop by the patio doors and tempt me to look outside and watch the show. I miss the rabbits that used to hop by my city home. We have squirrels here instead. Their tracks in the snow confused and amused me throughout the winter. 

I do miss quiet time. Ninety minutes while my little ones slept and the older ones watched a movie. I lived for quiet time. I have yet to find a way to insert quiet time into the middle of my work day. An hour after lunch time to simply be still and quiet. I miss that time.

Walking is something that should be easy to add into my day. But I have not yet succeeded. Too cold. Too icy. Too hot. Too humid. If I was to succeed at a regular walk, first thing in the morning is where it is at for me. But then I have to go to work afterwards, so it's all about preserving the state of my hair. 

Little things. It's all about noticing the little things. Creating little stories as one watches the world go by. Rewiring one's thoughts into something that sparks a little joy.

Remember a time when life felt good. See what little piece of that life you can add back to recreate a little piece of what works best.

Letter to Myself - Written Nine Years Ago

I stumbled across this post written almost nine years ago. I was going through one of my regularly scheduled depressive modes. Now that the age of 65 is creeping up on me, it is nice to look back on yesteryear and see how far I have come along. Yet there is still so far to go... 

SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 2016

Letter to Self (from a Sixty Year Old Me)

Dear Fifty Five Year Old You,

I am writing this letter to you four and a half years in advance of you turning sixty years old. I am writing it to you this morning because I'm a little disgusted and disappointed in "55 Year Old You" and I think you need a good talking to. This may not be pretty. You have been warned.

I am very disappointed in you lately. If I didn't know who you were and where you have been, I would call you a "quitter". Heavens, I can't even call you a quitter because lately you have been too afraid, paralyzed &/or lazy to even start anything.

I know, I know. Once you start, you feel committed. Once you feel committed to something, you start beating yourself up. Relentlessly. You think you can't start something because you don't have a whole big chunk of time to devote to the job. So you don't start anything.

This has got to end. You know that. You know the answer is to simply take small bites out of big jobs and whittle away at them. You know this! Why aren't you acting on it? I know, I know!  You are tired. Your daycare days are long. Your weekends are short. How can you do "big things" when you have so little left over at the end of the day?

If you keep this up, by the time you hit the age of sixty you will want to abandon this ship and this home you have created because there is always "too much to do". Isn't this home everything you ever wanted? Hasn't this house enabled you to work from home and adapted to whatever you wanted it to do for you? Hasn't the ability to pay "interest only" on your mortgage allowed you to pay your bills, live a comfortable life and given you more financial freedom than renting an apartment could ever afford you?

This house is so much more than a roof over your head. It sustains you. It shelters you from the harsh elements of life in so many ways more than the weather. Respect it, take care of it, pamper it a little from time to time and it will continue to be there for you. And please, please, please try to pay it off!

Speaking of houses, I have no idea why I started this rant about "where you are" and "where I want you to go" with the house. I should have started with this body that is going to carry us from Point A to Point B. If I think you've let the house that shelters us go to pot, what in the world do you think I think about the way you are treating our body? How in the world is this vessel going to weather stormy weather if you don't smarten up and take better care of it?

As it is with the house, it is with our body. Start small. Rome wasn't built in a day. Fifteen minutes isn't long. Start there. Fifteen minutes of extra curricular movement. Yes, I know you think your daycare life is keeping you from turning to stone. But it isn't challenging you. You need to stretch and move and lift and get your heart pumping faster. You know this. But you aren't doing anything about it.

Start with an early morning walk. Rain or shine or sleet or hail. Walk. Just walk! Remember how awesome you felt when you took on those early morning paper routes? Walking the streets of your neighborhood while "the world" slept? You marvelled at the Northern lights, the glistening snow, the sounds of silence and nature. You thought. The words flowed in and out and through you. You came home revitalized, energized and motivated. You loved that time. Skip the paper route, take on the walks. Start there. Add and change things up as you go along. But you must BEGIN. You must. Your life depends upon it.

While I'm at it, you must nourish yourself with good food. What you feed your body fuels your brain and your brain is acting starved lately. Give it some good, solid fuel to work with and you may be amazed that your ability to think, act decisively and "do hard things". This is half the work you thought it was when you were spending your life binge watching the Gilmore Girls on the couch, with a can of Pringles at your side. Replace the Pringles with almonds. Make good meals and you may be amazed that you may fuel the appetite of others. "If you make it they will come."

I've sat back and watched you wither yourself away into a shadow of who you are capable of being. You do not have to do great things at all times but you do need to follow your passions. When you deny yourself the ability to dream big and chase a few of those dreams you become small and your world becomes smaller. You know your world is shrinking. You think you like this feeling right now. I want you to look outside of your smallness and do uncomfortable things again. Invite people into your life.

You need to look out the window and let the world inside. You are lonely and you don't even know it. You think you don't have enough of yourself to spread out any thinner than you already are. You have been here before and you will be here again. Writing is where it is at for you. If you are too tired, too fearful and too stuck in your ruts, WRITE! Send emails, letters, cards and write little notes to those who have made an impact. Write! Write! Write! This is the way out of your small world. It is a beginning.

Judging by the dreams you have been having lately, you are feeling very aware of Mom's mortality. In some ways, you feel like you are "channelling Mom" in the ways you have slowed yourself down, felt overly attached to this house and subconsciously made your world such a small one. I think you are trying to understand exactly what she is feeling by mirroring her world within your own. STOP IT! Stop it right now!! Instead, focus on "who Mom was" when she was the age you are at right now.

When Mom was this age, she was faced with her new reality after Dad's heart attack. He never came home again. I think of Mom when she was going through that time and she was strong. She simply kept taking the next forward step during a time where she must have felt completely in limbo. We marvelled at how young Mom was at age 65 and all the memories her grandchildren had of their very untypical grandma. Yes, Mom was (and still is) a force to be reckoned with. Her family and her home were (and still are) everything to her. Yes, she has slowed down. Yes, her body is starting to wear out. No, she will not live forever. That scares you, doesn't it? Ya, me too.

We don't know what life is going to hand us in between "now" and "five years from now". You simply cannot spend your time focused on that uncertainty. Take the lessons you learned from "loving André" and pay them forward.

• SAVOR THE MOMENT. Always. 
• Make memories, document them. Take pictures, but write. ALWAYS WRITE!
• Let your love shine. Your actions speak louder than words. ACT LOVINGLY.
• Let others know how you feel. SPREAD THE POSITIVE. One positive word goes a long way. 
• You will never regret what you have done. DO ALL YOU ARE CAPABLE OF DOING.

You know where your passions lie. For you, it is writing. Write for yourself. Share what is worth sharing. Just keep writing.

You are at a crossroads right now. Your children are adults and on their way. Some are further down the road than others but never forget how you feel towards your own Mom because that feeling is one you want to nurture with  your own children. We have a good, solid foundation. Just keep building.

You have some amazing friendships and relationships within your world. Don't neglect them. Even when you think you don't have time, you can always make time to send off a note or card or email. Keep those connections alive. They nourish and sustain you.

Take a chance. One chance at a time. You have become a shell of who you used to be. You know it. You are disappointed in yourself right now but this is not the end of your story. Even though (at the moment) you wouldn't care if it was.

Yes, you are tired. You are tired because you are not involved in creating your own story. You are sitting dormant, waiting for life to happen. When "life happens" it is like a slap on the face. You react. You feel indignant. You recoil then rebound. You always rebound. How about not waiting for a "slap in the face" this time? You have the power to live life out loud without being slapped into it.

Feed your body, mind and soul with fresh air, good food and positive input.
Walk. START by walking.
Write. Never stop writing. It is where you find your answers, your inspiration and your dreams.
Love. Open your heart up and take a chance again.

I want to read these words in four and a half years and say "YES! YES!! and YES!!!". I did it. I made changes. I pushed myself out of that rut and into a new and improved one. Most of all I want you to believe "Life does go on regardless of how you live it. Live it well!"

See you in the future my weary friend. You have everything you need inside of you. And if it isn't inside of you, it is here within your home, your heart and those who touch your world. Stay connected, my friend. Stop, look, listen with your heart. You will find your way. You aren't lost. You just haven't found the right highway yet.

You will find your Field of Dreams, my friend. "If you build it, they will come" ...

To be continued.

I Should Have Picked a Shorter Month

My goal to write once a day has been harder to accomplish than I thought it would be. Most of all, because I don't find I have anything of substance to write about. I used to have the ability to live a relatively full life, filter out the nuggets of an experience and find a moral in most of my stories. A beginning, a middle and a final paragraph with meaning. 

Hmphf.

Has that ship sailed? Or has it not even left the port? I scribble down thoughts when I think of them because most of my thoughts these days are fleeting. I have trouble holding onto the little storylines that run through my mind on the daily. It's a little like catching a wafting tuft of cat hair that is caught up in an air draft and appears like it may float along endlessly. This explains why I need to vacuum the moment I think I'm done. But the state of my brain? A little worrisome.

My well worn reminder to write is littered with coffee stains, figures and notations of various snippets of my mind as I have stumbled through the month.

I am trying. I hope to improve with age ...

Coming Up Empty

Writing every day is hard. 

It's not that I don't have thoughts I'm thinking, pondering and mulling over. 

It is simply that I have not cleared the slate so I can be still with those thoughts 

and put them together in coherent order.

So I seem to be coming up empty.

If at first you don't succeed,

try, try again.

Down Another Rabbit Hole

I sat down to write yesterday but fell down a rabbit hole when I couldn't remember a small detail. I fell down a parallel rabbit hole last week. 

I'm writing about things I've written about before so I use the search bar at the top of my blog and start reading what I've written previously. I like what I find and start comparing my current self to my prior self and I'm coming up short. 

Where did all the words go? Why do I not have original thoughts any more? When did I stop finding little morsels of the day to write about? Who am I when I don't write? What am I going to do about this?

When you live a life on the rinse and repeat cycle over and over, without living a life outside the place you call home, the world becomes very small.

When you stop inviting people into your life and find solace in isolation instead of socialization, that small world becomes smaller.

When you tamp down your thoughts with Netflix marathons and potato chips, you start to disappear.

I have become smaller than I can remember being for a very long time. 

Step one was to restart the daily writing habit. This is so much harder than I thought it would be. Step two must take me one step outside the rinse and repeat cycle I'm living so I start noticing the world outside my head and think some new thoughts. 

Focus. One word at a time. One day at a time. One forward step at a time ...

Rabbit holes in the snow - even the rabbits are going no where ...

but that is the intent.

They are burrowing in the snow to find shelter from the weather ...

maybe I'm just burrowing too.

Remember - you are exactly where you are meant to be...

the discomfort is there for a reason.

Be uncomfortable.

Sit in this.

The fork in the road is near.

Recurring Thoughts

When I resigned from column writing, I wrote:

"... I need to write like no one is reading for a while. Some of this unfamiliar territory involves my family, so many of my musings and thoughts are not my story to tell. Most of this will turn into a great lesson one day..."

I had recently handed in my notice to my daycare parents and was taking (another) leap of faith into my future. A future, I didn't realize at the time, that would revolve around three seniors who have taught and continue to teach me life lessons.

Mom - a fiercely independent 88 year old (at the time) who modeled the person I most want to emulate as I move through the years ahead of me. She was a life long learner long before they coined the phrase. She was curious, interested and deeply invested in her family and those within her life.

My bookkeeping boss - still working at age 85, loving what she did and invested in teaching me enough to take over the ropes one day in the distant future. 

My aunt - a gracious, curious and light hearted soul who had lost her husband (my dad's brother) three years prior. She was in the beginning stages of dementia and would need some support systems in place to keep her independent for as long as possible. She graciously accepted the help she was offered and was/is so grateful for her children and all they did/do to support her.

I remember thinking of these widely diverse group of seniors and how I would like to adopt some of the qualities from each of them into the person I was becoming. Six years later? The person I most want to emulate is Mom. Perhaps that is true because she died within the year and memories of her are frozen in time, while my other senior friends have continued on and their story is still being written.

No one can predict the road ahead of us. We can look at our parents, grandparents, our gene pool and make some vague predictions. But we can never know what twists and turns will develop as modern medicine, preventative medicine and the vast sea of the unknowns change over time and impact our future.

I stopped writing before I knew the path I was on. I simply knew all I could think about was Mom and what she was going through. Not my story to tell. She has been gone six and a half years and my thoughts return to her often. Perhaps there is a story there ...

Easier Said Than Done

I am on Day 2 of my promise to myself, to blog daily. In a nutshell? I'm coming up empty.

I've started two posts but abandoned them. Too much. Not my story to tell. I start out with a nugget of an idea but get lost. I must keep it simple as I attempt to reconnect the brain to fingertip connection that used to surprise and amaze me.

I would sit down in front of the computer and just start typing. The next thing I knew, there were words laid out before me that assembled my freefalling thoughts into paragraphs that made more sense in black and white, than they did within my head. "If ever I am unable to communicate, give me a keyboard and I will probably be able to type out what I cannot say" was my motto at the time.

Oh, how the writer within has fallen. If I was to subconsciously type out what is within my head at this very moment, it may come out as this:  af io e9 ke dls kjshf o8s s    aoaoua sdaosdis

Yes, I have systematically numbed my thoughts for so long my brain to fingertip connection is not functioning. I kept the posts I started. I scribbled down ideas on my "Blog Every Day" note-to-self that is sitting on/by my computer. I will try, try again. But for today, showing up is the best I can do.

I'll try again tomorrow.

March Forward

I woke up to the year 2023 with a 2022 hangover. 2022 was a year that left a bad taste in my mouth. I sat down to write here in the wee hours of January 1st, didn't like what I wrote and never looked back. Now, here I am. Fresh new month, fresher perspective. 

 A blog writer I enjoy made a pact with herself to write every day in February. She too, had gotten out of the regular writing habit which meant I, in return, got out of the reading habit. It was a pure delight to go back and read the posts I had missed. Her musings, perspective, projects and some of the light and easy stuff of life were documented. I sensed the pleasure she rediscovered as she renewed her writing habit. 

What a great idea, was my first thought! February was already half way complete by the time I read this. February is my favorite and least favorite winter month. Favorite - because it speeds by so fast. Least favorite - because it speeds by so fast. In an accounting/bookkeeping world, those two lost days are very noticeable. "I will start in March!", was my second thought.

March. Thirty one days to meet my bookkeeping deadlines. Month-end falls on a Friday, so I have all week to prepare for those final, frenzied days. NO bookkeeping deadlines that are set by all the powers-that-be within my little bookkeeping world. PST, GST, T4's, WCB, and all the other letters of the alphabet have been tamed the past two months. Deadlines met. Employees paid. Bills paid. Revenue Canada is satisfied for the moment.

Let me breathe a long sigh of relief as I revel in the moment of overcoming the toughest two months of the year. Now is my time to set some resolutions hopes for the year ahead. Aspirations, whimsical dreams, a renewal of hope. I shall March forward from here.

Number 1 goal - to write on!

I Miss Me

I have just spent the past hour revisiting old blog posts I've written. I stood up from the table and thought to myself, "I miss 'me' ".

I miss the part of myself who takes time to be still and let words freefall from my fingertips.

I miss long walks.

I miss being still with nature.

I miss my own pep talks.

I miss ... me.

Life is full of commitments, big and small. The drudgery of doing-what-must-be-done. Work. Being in a state of "on" as one navigates the world.

I come home from my day, immediately put on my PJ's, settle in front of the TV and savor the quiet hum and light emitted from the digital display. I have heard this is the equivalent of sitting down in front of a fire and I'm going with that. It appeases my soul to believe losing myself to an hour of television at the end of a committed day is good for me. The snacking food I opt to add into this equation? That's on me. 

If I'm not eating, moving or talking I fall asleep. I was missing out on the little pieces of enjoyment I used to savor when I decided to banish myself from mindless eating in front of the TV, reading or at the computer. My clothes sure fit better when I was eating "intentionally". I believe I even felt better. 

I have slipped back into old habits the past few months. Doing what it takes to get through the day. Rewarding myself with mindless eating in front of my "virtual fire" (aka: TV). I'm fine. But I could be better.

I needed to read a little pep talk from myself. 

As much as one thinks one may want advice, the only person who is in control of one's actions, thinking and motivation is yourself. 

I needed to hear my own words circled back to me and describe the me I most enjoy being. 

What is your inner voice telling you? What do you know that no one else can tell you? Personally? I think I need to go for a nice, long walk. Would you like to join me?

Writing Revisited

I'm back to my regularly scheduled writing after a short break from writing-off-the-cuff. My most recent posts were written almost a year ago. I wrote the words, walked away and gave them time and distance. The words passed the test of time, then revisions and the go-ahead to post them by the person who inspired the thoughts.

"It's not my story to tell" are words I hold onto when sitting down to write. Thus? I have been writing an awful lot about robins and rabbits lately. No confidentiality breach. And should these critters have the ability to understand, I didn't write anything I wouldn't say in front of them (another "rule" I do my best to uphold).

Our lives interact with so very many others. What we see and take from a situation can vary vastly from what the only other person in the room gleans from the same interaction. I've been part of situations I barely recognize when the other person retells their version of the story. There can be a wide variance between each person's takeaway when people recall the same incident.

When I replay unpleasant interactions in my mind and try to make sense of how things went so terribly wrong, I do my best to try and see things from the other person's point of view. It calms me when I consider where the other party is coming from.

I can still see the expression on Mom's face and the sting in her words when I would make a comment about her, in front of her. She made no bones about the fact that she did not appreciate anyone else's interpretation on how she was feeling or about something concerning her. "Oh I do, do I?" was the essence of what I remember about those interactions.

It was in and around that time when I put the brakes on writing about anything that was not my story to tell. Since then, there have been countless times when I've walked through new and uncomfortable situations involving other people's stories. Confidentiality is everything. I questioned the wisdom of writing out loud, then simply stopped writing. Period.

As I wrote these words, they felt familiar. I searched my own blog to find exactly what I was trying to say. I wrote this six months ago:

"My story is how I navigated my side of other people's stories. If I write about my journey, not theirs ... to tell a story without telling ALL ... I think that is the key. My side of the story. Learning as I go. Love and loss and parenting and change and acceptance and curiosity ... and the never ending goal of seeking JOY."

The path I have walked has been mine alone but the other side of the story is still a privacy I want to respect. There have been lessons learned, perspectives gained, a broader understanding and a lot of learning. 

Life teaches us everything we need to learn and so much more than we want to learn, as we make our way through one life-event to the next. It has always been my goal to tell a little story and wind it up with a life lesson. Sometimes I succeed. Other times? I just need to write about rabbits. 

Gift to Self

I fritter away time like no one's business. When asked what I do in a day, I may be hard pressed to recall. But lately I have been hyper-vigilant in tracking my time and it amazes even me. I spend an awful lot of time doing things of little value. Or do I???

I feel like this has been a week (okay, two days out of seven) of walking around with a screwdriver. Fixing things. Tightening things. Moving latches and screwing them back in place. Tis the season of "shifting". Doors and gates don't close the way they did a week ago. Having had a screwdriver in my hand, I tend to notice a wobbly stool, loose cupboard door handles and why the heck did that bifold door fall off the track (I did it - I accidentally closed a mop handle in the immovable side of the door flush to the wall but did not notice the handle in said location until after watching a YouTube video on how to fix a bifold door).

There went (perhaps) an hour, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes all tolled, of my week. Where did the rest go?

Cat hair. Can I just say the allure of a hairless cat is starting to appeal to me? Where does the hair on a hairless cat go? Do they grow it and shed it? Or to they simply have a chronic case of alopecia and baldness means no new hair growth at all? Vacuuming, picking up, lint-brushing cat hair off of any surface cat hair can waft onto is consuming more of my time (now that I have a 100% cat hair free zone in my little home-away-from-home, I tend to notice cat hair more than ever before). Even at that, on an average, I cannot claim that cat hair removal claims any more than a half hour ten minutes per day.

Podcasts. My newest favorite thing. I believe I spend that time wisely as I combine listening to fun, inspiring and thought provoking topics while I do what I have done every morning for years. I listen while I work on my morning puzzles, sip on my morning smoothie and have my second (often third) cup of coffee. Now there is a full hour of my day, not counting the time I spend prior to and after the podcast, tending to banking and other computerized chores (grocery shopping), where I need to concentrate too hard to listen to a podcast at the same time. Let's say I spend two hours of the morning at the computer.

Morning pages. I have recently discovered if I have a smooth writing pen and write really, really fast without interruption, I can speed through three, 8-1/2" X 11" pages in half an hour to 35 minutes. Add the prep time to make my coffee and make my way to my quiet little writing spot and the amount of distractions it takes to get me from pre-morning pages to post-morning pages and there is another hour gone. POOF!

Cat litter. A separate paragraph and a separate thought from cat hair. Daily. On-going. A chore my daughter was/is willing to share with me but my inane perfectionist mind has convinced me it is easier to do it myself. I can always find an extra chore to add onto the litter cleaning. A five minute job probably rounds up to fifteen minutes some days. But I take weekends off. So there!

Vacuuming, bathing, showering, taking out garbage/recycling, shoveling snow, preparing my supper-to-go, taking time to stop and "chew" (my morning smoothie and coffee only takes me to about 10:30 and then the need for solid sustenance intervenes). Mail-checking, email-checking, message-checking, message-responding ... 

Oh!!!! The many, many distractions I opt in on. I tend to call these distractions "cleansing my palate" in the midst of my work-from-home day. I get my head in a mathematical problem and tend to think I need to walk away for a moment. Yes! That ONE piece of paper needs to go to the recycling bin by the back door immediately. Yes! I need to quickly check in on Instagram to see if any of the "talking dogs/cats" (people actually train their dogs/cats to speak to them with buttons to cue their humans to what they want/need); groundhogs; and other human critters with less hair I choose to follow and entertain me.

Distractions quite easily eat up (possibly) two hours out of a day. One day when I'm really bored (or in the need of "cleansing my palate"), I should track the time I loose to my various distracting habits.

Oh yes, then there is work. My actual job! Amazingly, it eats up a fair chunk of my day too. I am getting much better at working smarter. Or is it just called "working one job per day" for five days, in the past three weeks. Oh, there is nothing like being able to JUST STAY HOME until the work one wants to complete in a day is done. I called in "work" (not sick) from my second form of income one day and it was so intoxicating, I asked for a few more days off the following week, followed by an offer of one final day off this week. It was the best un-holiday I've ever had. When I grow up, I hope to have only ONE job ...

Am I whining? Complaining? Making excuses? Not intentionally. It may sound like it, but I am grateful for this cat-hairy, distracted, work-filled, people-filled life I lead. How I choose to spend my hours IS a choice. 

I could opt to invest my hours very differently than I do. The miracle of waking up every morning is that each day is a bright new set of options. 

Today?? I gave myself a little gift. I have chosen to sit still with this little blog space I used to call home and write. Just write.

Nothing big, small or indifferent to say. No lessons, no ranting, no carrying on about the myriad of thoughts in this busy little brain of mine. Just the little stuff. The inane. The act of choosing my daily grind in various ways with lots of room to adapt with the flow of whatever life throws my way.

Sitting down and typing (verses hand writing my morning pages) feels like an entirely different experience. I have been using my "gift" of computer time to spreadsheets, work-related emails, tax & accounting programs during my work-day, with a side order of puzzles, podcasts and on-line grocery shopping/banking for fun. I forgot how much I once enjoyed just letting my fingers fly over the keyboard and seeing what they have to say.

Apparently my fingers had much to say about nothing. I wish you a day of following your choices and hoping it takes you where you most need to be.

Today, may you give yourself the gift of spending time doing something that brings you joy. 

So Many Words (so little time)

I feel the words bubbling up inside of me again and life-as-I-am-living-it feels too busy to take the time to write.

The moment I started writing that paragraph, my answer was obvious. Get up earlier!

I am a morning person. I love spending time at my little home-away-from-home. I wake up in the wee hours of the morning to open windows and blinds to let in all the cool morning air possible before the day heats up. Once up, I stay up. 

Staying up is the answer. I went back to bed the last morning I spent at my little oasis-away-from-home. When I finally deemed it time to get up, I felt awful. If I didn't know better, I would think perhaps I was sick. But I know better.

I know I felt just fine when I first awoke and opened up the blinds to harness the cool morning air. If I had went about my early morning rituals, I feel I would have avoided a day of feeling hungover (minus the alcohol).

Early morning is where it is at for me. 

I love the time before the rest of the world wakes up and starts demanding things from me. To talk. To think. To plan. 

The wee hours of the morning is the time when I let my thoughts wander wherever they want to go. Thoughts that are starting to beg to be written. Thoughts that propel me forward throughout the day. Thoughts that spark gratitude when I let myself sit still with seeds that have been planted the day(s) prior.

I have had so many blog posts in my mind that got lost along the way as life demanded more of me than time allowed. 

So many thoughts. It is time to make the time to be still with them. I like spending time with my thoughts. I enjoy my own company. For this, I am eternally grateful.

What I Try to Do

I have been trying. The habit of morning writing seems to ebb and flow but I keep thinking "Just write. Write anything". I want to resume the habit of writing and find that unconscious brain to fingertip writing that comes when I least expect it.

I found a piece of that puzzle within my quiet little home-away-from-home. Bigger thoughts and deeper writing found their way onto the page while I savored the early mornings. All over the page kinds of thoughts. Interconnected but varying hues of the same but different story.

As I pondered whether I will continue to go to this little oasis when it gets cold and snowy, the idea of utilizing this as a quiet space to  write and let my creative juices flow has trumped my reluctance to drive in the winter. 

In the meantime, I seem to be struggling to maintain the demands of work-and-life-at-home with my promise to "just write".

My life feels like this half stained fence. I ran out of stain before I ran out of fence. Valiant effort. But incomplete:

I could list all the things I have started and left hanging in the middle. Undone. Incomplete. Out of stain. Out of time. Out of motivation. But I won't.

I will just do as Maya Angelou says:

"What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks “the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.” And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, 'Okay. Okay. I’ll come.' " 

~ Maya Angelou

Then I will hone in on completing the job.

Everything is Okay

I have not had much of an inclination to "write out loud" for the past while. Largely, in part to the reams of mostly empty notebooks, journals, memo pads and various forms of writing paper I have unearthed within our home. 

As I made my way through closets, drawers and Rubbermaid containers full of memories, mementos, pictures and miscellanea of all kinds I came up with this stack of writing paper:

Add this to Julia Cameron's suggestion to hand write three full 8-1/2" by 11" pages each and every morning as soon as you wake up and I felt like my world was telling me: Write. Journal. By hand. For yourself. Unedited. Uncensored. Just write!!

So that is exactly what I have been doing. Many pages are filled with numbers, calculations, budgeting, income tax and future goals. Other pages are filled with lists. A lot of my waking thoughts have to do with my bookkeeping responsibilities. But every now and again little morsels of inner perspective surface, as I fight with pens that skip, refuse to write and make hand writing twice the chore it should be. 

I have carved out time to think, ponder, sift through the thoughts I wake up with. There has been some growing, evolving, adapting and pondering going on within my unpublished thoughts. I may choose to write more about that which I feel stirring within my soul one day. I may not.

Everything is okay. I don't want to lose my blogging habit. But journaling by hand takes time and effort that leaves little left over to share on a public forum. Maybe one day. Maybe soon. Maybe not. I'm still here. I'm still writing.

And how are YOU?? 

I Miss Me

Waking up to a weekend full of so many thoughts, feelings, ideas and wishes has reminded me of how much I miss "me".

My introvert personality tendencies have me revelling in and losing myself in the COVID world of social distancing and isolation. The Coronavirus is enabling my natural inborn desires which is both wonderful and awful at the same time.

Add working-from-home plus my inclination to catch up on every little single thing I'm working on to this equation and I created a Math Zombie Personality (which is not my best self).

Long ago, I recognized my need for the law and order of a numbers related world to be counteracted with socialization, words, communication and enough quiet to hear myself think.

Decades of working in the banking industry fulfilled most of those needs. The ability to balance to zero was counteracted with the need to provide good customer service. My ability to listen, communicate, act and react in accordance with whoever was in front of me was a very good fit for me. 

My years of daycaring were offset with working at a bank on Saturdays, followed by a part-time bookkeeping job which became full-time. Full-time bookkeeping (all numbers) didn't fulfill my needs and eventually morphed into working as a part-time secretary (all people and words) within the school system. This catapulted me back into my daycaring/bookkeeping role where I was back in a place which was a relatively balanced equation of people, numbers, creativity and writing.

I fell out of balance a week ago when I immersed myself in work. 

I stopped thinking, processing and reflecting life-as-I-know-it. I had nothing to say, no time to say it, no one to say it to and putting this lack of nothingness into the form of a blog post was the end result. 

I took a day off yesterday. Words, thoughts, feelings and the desire to interact with friends and family came to the forefront of my mind again.

I woke up this morning feeling fresh, renewed, revitalized and ready to take on more than numbers.

I felt all these feelings and the sensation of "joy" started oozing out of my pores. I gave myself a mental hug and thought to myself, "I miss ME".

I'm going to indulge myself with whatever the day brings. I cannot wait to see what unfolds today as I create a whimsical day to just be "me". I've missed this ...

Beginning Again

Last year, my goal was to resume the habit of  writing. I wrote 365 blog posts in 2019. The quality and depth of writing material is questionable but I did what I set out to do. I kick-started my writing habit. This success was followed by a time of great wordlessness.

Recently, I was asked what I wrote about. I didn't have an answer. I write about nothing in particular. A lot of my energy has been directed towards rabbit sightings and in the moment the question was asked, all I could say was "... ... ... rabbits?".

"What will I write about?" I quietly mused in the aftermath of the unanswered question.

I wrote three pages of long hand writing daily for four months, then in one fell swoop I shredded every last page. I wrote, I destroyed the evidence and let it go. I have yet to pick up the habit again. Sleep trumps writing.

I have not replied to a few Christmas letters I received. I thought I would sit down and write a letter instead of writing morning pages. What I ended up with, was six small pages of "morning pages" in the form of a letter. Rambling, excessive words and details and basically I emptied my thoughts onto the page and there was nothing worth reading. I shredded that too.

Responding to emails has become increasingly tough. The briefest of replies take an extraordinary amount of time and energy.

I feel the creative side of my brain withering up and dying. I feel passionless. I go through the paces of getting through the days in order to reach the weekend. The definition of a perfect weekend is one in which the car never leaves the garage and I get to stay home.

I need to define a purpose behind what I write. I believe delving into Julia Cameron's book "It's Never Too Late to Begin Again" will be the anecdote to my annual case of the winter blues. I just need to motivate myself to immerse myself in the process and I will find my way out of where I'm at.

My goal this year? To come up with a better answer when someone asks "What do you do?" and "What do you write about?" Sounds pretty simple.

Beginning again (and again and again). At what age and stage of life do we stop redefining ourselves?

Morning Pages Review

I have been diligently writing three, 8-1/2" X 11" pages, in long hand writing since August 26th. Four months. On my four month anniversary, I shredded every page.

No remorse, nor any wish to re-read a single sentence I had written. I shredded the pages as easily as I throw out the trash. There was no epiphany. No nugget of wisdom. Four months of whining, negativity, list making, dollar accounting, budgeting, lists of shoulda, coulda, woulda's. Gone.

It actually feels good to shred every word and toss it into the garbage. That is what it was to me. Exorcising my morning demons with no desire to revisit them.

I stopped writing three mornings ago. I cannot say if I feel better or worse for the lack of purging. Perhaps a little worse. I find myself drawn into the depths of my thoughts instead of the purge and release factor while writing my morning pages.

Will I start writing again? I think so. 

As much as I felt like those pages drained me of all the words I woke up with and left me wordless when it came to write anything here in my blog, I do feel that allowing myself the freedom to write anything and everything that came to mind was therapeutic. 

The magic of putting pen to page rather than typing? Surprisingly amazing. The times I have sat down at the computer to respond to an email or type out a text have felt excruciating. Picking the right word out of the air feels daunting. The shortest of replies take an extraordinary amount of time to type. 

There is something to these pages. Shredding them felt as cathartic as burning them. There were no deep dark secrets. The pages consisted of a side of myself I do not care to nurture.

Miss Negative Nellie is alive and well but I have destroyed the evidence of her existence. My fear is, if I don't purge these words in the morning, they may sneak out during the course of living my day. 

To err is human, they say. I'd rather err grandly in the privacy of my morning pages and do my best with the knowledge I usually find at the end of my third page. 

Morning pages? I'll be back ...

Breathing

I have been filling my spare moments with reading this weekend past.

I have stumbled upon writers who make me "feel". Their words fill me up and inspire me. I have been inhaling their words.

I came upon this phrase in my travels:

"Reading is Like Breathing in; Writing is Like Breathing out"

~Pam Allyn 

I will exhale another day. This morning I am still inhaling the goodness of the words that found their way into my world.

New Habits and Me

I have filled a journal and ran the ink dry on two, brand new (for journal writing only) pens. Morning pages and me seem to be working.

Julia Cameron, something is happening here. What started out as three pages of negativity, whining and repetitive nonsense has unclogged some of my writing arteries.

I have a way to go but I believe I'm off to a good start. Writing and me go back a long way. Instilling the habit of literally writing from the heart, straight onto the page without technological intervention (a computer keyboard) has worked some kind of magic for me. 

I know "writing" isn't the answer for everyone but it sure works for me. I always seem to find my answers when I let myself write like no one is reading. I highly recommend it.

Morning Thoughts Tell Me All I Need to Know

My eyes popped open, never to close again in and around 5 a.m. That is okay. It is good. 5:00 a.m. gives me time to do all I want to do with my morning. Which starts with my "morning pages".

My morning thoughts were all about work. What I didn't accomplish last week. What needs to be accomplished this week. Things I know about, all the things that will crop up unexpectedly and everything in between. Work, work and more work thought infiltrated my thought waves.

I started writing which unveiled my deep seated gratitude. I am exactly where I need to be right now. Because ...

My secondary thoughts revolved around my car. Yes. My car. Again. Still. Now? It is the windshield washer pump. It is official. I have only used windshield washer antifreeze for -35ºC or colder. I do not have any light weight summer wiper fluid in the reservoir. The windshield washer pump is not pumping as it should. An appointment is booked.

As I rambled on in my morning pages, I continued to go down the path of my financial state of affairs. #1 goal - pay off money borrowed for exterior house painting this summer; #2 - save up for income taxes owing; #3 - save, save and save some more; #4 - get in the habit of spending less so when retirement does find its way into my life, I am able to live within my means.

Wait a minute!

I have had the nerve to be whiny about the necessity of leaving our home to earn a pay cheque when that very pay cheque is a requirement to sustaining my financial state of existence?!

What if my employers decided my services were no longer required? What if things changed on a dime with either of those I work with and for? Am I ready?

I don't know enough. I haven't saved enough. I have a car that is on life support to sustain its reliability. I presently spend too much money.

I have lived a life where I have had to work, spend wisely and sustain myself. I have had financial back-up systems to help me along the way. I haven't done this all by myself but I have been fully accountable for paying the bills my entire adult life. It will all be okay. It always is.

I need to refresh my memory and remind myself to simply be grateful. I am exactly where I need to be. I always am.