Little changes.
Jun. 12th, 2007 07:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrissaI have been very productive lately, and several of the mundane things I've been trying to do have fallen into place. The painter I fired is now returning my calls, being patronizing in an attempt to placate me so that he will still get my money. Hah. The new painter is hearty and cheerful and maintains an appropriate sense of personal space, and he starts Monday unless it's raining. Go, new painter. Go away, fired painter.
One of the best results of all this, aside from, y'know, getting stuff done that we want done, is that after I called my aunt and my cousin today, I had no more phone chores on my to-do list. And the only one on next week's list is "call grands," which is a reminder more than a chore, because of all the time on the phone, I mind time on the phone with my grands least. (Except for the weeks![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
markgritter is out of town.) Another good result is that I feel freed up to do various other things, since I'm no longer spending hours on the phone trying to reach the painter, the asphalt person and the concrete person (now! in one convenient person), or the porch person. I have time to take a breath and let it out. Golly.
I have a suggestion for this summer. I suggest that you think about something you've "always wanted" or "always meant" to do. Not something big. We're talking on the order of "trying those stripey eggplants at the store" or "walking the long way home from the bus stop" or "leaving the dishes in the sink to take the kids to the park after dinner" or "finding a pretty pot for that one Swedish ivy." What seems like the sort of thing that would enrich your life but you just never get around to it? Can you get around to it now? What's left the mental realm of the possible because you haven't gotten to it for so long that it's achieved routine status to not do it?
I know I'm not your mom or your fourth-grade teacher or anything, so I'm not actually assigning you to do this, but it would make me happy if you did and told me the results. I'd always meant to walk to the library instead of driving, but last week I did, and oh, it was good. And this week I'm going to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden withpameladean, and you don't even want to think about how long I've been intending to do that. (Especially if you remove the pameladean from the equation. I have never been to the Wildflower Garden, and have found the prospect interesting since I was...er. Yikes. Eleven at most.)
This is not about climbing Mount Everest or writing an entire ballet score or anything like that. It's about some small thing that would make your life better, or might. I'm not opposed to telling someone you've had a monster crush on them for years, or finally sending out some of those stories your writer-friends say are so good, or spending a gajillion dollars on walking shoes that fit really properly, or learning to do a half-dozen fancy dives instead of just a cannonball every time. But it doesn't have to start with something like that. It can be a peach Italian soda from that cafe you've always wondered about and never gone into. It can be taking the time to clear your inbox so you can see forward from here. Just -- tell me if you did this. Tell me how it went.
One of the best results of all this, aside from, y'know, getting stuff done that we want done, is that after I called my aunt and my cousin today, I had no more phone chores on my to-do list. And the only one on next week's list is "call grands," which is a reminder more than a chore, because of all the time on the phone, I mind time on the phone with my grands least. (Except for the weeks
markgritter is out of town.) Another good result is that I feel freed up to do various other things, since I'm no longer spending hours on the phone trying to reach the painter, the asphalt person and the concrete person (now! in one convenient person), or the porch person. I have time to take a breath and let it out. Golly.I have a suggestion for this summer. I suggest that you think about something you've "always wanted" or "always meant" to do. Not something big. We're talking on the order of "trying those stripey eggplants at the store" or "walking the long way home from the bus stop" or "leaving the dishes in the sink to take the kids to the park after dinner" or "finding a pretty pot for that one Swedish ivy." What seems like the sort of thing that would enrich your life but you just never get around to it? Can you get around to it now? What's left the mental realm of the possible because you haven't gotten to it for so long that it's achieved routine status to not do it?
I know I'm not your mom or your fourth-grade teacher or anything, so I'm not actually assigning you to do this, but it would make me happy if you did and told me the results. I'd always meant to walk to the library instead of driving, but last week I did, and oh, it was good. And this week I'm going to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden with
pameladean, and you don't even want to think about how long I've been intending to do that. (Especially if you remove the pameladean from the equation. I have never been to the Wildflower Garden, and have found the prospect interesting since I was...er. Yikes. Eleven at most.)This is not about climbing Mount Everest or writing an entire ballet score or anything like that. It's about some small thing that would make your life better, or might. I'm not opposed to telling someone you've had a monster crush on them for years, or finally sending out some of those stories your writer-friends say are so good, or spending a gajillion dollars on walking shoes that fit really properly, or learning to do a half-dozen fancy dives instead of just a cannonball every time. But it doesn't have to start with something like that. It can be a peach Italian soda from that cafe you've always wondered about and never gone into. It can be taking the time to clear your inbox so you can see forward from here. Just -- tell me if you did this. Tell me how it went.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2007-06-13 01:01 am (UTC)right now, i am coming home every night and seeing the pink petunias in the whiskey barrel out front. it's very nice.
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Date: 2007-06-13 01:13 am (UTC)Heh - I just posted about this very thing today ;)
But yes - that's what I'm working on this summer....that and a bunch of other things...
I'm also starting to work on building my own style for my journal instead of just casually flipping through the designs available. It's step one of *finally* learning the s2 style system.
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Date: 2007-06-13 02:13 am (UTC)I feel the same way about the recently-blue library and music room, and to a lesser extent
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Date: 2007-06-13 02:14 am (UTC)Another person on my friendslist was writing about having the urge for a sundae and -- surprise! -- just getting herself a sundae. Which was also neat and one of the things that triggered the difference between, "I should post this" and posting it.
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Date: 2007-06-13 02:14 am (UTC)My thing...
Date: 2007-06-13 02:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 02:52 am (UTC)In the last six months I have run a court (like being Maid of Honor for four months), learned to weave, am halfway into teaching myself to knit and am tackling calligraphy.
Really, none of the activities is the important factor here. The new accomplishment is flinging myself gleefully into things that I am fully aware I am likely to be *bad* at. I am embracing the opportunity to do something badly and look like an idiot for the sheer joy of *doing* in an uninhibited manner.
This is going in my own journal. I think I just hit on something important.
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Date: 2007-06-13 05:13 am (UTC)But: Today I read most of Mindspring, and yesterday and the day before I read Mothers and Other Monsters, and in the few days before that I read Interfictions. I just picked them up and read them. I read them on the train, where for the past month I've done puzzles. I carefully avoided staining them on my lunch breaks. I carried them surreptitiously into the bathroom at work. I even read them at home on my days off, lounging in bed with a cat at my feet or sitting at the dining table and absently spooning up cereal as I turned pages.
I read--no, I flung myself into books, devoured books, let books devour me, simply for pleasure. I haven't done that in months, ever since I burned out on book reviewing. (I think the last time I turned in a book review was March sometime, or maybe February, not counting the one I wrote last December and just sent to
Reading doesn't feel like work anymore. I'm so very, very glad I took a moment to find that out. It would have been a tremendously sad thing to lose it for good.
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Date: 2007-06-13 06:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 09:21 am (UTC)I pondered longer in the journal, but your question did bring about a revelation for me. I had never realized that I do this, but I do not keep those small things on my list - I do them as soon as possible. That is what I do when I wonder, I try to get the answer. And when with bigger issues it may work or not - an example not mentioned in my journal may be getting into bog: I had wondered for couple of years, but eventually I could rope it into happening.
I have no energy for the bigger things, so I keep doing the small ones. It does not help mightily ( but it DOES some - being in hospital I missed cooking. To my surprise someone tried to soothe me with the food being available for me for eating - but it was NOT eating I missed, it was ONLY the cooking part) , but when I am strong enough to wonder, I naturally follow up. When I am too tired to wonder, then the list just stays empty (the bigger issues also get erased during times when breathing is too much to do, just that they always appear back as soon as there is enough energy to "mean to")
I guess it is a bad thing, actually - I squander my energy on those small things that I then have no energy left to use to make my life better. But I simply do not know how to stop doing it.
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Date: 2007-06-13 11:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 11:19 am (UTC)Re: My thing...
Date: 2007-06-13 11:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 11:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 11:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 11:23 am (UTC)I've found recently that playing music while I'm biking helps my energy levels, too. Or harms them, if I pick something really fast and wear myself out without meaning to!
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Date: 2007-06-13 11:43 am (UTC)Also, there are many foods I would like to eat, but have no wish to cook and there are SOME (even if less than the foods falling into the previous category) that I would like to cook, but not to taste ... Yet, when I crave to cook then eating would not quench the craving (observing and only occasionally giving hand MIGHT work. But that hospital had no kitchen any more ... and if they had had one, the regulations would have not allowed patients in there anyway).
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Date: 2007-06-13 12:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 01:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 02:41 pm (UTC)Second, I've been meaning to learn to play the theme from Young Frankenstein on concertina. I've never gotten around to it for a variety of stupid non-reasons. Time to stop procrastinating. By the end of the month, I'll have learned it.
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Date: 2007-06-13 06:05 pm (UTC)And I'm going to do it again this summer.
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Date: 2007-06-13 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 08:22 pm (UTC)This is part of why I am going with
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Date: 2007-06-13 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 08:23 pm (UTC)Batphoneniece pictures!no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 08:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 08:32 pm (UTC)Making pesto was weird, because it started out just smelling like basil. And then basil and cheese. And at some point in the ingredient addition, it very suddenly smelled exactly of pesto.
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Date: 2007-06-13 09:25 pm (UTC)Actually, now that I think of it, I'll be playing at a music festival in July. A friend will also be there who plays horn, and maybe I can talk her into playing that essential "duh DUUH duh, duh DUUH duh" part.
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Date: 2007-06-13 11:34 pm (UTC)I always thought I wasn't creative either. Then I finally tried cross-stitch again. When I did patterns that were small enough for me to both keep my interest AND finish, it was very very fun.
Then a friend got me addicted to beaded English roses. [Possibly Victorian.] And alas, all the cross-stitch has gone unloved and un-worked-on ever since 2003. Cross-stitch is more work, though, so I don't grieve as much as I might. :>
I do love making the little beaded critters and the small flowers. It is very cool to be able to sit, watching West Wing reruns, and create a whole rose.
M'ris, my goal within the week is to make a thimble bouquet.
- Chica
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Date: 2007-06-14 12:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-14 10:44 pm (UTC)http://kalmbachcatalog.stores.yahoo.net/bbpdf0408114.html
This may be the exact same one that Cynthia [Steve's sister] found. She sent me heap of bead patterns. I'll stop now, or this will be a long list. :D
- Chica
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Date: 2007-06-14 11:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-15 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 01:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-16 02:09 am (UTC)I'm pretty far overdue for another photo shoot at this point, so as soon as laundry gets done that's on the to-do list. Glasses pics will be included.
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Date: 2007-06-16 02:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-23 12:16 am (UTC)I think, now that I am back and can focus on more mundane "someday" things, I shall. and I will try to remember to let you know.
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Date: 2007-06-23 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-27 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-27 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-28 12:18 pm (UTC)