The Visible Woman...January 9, 2004

I feel the need to change things. Maybe the format of the journal. Maybe how I spend my time. Just need to change some things.

I still need to accomplish all the things I set out to do when I retired. That may sound funny after fifteen months, but it's true. Of course, I have gotten fitter and lost weight but, since that goal requires constant vigilance (and I still need to improve as well), it's not like you ever 'get there.' I haven't gotten my life (and closets and such) straight or made any progress to speak of on my writing and other creative projects.

So...things need to change. It's tempting to change the format of the journal or something that would be change but get me no closer to goals. But I don't think I'll do that. I think I'll go right on doing the journal in this format. (Although I may reorganize the archives a bit.) It is, after all, my main alleged creative outlet.

No, here's what has to change: I have to find time for some of the writing and other creative goals. I have to get things cleaned and organized. And there is only one way to do it.

Spend time on the stuff.

I think what I'll do is 'allocate' time to activities that I want to accomplish and try to stay focused on them during the elapsed time. I've threatened this before and even dabbled with doing it. I'll admit it is more fun to simply do what I feel like doing next from one minute to the next. Write the journal, surf the WEB, shop online, fix some food, clean up the kitchen, check on the remodel, go workout, do a little reading. Just flitting from one thing to another. And it's not that I never accomplish anything. I do. I finish my journal and I work the family budget and I correspond with people (which I want to keep doing). I get to the gym. I socialize. I get some reading done. I do little projects for FFP as he requests them like proofreading, errands, scanning and optimizing photos. I get our trip planning done somehow and errands get taken care of, too.

The problem is that I just never get to some of the other activities. I don't get out the movie camera manual and read it or study my maps of France or my French books as much as I'd like. (Oh...yeah, it's not in my resolutions or anything but I'm supposed to be refreshing my French. And I am listening to CDs in the car.) I don't even start on the clean up tasks like getting this office organized.

So...I need to focus some continuous spans of time on these things. But here's the problem: right now there are lots of interrupts. Some question comes up on the remodel or whatever.

Still...I'm going to try to find one hour a day (it may have to be late at night) and focus it on one of the things I want to accomplish. Yep, that's the plan. Stay tuned. [I didn't do it today, of course.]

	changing things up I feel the need to change things. Maybe the format of the journal. Maybe how I spend my time. Just need to change some things. I still need to accomplish all the things I set out to do when I retired. That may sound funny after fifteen months, but it's true. Of course, I have gotten fitter and lost weight but, since that goal requires constant vigilance (and I still need to improve as well), it's not like you ever 'get there.' I haven't gotten my life (and closets and such) straight or made any progress to speak of on my writing and other creative projects. So...things need to change. It's tempting to change the format of the journal or something that would be change but get me no closer to goals. But I don't think I'll do that. I think I'll go right on doing the journal in this format. (Although I may reorganize the archives a bit.) It is, after all, my main alleged creative outlet. No, here's what has to change: I have to find time for some of the writing and other creative goals. I have to get things cleaned and organized. And there is only one way to do it. Spend time on the stuff. I think what I'll do is 'allocate' time to activities that I want to accomplish and try to stay focused on them during the elapsed time. I've threatened this before and even dabbled with doing it. I'll admit it is more fun to simply do what I feel like doing next from one minute to the next. Write the journal, surf the WEB, shop online, fix some food, clean up the kitchen, check on the remodel, go workout, do a little reading. Just flitting from one thing to another. And it's not that I never accomplish anything. I do. I finish my journal and I work the family budget and I correspond with people (which I want to keep doing). I get to the gym. I socialize. I get some reading done. I do little projects for FFP as he requests them like proofreading, errands, scanning and optimizing photos. I get our trip planning done somehow and errands get taken care of, too. The problem is that I just never get to some of the other activities. I don't get out the movie camera manual and read it or study my maps of France or my French books as much as I'd like. (Oh...yeah, it's not in my resolutions or anything but I'm supposed to be refreshing my French. And I am listening to CDs in the car.) I don't even start on the clean up tasks like getting this office organized. So...I need to focus some continuous spans of time on these things. But here's the problem: right now there are lots of interrupts. Some question comes up on the remodel or whatever. Still...I'm going to try to find one hour a day (it may have to be late at night) and focus it on one of the things I want to accomplish. Yep, that's the plan. Stay tuned. [I didn't do it today, of course.]
so visualize a big tub and a vanity, shiny and clean
JUST TYPING Focused time. Is hard to find. But would do wonders for ever finishing anything.
		Food Diary. *breakfast* it was about 10:30 but anyway I had: one of those little triangles of Laughing Cow (La Vache qui Rit) cheese four slices turkey bacon half a grapefruit *lunch* salad with onions, carrots, broccoli, a pumpkin seed something creamy dressing, parmesan cheese, tomato about four ounces of salmon with capers *snacks* about three cups of coffee some bites of tuna salad I was making bowl of my tuna salad (boiled eggs, tuna, mayo, apple, relish) some Brillat Savarin cheese and about a dozen crackers [late at night] some cheddar cheese another bowl of the tuna *dinner* just snacks Today I - pondered the news that farmed salmon and tuna probably have PCBs and mercury respectively...geez next they well say there are contaminates in my belovd cheese. - consumed no alcohol (I considered having a drink at the opera but I didn't). - had no soda (and I only mention this because I wanted to have one at the opera and at home later).
		Time flies.... I get up at a pretty reasonable hour. I am off to the club between 8:30 and 9 and I do a pretty reasonable workout. I'm back to visit with trim carpenter, contractor and cabinet maker. We observe an error the plumbers made that will have to be corrected. The contractor seems confident in everything. I'm less so. I fix something to eat a few times, mostly snacks, and, when I'm fixing lunch, boil eggs and make up a big bowl of tuna salad. I clean up my messes. (We are trying to keep the kitchen orderly in an attempt to have order somewhere in the house. This is abbout the only place that doesn't have extra furniture and chaos at the moment.) I spend some time doing various things like buying something off ebay and showing FFP the budget calculations. I even clean up my email a little bit, trying to file or ditch some of the hundreds of messages in my inbox. I finally shower after the workmen are gone and get read to go to the opera. We are there way early but we do get a good parking place. I am sleepy during the performance (Cosi Van Tute) which has some good moments, cool costumes and, of course, Mozart. Still it seems to me that it drags in places and I catch my head snapping back here and there. A lawyer who sits next to me sneaks a drink in at intermission and sips it through a straw and even, during a crescendo, rattles the ice. Cheryl Parrish was good in her comedic role as maid. The music for two or three or many voices was good. But something didn't click. The audience didn't give a standing ovation. In Austin, this is a slap in the face...everything gets the standing O...we are such rubes.

		Reading. Newspapers. I started a book of letters Eisenhower wrote to Marshall during the war.
		nothing
		Exercise twenty-two minutes on recumbent bike chest, shoulder and triceps weight routine some ab work twenty-five minutes on recumbent bike
	. .	My mood is actually slightly improved. My sister made it through surgery OK at least. But I'm not in a better enough mood to make the gauge go up. Physically my digestion is off and today I had about a minute of really bad chest pain that was surely heart burn but it was so brief and extreme as to be weird. I think. Once something like that passes you wonder. Both of these things are probably tension from feeling out-of-control with people's illnesses and the remodel, I guess.
	It's a Tangled Web we weave...these days of our lives.	One year ago "Not that I cook that much. True enough. I have a cookbook for every meal I cooked in the last five years. Really, really cooked, you know." Two years ago "My life seems to have come through a tunnel of late. Where plans have been executed, courses taken, but the conclusion not exactly worked out. I alternatively feel frightened and exhilerated by this feeling."