Easter Weekend Update

Go ahead, grab something to drink and sit a while and catch up with me. Well, I guess coming into Easter Weekend on Friday I didn’t know what to expect. Honestly, compared to the rest of the month, any thoughts or plans were just completely in the back of my mind. I mean after appendicitis and surgery, traveling and being gone for almost two weeks, and trying to catch up from ALL THAT (still not), and the car dying and having/getting to get a new one – any thoughts of the weekend were just superseded by everything else.

So imagine my delight coming home Thursday night after the *stress of the work day set in and realizing that I had 3 days off (well 2 days considering Sunday is not much of a day off as far as getting anything done or resting goes).

*Stress because the efforts to catch up are just really hard when you don’t want to, can’t, and don’t feel like working over anyway.

Thursday night we took Mom to eat at Demo’s and then went to the grocery store. I was absolutely exhausted by the time we got through. But Friday when I woke up I was thinking how excited I was for the weekend.

However, I think we have done pretty good considering – all over the board – for work, for Mom, for us at home, and even for our hobbies, dogs etc. So despite how much I want to cringe at having to go back to work tomorrow and have to get off of the sprint of getting things done at home, I should realize we didn’t do so bad really considering the month we had.

We have been tough, durable, determined, organized, and well, just doing the best we can.

Sometimes I stuck with my “list”; sometimes I just ignored my list and did whatever was at hand, or sometimes I just did what I wanted, but I was fairly disciplined and productive, whatever the approach, lol.

Friday I made chicken salad*, did ALL of our laundry, cleaned the kitchen, worked some on my office, picked up some, ironed my work pants, moved some pictures around, worked on video files and a thumbnail. *George said it was the best I’d ever made. It’ll be on a video coming down the line (3 videos away maybe).

Saturday I went to Home Store and bought cushions and some art work for the house. It was fun changing those out. That’ll also be on a video too.

I needed something else for the shower room. I did have a Mom toweling off her child pic there. It was very innocent but I realized that today is a different time and it showed a naked butt. It reminded me of my Nanny giving us grandkids a bath. So the pic was special to me, but one day I just happened to be analyzing all the various artwork in the house or prints I should say and I gasped. What the pic means to me versus what it might mean to someone else is totally different. I didn’t want to be judged or whatever. So I took it town and put this up there instead, lol.

I know it’s just all random stuff on this wall, but I like it that way. And I aded a pic of Dexter. Is that not cute???

It made George laugh when I brought it home. I just love it. Looks just like him. So I spent some time moving more pictures around. And started a lot of projects that I didn’t really get to finish. I got my office cleaned up today.

Progress Toward March Goals

So I stuck my annual goals in various months across the 12 month span of the year when planning 2024. I had a few things planned for March. I was able to get some research done on a few things while in TX.

Here’s what I or We did in March as far as goals:

Here’s what I didn’t do, lol. But no worries, there’s always “later” and I’m always over ambitious thinking I have more time than I do. It’s kind of a miracle to get ANYTHING done these days.

That said, even our “Winter into Spring” bucket list reminder we have in the kitchen has many check marks on it. I had to add “get appendix out” at the bottom just for fun.

I still have through May to work on these things. I don’t think I’ll make 500 subscribers. The subscriber count stopped growing during the appendicitis videos. But all I can do is shrug my shoulders and realize that it’s all on God’s timetable anyway. I mainly just want to have fun with the channel. I don’t have to make money from it but the main thing is just trying to meet the goals I set for myself. Mainly to see if I can. I guess it’s like my own personal Mount Everest climb, lol.

My Notion Account

You have heard me talk about Notion before. I use it now to keep up with my thoughts and goals and even some data I want to track or keep up with. So I reorganized it this afternoon. Did I have time for that? No! But I just tossed the To Do list aside and decided I needed to do this. I was cleaning up my office and realized that I needed to plug in some data and my Notion was also getting cluttered. So I mainly decided to have it in THREE main sections:

• My check lists section for shopping which includes some recipes I don’t want to forget to make when I have time (above)
• A current To Do and Project List section along with calendar
• A Daily Workspace – that mainly houses all my sectors of life that I need to access – each with it’s own heading and page. That way it is SECTIONED off and not all just residing haphazardly on my home page.

All of those things bulleted there ABOVE are on the “Home page.” Below here is the “Daily Workspace” section and under each of those titles, has a “page” that you click on to go into it.

So the Reference room is just details like – what version of Apple Watch I have, what version of iPhone I have, what Canon camera lenses I have, etc.

The planning room is pretty huge, but it’s a workspace that has 2025 goals, Birthday planning and list of family birthdays, Christmas planning lists, ideas for the next quarter’s bucket list, a “Mom” section to keep up with her stuff I need to do or plan for, and a Curiosity Page, of just a list of things to “look up” or not forget. Kinda of a later list. I keep it on the planning page so I’ll see it often.

Daily Blog notes are where I park bullet pointed notes of things I want to mention in my blog to tell you.

Daily Journal, I only use when I’m really trying to work on ME! If I am working through something I’ll develop a set of questions or prompts to make me think about or make progress toward something for that day. For example, if I’m feeling depressed, I might ask myself to list things to be grateful for that day. If I’m going through an anger/bitter spell, I might develop questions or prompts to talk through that – maybe asking why, why, why til I get the root cause. Currently, mental health is doing ok. I have structure in place, God, supplements, eating better, etc. I may have to do a sleeping journal if my sleep doesn’t improve. So if so, I’d develop questions like. Did you quit scrolling on your phone before bed time? Were you worried about anything when you went to bed? What kept you from getting 7 hours? I might just do a little study on myself. But anyway, that is just an example. I’m not currently using the journal section right now.

The Entertainment section is movies and books I want to consider watching/reading.

Social Media, is where all my YouTube and Blog Goals are kept. Each leads into it’s on page from that page, etc. I also do some tracking there.

Spiritual is where I’m keeping my World Bible School tracking. I almost quit because of the data they were asking me to track. But I just quit adopting so many students. Number 1, I don’t have the time it’s taking and Number 2, if I’m having to track, it just takes more time away from adopting and grading lessons. So I’m doing half of what I once did.

Health and Wellness has quite the info and also it leads to several pages of things off of that main page. I have research on Diverticulitis, a symptom tracker (not currently using). My symptoms improved with the appendix removal. I did research on the disc degeneration they found in the MRI. And what each disc degeneration causes. So I have some research to type into that when I get a chance.

And of course Household projects. Just a list of things I want to do in 2024.

So there you have it. Today we went to church and took Mom out to eat. I’ve played around in my office, went through email, cleaned off my desk and notes, and my mind feels a lot more at ease.

The Week ahead…

So Mom has a doc appt Friday (eye injection). It’s been about 2 months. And it’s Month End and Quarter End. I only have 3 of these left to go through. ;-D

I realize with the end of this quarter, and how fast it’s gone, that retirement will be here in a blink. No time. This month has given me a little peak at what it might be like. I can tell you that since the surgery, and Texas, I’ve changed a little bit. I’m not sure how to describe it. But I really enjoyed reading and not having a tight schedule. And I’m almost rebelling against having a schedule now. I’m finding it hard to be on a schedule now. I don’t sleep good at night, I’m not ready to get up in the mornings, I’m tired of pushing, and I care much less about so many things that used to be way up there on the priority list. And that is OK because my manifest list or what I wanted to cultivate this year was:

Well being, Wellness, Creativity, Simplicity, and Peace. So I am heading in the right direction with my mindset I think. God is steering me also. That darn appendix being out has helped me on so many levels.

Meanwhile in Texas

Have a great week. It’ll be later in the week I think when I can get back.