Sunday, June 3, 2007

Living the Good Life

While I"m still having some low energy issues, I did get out and about today and got some stuff done. I'm still ignoring the growing pile of incoming paper. I've got about a week and a half to clean out the living room and spiff up the patio before people start coming by who might have an opinion.

So I felt good about getting stuff done:
  1. I spoke to most of my family today: mom & dad, brother, both grandmas. Grandma S is out of the therapy unit and back in her assisted living condo although she's had some low energy days. Grandma P self reports being "great" and went to church, had lunch out, and took a bit of a road trip today, and they had a truly tasty sounding dinner.

    I spent about an hour chatting with my brother while I walked over to get an apple fritter. He had some fascinating insights on how to motivate each of his friends differently. One needs to be cajoled into doing stuff AND prevented from backing out at the last minute. Another decides early on whether or not to do something and sticks with that decision to the point where he doesn't enjoy going to things he's been coerced into attending. Another always reschedules unless my brother works the time out with the friend's wife first. It made me realize that I haven't done such an analysis on any of my friends, nor had it occurred to me that it might be a useful thing to do. Who is likely to show up when invited? Who is likely to say they'll come then not without a good reason? (Luckily, few.) Who will do something if I ask, but won't ask me first? Maybe I'll think on that after I clean up my paper piles.


  2. Anyhoo - also got the car washed and picked up some supplies for projects. I need to make a container for carting around my glassblowing pipes and decided to copy an idea I saw someone else use of a PVC pipe segment with end caps so I got a giant 10' piece of 4" pipe that stuck out my window on the way home. I also bought stuff to make a hanging basket of impatiens because my mom says they'll do well in full shade, unlike my still runty marigolds. I even hung it up and everything. I got the laundry done yesterday and hung up the fancy shirts so I don't have to iron, although I do miss the stiff starch/sizing feel of them being new.

  3. I also made a tasty dinner - spinach salad (I've been getting a good deal on the pre-bagged spinach) and homemade pizza (tomato sauce, mushrooms, olives, broccoli, zucchini, turkey burger crumbles and mozzarella) on a homemade thin crust using sconome's parchment trick. And for dessert, mango, grAple, cherry salad with lemon juice and balsamic. And the rest of the apple fritter.

  4. I justify eating this feast by actually exercising beforehand. In addition to 40 minutes of weighted cardio yesterday, I did a 25 minute run this evening with 2+ minute run segments in my run/walk combo. Music really, really helps motivate me to keep moving. That and being accountable to other people. The brother and I had a chat about how there is exercise that makes us feel good to do, but we still hate doing it and put it off as much as possible despite knowing we will feel better later. It's one of the few things we have in common.

  5. I did enjoy finishing Eloisa James' Desperate Duchesses. It was saucier than I expected.

Well, now that you know how exiting my life isn't... I'll try to have something better for next weekend. Better to fit that "Living the Dream" lifestyle change.

3 comments:

Janet Webb said...

I liked everything but the last sentence -- other than a visit with a live human being, your day sounded perfect: conversation, exercise, insights into life, great food and for the dessert of life, a saucy book worth reading that is the start of a new series. Tipping my hat to your day :)

CrankyOtter said...

Thank you Janet! I have trouble allowing myself just to have a nice day. I think one reason I enjoyed living at the motel so much is that I didn't look around my space and see incomplete projects. Right now I look around and think:
- pick new white paint color
- repaint
- file paperwork
- figure out new bookshelf layout
- unpack last box of CDs
- figure out where to put board games
- get information on glass website to webmistress
- clean patio
- rearrange patio
- go buy a sofa or something
- build a new desk

Since I did none of those things (except for a little patio cleanup), I feel like I wasn't living up to my potential. It's hard some days to remember that my goal is to live a good life, not necessarily to save the world. And that in order to "live up to my potential", I need to allow myself to eat right, exercise, play, and rest.

Anonymous said...

Make certain you clean your spinach very well. Ecoli.

The 'to do' guilt.... know it well. Learning to realize that I can only accomplish so much in a day. I'll tell you when I finally get over it :)

Leave some of the 'to do's' we can work on some of it while I'm there.

S.