Change

Posted by tmycann on Jul 2nd, 2018 in indie, writing | 0 comments

After a few quiet weeks, this week was a hectic harbinger of change. It hinged on Wednesday, when hubs started battling a toothache, and I had an interview. By Friday, hubs had to have oral surgery to remove a tooth that had become infected at the very bottom tip of the root. Less than a year after having gone through the pain and expense of replacing the crown on that tooth. And I got a job offer. This one looks like it could be an exciting new opportunity, but we’re still hammering out details, so that’s all I’ll say about it for now.

In the meantime, we’ve been celebrating the fact that we’ve had a couple months of uninterrupted time together. We’ve gotten to watch almost all of the rest of the third season of The Expanse. We got to watch The Incredibles II in the theater a couple days after digging out an old copy of The Incredibles and re-watching it so we could remember all the details. (Since the second in the series begins literal minutes after the story ending of the first, we were really glad to have refreshed ourselves on the plot. And both stories were incredibly well-told.)

And I’ve been chewing through the remaining novels in the Walker Papers series. The books get stronger with each new installment, and I’ve somehow managed to stall myself a the second pinch point of book 9 (it truly is a bleak circumstance. Part of the reason I can put it down is because it’s SO GRIM! I can’t actually imagine her surviving…) just to be able to consider the journey so far.

I also can’t say enough about my local library. They make checking out and returning books impossibly easy. And my checking account appreciates that I’m not spending every last dime on new books. I completed my Goodreads challenge last week already, and fifteen of the final sixteen books were from the library. I doubt I’ll update my challenge goal before I return to day job land, since it’s hard to anticipate what the new work schedule will be, and how much time it will allow me for reading.

The interesting thing about considering work and the state of the world… I wrote no new words this week. Chuck Wendig, naturally, had an NSFW rant about writing in this bleep bleep age of rot and resistance a few weeks back that could pertain. There was also the research released by Harvard Business Review last week that “Women Ask for Raises as Often as Men, but are Less Likely to Get Them.” Finally, a former colleague forwarded me an article outlining the eight steps of building a healthy, wealthy, and wise life. The intersection of the three articles has me in a mindset that small moves of persistence are likely the most effective. As is doing everything I can to remind myself of the limits of my scope of impact and figure out how to be okay with letting go of things I truly can’t shape.

Since it’s the start of another new ROW80 round, it’s also time to list my goals for the next 80 days.

1. Find and start a new day job. This is one of several that’s carried over from last Round. The repeats all fall under the category of–these are essential for a balanced life.
2. Finish writing Team Alpha.
3. Submit Team Alpha to my editor.
4. Return to my weekly blog schedule with my ROW80 updates.
5. Walk at least a mile a day.
6. Sleep at least 7 hours a night.
7. Continue decluttering efforts, finishing all the closets.
8. Keep the sanctity of my weekly date night with hubs.

As for meeting these goals? My phone says last week I averaged 4,866 steps, or 2.1 miles. It also tells me I averaged 7 hours and 56 minutes of sleep. As previously noted, the real trick will be to maintain these habits in the face of new schedule constraints. On the decluttering front, I finally weeded through all the piles of papers that have been building up on my desk. Hubs also unearthed the details on an electronics recycling business my brother had mentioned months back. We will finally be able to clear out old modems and broken printers and random other electronics that have taken up space in our house, as they linger like the albatrosses they are.

Until next week, then, may you make progress on your goals, and be inspired by others who are working on theirs.

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