Tag Archive | personal: brainfoo

Bullet Journals

Jan17

(A Blog Post)

I am wrapping up my fifth bullet journal — all but the first holding 6 months each; for the first I used the back of an old notebook I’d had lying around (everyone has those, right?) as a test.

I love it.  

I mean, considering I’ve kept something up for over two years (other than writing and roleplay) pretty much consistently (not so good at tracking things on vacation), that ought to be an indicator that I really, really like it. I don’t keep up anything for that long consistently.

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Weekend Blog with Yard-Work and procrastination…

Feb27

Saturday morning, before the weather broke, my husband and I spent probably a half-hour cleaning out our culvert, digging wet leaves and sticks out of the ditch and hauling them to the hedgerow.

It’s achey work, bending-over, digging, lifting, wet work, and at least the weather was still in the fifties. It was necessary work, because in a heavy rain, our culvert fills all the way to the top, and, clogged as it was, it might have overflowed in unfortunate ways. It’s supposed to carry rain away, not keep it in our yard, after all.

There was the nice feeling of having done something physical that was productive was nice, that warm ache. But on the other hand…

So, I hate raking. I really, really hate raking. It goes back to being a child, and I am ridiculous about any number of chores that I had to do as a kid/teenager — but raking really ranks up there.

And we didn’t rake this fall.

And the leaves all blew, like they will, into the culvert.

You see where I’m going?

It reminded me of learning, maybe seven years ago, exactly how bad it could be when Iavoided conflict by not talking about problems or by trying to give in to everyone at once (Answer: everyone ends up mad at you and you end up with even more conflict than you’d originally been trying to avoid).

It’s one of those lessons I have to keep learning over and over again: the more you put something off, the more work it is.

Hopefully, I remember this in fall, when it’s time to rake again. Or the next time something threatens to pile up in my metaphorical culverts.

…kind of like the dishes in the sink…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1258532.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Weekend Blog: Writing Letters

Feb17

Writing letters and cleaning house: that’s what I did last weekend.

I’ve been taking part in the Month of Letters (http://lettermo.com/, it’s also http://incowrimo.org/) for almost half a month now — really, a whole two weeks, because I started writing on the 29th and mailing on the 30th January.

It’s weird. That’s the short version: It’s really weird. Also, it’s fun, although it’s perhaps, like most things I do, a little too all-consuming.

My letter-writing falls into a few categories:
* Writing to relatives I haven’t seen in a long time, or very rarely in that long time.
* Writing to facebook friends, who are generally IRL people I haven’t seen in a very long time and barely interact with.
* Writing to twitter friends — people I talk to every day on twitter but rarely see in person.
* Writing to people I encountered on the LetterMo site.
* Writing to and/or as fictional people, mostly to real people I know.
* Writing to family I see on a semi-regular basis.

All of these have their own unique challenges, and I’m finding all of them quite interesting for that.

For instance, writing to LetterMo people combines this “getting-to-know-each-other” sort of protocols with a fear of being judged by (and this isn’t really a thing) Professional PenPals (Okay, it might really be a thing, but I don’t know anyone who is). Like, am I doing enough? Is my letter pretty enough? Are there unspoken rules I’m breaking?

And then you add in all of that stress with contacting estranged family — people my father feuded with, or feuded with him, for instance, back when I was in college. Do they even want to hear from me? Do they remember me? My dad has four siblings, a half-sister, and four step-siblings, and almost all of them have kids. That’s a lot of nephews and nieces to keep track of.

(Okay, so there’s a lot of anxiety going on there).

Letters to family, I’ve been trying just to put into the world and let go. If they answer, they answer. If they don’t, I’m no less connected than I was before.

Twitter friends — that’s it’s own challenge. I talk to these people every day, or very near to it. (These people? Many of them are you guys.) What do I say that I wouldn’t share on twitter, or on gchat or in e-mail?

The thing is, for the most part, a little anxiety aside, these are fun challenges. And getting letters back in the mail — that’s amazingly fun. It makes going to the mailbox a blast!

Will I keep writing letters after LetterMo? Well, April is National Letter-Writing Month…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1254392.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Frustrations on Weight Loss

Nov26

(Xposted from Twitter)

The problem I’m facing as I look at “I want to and physically need to lose weight, stat,” is that there is very little I find as pleasurable and/or as comforting as food, specifically, sugar and fat, so all my relaxation/comfort is based around food and/or sloth. I have no self-stress-relief (Except walking) or self-reward that doesn’t involve either curling up and doing nothing or eating or both.

And yes, Feast Day is not the best day to be thinking about it.

But I want to lose 4 lbs by Jan 1st and 10 by Mar 1, 20 by June 1st… So I need to DO something.
And I don’t know how to make myself STICK to it.

Hunh.
I wonder if I could use Habitaca (sp?) just for that…

Edited to add:

Things I am going to do include – Going back on weight watchers (the old system). And using a spreadsheet so I can play with numbers. I like playing with numbers.
Giving myself different goals. Goals I can measure quickly – like points in/exercise out – and then weight goals.
Going back to stepping on the scale every day. Every. Single. Day. And writing it down.
Starting Sunday.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1013358.html. You can comment here or there.

Musing about Identity online – in which I talk about people as cartoon figures, but only at the end

Aug21

This is going to be a bit disjointed, apologies in advance.

I was thinking about identity online this morning (In part because a friend posted a comment which made me think their account had been hijacked).

We rely so much on that little icon to tell us who’s who – or the name at the top of the chat window. And, while I could probably imitate with some success the typing voices of my top 5 online friends, there is still a matter of trust – that when I’m talking in the comments to, say, Kelkyag, that it is actually the same person every time.

I get ~freaked out~ when I find out someone is talking to me on someone else’s account. It’s like… they put on a Friend One suit. At first, Friend One is just acting a bit strangely. Then, Friend One says something out of character, and by this point I’m starting to panic. Then Friend One says Ah ha ha ha no, this is Friend Two (Or Friend Ones’s Girlfriend)…

…and I get furious.

But *cough* that could just be me.

How do you deal with identity when your “mental image” of the person comes from a cartoon icon?

(Speaking of which, I’ve MET @inventrix in person, & I still picture her as her icon (not @capriox, though :-P).)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/784049.html. You can comment here or there.