Frogs and Ravens

A Decade!

So, today I realized that it has been ten years since I started blogging, way back when this blog was teal colored and hosted by Blogger.

Since then, I have...*

• Moved five times
• Acquired a cat
• Gotten married
• Switched over to freelancing full time
• Had an essay published
• Learned to kayak (sorta)
• Hiked part of the Camino de Santiago
• Traveled to Japan

I feel that I'm a lot calmer and more focused than I was at the beginning (which probably accounts for the lesser amount of blogging, at least in part), and am looking forward to the next ten years, which I expect to be at least as eventful.

How's your decade been?





*If I think of more things, I'll add them as they do.

Year of Unorganizing

Today's Facebook status:

I have finally decided what my theme for this year (or life stage) is: The Year of Unorganizing.

That is, I'm working towards becoming more productive and achieving more of my goals, but without freaking out about the process by which I accomplish them, or whether I am Doing It Right. If that means my projects get done at 4am instead of 9pm, and I'm still getting enough sleep, for example, who cares?

So far, what I've been finding is that when I take that pressure off to Be Responsible or to Do Things The Right Way, I actually get more done, and with less stress. And when I make changes, it's because I want to do something differently, and not because the way I'm doing things now is wrong. And I only need to use systems that work for me, easily and naturally (Yay, Google Calendar Tasks, yay, UFYH), instead of trying to conform to ones that don't.

And I'm also not worrying if I can keep this up, because not worrying about things like that is sort of the point.

Personal Archaeology

So, we've moved.  And the new place is significantly smaller than the previous ones, and it's time to start weeding out the detritus.  My current project is going through old file boxes, tossing junk and preparing other things for scanning and shredding.  I just got through a box from 2002, and it was an odd experience.  In 2002, I still had student loan payments, I was getting a good monthly paycheck at an academic job I loved, I was a member of all kinds of organizations (mostly music and outdoors), I was traveling regularly (though primarily for job searching purposes), and I had a ton of catalogs from companies that had yet to go on the web.  Strange how my life has changed since.

Packing

Once again, we are preparing to move.  Once again, I'm standing ankle-deep in random crap while turning my possessions into tidy, labeled cubes in neat stacks.  (The tidiness of the cubes and the neatness of the stacks is all that keeps me going when the chaos gets to me.)

What's complicating this move is that we're going to a somewhat smaller place -- so there's a real incentive to offload unneeded extras -- but time is tight and I'm doing most of the packing (D already has a job in the new location, so he's only home for half the week).  I have a suspicion that we're going to end up living in a pile of too much stuff for a few weeks, and paying to move stuff we don't want to keep. 

Meanwhile I also have an essay to write, but it's definitely on the back burner for the next two weeks.

Update in a Time of Uncertainty

Long time no post, I know.  (I've decided that one of my Health Month tasks is to write a blog post each week, so hopefully that will change.)

Life's been busy in a low-key way, meaning that most of the busy-ness has been of short duration and of only minor significance.  Now, however, it's teetering on the edge of a lot of changes, and I'm feeling quietly anxious about it.  (I'd be running around with my arms waving in the air from nervousness, if I wasn't coping through determined denial.)

Two things are clear: D has an upcoming part-time job in Midwestern City (not this one) with unclear long-term prospects.  And we will not be staying here past October. Beyond that, little is clear.

Double-Dip Cicadas

At the tag end of summer

Cicadas plummet from the trees

Like meteors, flamed out, no longer bright

When the shadow of giant fate

Looms close, some

Buzz and struggle

Others hunker passively

I lift them up on leaves

And from the base of trees

Some begin to climb

Overwhelmed, remembering the dream

Of green leaves, and sky, and song.

Recession Realities

In comments, Shaker CassieC writes:I was wondering if there could be a thread for shakers to share what this recession/depression/catastrophe is doing to them and their friends and loved ones. ... I've just been reading people's accounts here and there, on various threads, and I know how strong the pressure is not to tell these stories of personal difficulties in the US, because of our society's f-ed up code of personal success/failure, which makes it so difficult for the personal to be seen as a collective, legitimate phenomenon. Here it is.

via shakespearessister.blogspot.com

D and I are not in as desperate straits as some of the folks posting here, but we are both currently unemployed, with no work visible on the horizon. To say that we're worried is an understatement.  My own contribution to the thread is copied here below the fold.

Late Indiana Spring

Fireflies slowly blinking

The scent of mud and roses

Daylilies, orange, yellow, wild.

What's the Opposite of Dormancy?

Whatever it is, I'm going to try to pull the blog out of its estivation/hibernation and get back into the habit of writing more regularly. 

__

Right now I'm watching the sky lighten, as I begin a somewhat last-ditch effort to reset my daily body clock.  Over the last month or so I've slid so far off schedule I've been going to bed around 4am and waking sometime in the early afternoon.  (Thus killing a huge chuck of daylight that could be put to more interesting use.)  Attempts to go to bed earlier are a huge failure; I either lack the willpower to head upstairs to bed (D being a nightowl who also stays up does not help) or I go to bed and just lie there for a while, bored but not sleeping.

So, since trying to yank the cycle back isn't working, I'm going to attempt the other approach, and push things forward a day.  So, tonight, I did not go to bed at all, but stayed up, cruising the internet.  When it gets light, I'm going to take a walk around the neighborhood, then eat something.  I will spend the rest of the day battling sleepiness with walks outside in the sunlight, until finally, sometime after it gets dark, I will let myself sleep.

Basically, I'm treating myself by acting as if I have a really bad case of jet lag, which, in truth, I somewhat do.

 

Hopefully this will work, because I'm fed up with this schedule, and in a couple of weeks I'm going to a conference that has sessions starting at 8am every day.  Better to be brutal with myself now, than during the conference.

After the Storm

Today is punctuated by the sounds of dripping melt water, the chopping of shovels and chisels, the tinkle of breaking icicles, and the squeals of cars struggling to free themselves from the ice.