falling off the wagon

A KRISTOFFERSON MORNING

It’s Sunday morning coming down again. Sundays always remind me of Kris Kristofferson’s song and days of my youth. I’ve never had those kind of mornings, not that I could remember anyways. Wait, there was a time way back in my first year of university. It was on my roommate’s birthday. We decided to celebrate everyone’s birthday. She got hold of a 26 of something and we caught the bus downtown to see the movie, The Best House in London. It really didn’t take too much to put me in a whooze. I don’t remember a thing about the movie. We had to leave as I was feeling sick. We caught the bus back to our boarding house. By then I was feeling better but my roommate had passed out. The bus driver and a guy from my history class carried her off and set her under a tree in front.

A sunnywindy and cooler morning. It was -1℃ when I got up at 6:30. It was about 6.8℃ in the greenhouse. It has warmed to 0 and 9.5℃ respectively. It is a little after 10 am. I won’t uncover things yet. I’m hoping that I haven’t overwatered my seedings yesterday. They might rot instead of sprout. That’s what happens when you watched or read too much about how to seed. I get mixed up. When things are working well enough, leave them alone.

I’ve been paying attention to my talk/tap, my gripe on my chaos and disorganization. I’ve talked about all that forever and a day but have I done anything about it? I have a bit here and there. Then I fall off the wagon and seldom get back on. I did climb back this morning. Now, I have to climb back as soon as I fall off. Failures like everything else can get addictive. I am an addictive person. I have to pay attention that I don’t get hooked. Too much of a good/bad thing is not good for me.

HAPPY FOR NO/MANY REASONS

January 1, 2019  10:02 am

Happy New Year! It’s a new day, a new year and a new challenge. I’m committing to the Ultimate Blog Challenge  of writing a post every day for the month of January. I’m not one for making New Year Resolutions but it’s not such a bad idea. Even if you fall off the Resolution wagon every year, you’ve made the effort to come back again and again. You have hope for a longer ride each year before falling off. It’s better than having no hope and no resolutions. What then?

My resolutions are the challenges of creating through words, art and photography that I find online. I’ve completed most of them except the 365somethings2018. I fell off its wagon maybe halfway. 2018 was a hard year, a long year. It felt good to surrender and say ‘uncle’. It was bigger than me. I had to ‘give up’, rest and gather up my strength again before climbing back on the wagon. My wheels were mired in immovable muck.

But here I am, sitting here, tapping, sipping my tea. I’m dressed in my ‘good clothes’, red sweater for prosperity. It’s not Chinese New Year, but it is a new year. I hope to tap up an abundance of Gong Hee Fat Choys (wishes for prosperity). Maybe they will come to be on February 5th, Chinese New Year. Wouldn’t that be cool?

It is cool on this western New Year’s morning. I’m warm and content, happy for no reason and for many reasons. When all my basic needs, food, shelter and clothing are met, the rest is like they say, is gravy. I have lots of gravy. I am retired with a good pension. No more early morning risings. No more night shifts. I have my health, family and a few good friends. I can count them on one hand. The Universe gives me enough. I am not able to handle much more than that. Sheba is the gift from my angels above. I get to celebrate the new year two times every year. I get second chances to get it right. I shall not make too many demands. I have enough.

BEGINNINGS AND RE-STARTS

Beginnings and re-starts are hard. I had a week’s hiatus from my exercise class between Christmas and New Year. After New Year, I made it two weeks. It’s good to take a break, I tell myself. Saturdays are my swim day. Well, I couldn’t make myself go yesterday. Today was almost the same. My rationale was I might as well start things back on Monday. I’m familiar with that slippery slope. It could prove too slippery to get back up. I bit the bullet, enticing myself with lunch at the mall after the swim. The fabric store there is having a sale. Everything 50% off. That worked. I’ve scaled the slope. I’m back in the groove. The swim boosted my mood and soothed the aches and pains.

I have to keep these things in mind. It’s easy to stop but difficult to pick up again. I’m like an addict falling off the wagon. I’ve swam and gone to the aerobic class long enough now that I have the ‘feel good’ memory in my body. Even with that, I still needed that extra oomph to get going again. As long my engine can still chug-a-lug, it’s wise to keep the  momentum of carrying out the challenges I’ve set out for January as best I could.

It does make my days full. There are times when I do yearn for more time doing nothing. It’s such a paradox because I find that I can’t just sit, doing nothing. Maybe it’s a good sign just to yearn for nothing times.  It shows that I am not bored. I could do some creative brainstorming to see what I want and what works best for me. I am conducting an informal study of doing one thing at a time, not multi-tasking. By informal, I mean just with myself. I’m not charting data or anything like that. I’m noting how that affects my moods and how I function. Perhaps I should keep notes.

I have found that by breaking up a task into smaller parts makes it easier to do. No brainer, eh?  I apply it to writing here. Everything is easier once I make a start. If I get stuck, I get up and do something else like vacuuming the kitchen. I do the same with painting. I would prep a canvas with gesso and let it dry. I go and do some other thing. I come back and do the grounding. And so on and on. Amazing things happen. My post gets written. A painting gets painted. Sometimes it takes a week or so. Hey, it’s a work of art. I give it more time. The best – the house gets cleaned more often. Dog hair gets under my skin.