I really don’t know how to pace myself.
I think I used up some of today’s energy yesterday, what with writing chord progressions for a song and living in my fictional worlds (the one I’m reading in and the one I’m writing in) for several hours and volunteering and whatnot. I also committed to doing other things in addition to this project, which turned out to take more/different time than I anticipated, and this threw off my whole everything. I’m trying not to feel guilty about postponing or simply not doing a few things today, because objectively, I did a lot.
Daily Challenges
| Stretching | For a second morning, I rolled my body out instead of stretching it, and I don’t feel the amazing transformation I have for the past couple of days, so tomorrow it’s back to the regular stretching program. |
| 1SE | ✓ |
| Intimate Time | ✓ |
| Cooking | Today’s Menu: for breakfast, I made peanut butter toast with banana slices; for dinner (in the Southern sense of the word) we ate leftover pasta; for supper/fourthmeal/snacks, we ate some chips and cookies (literal midnight snacks). |
| Reading (Poetry) | I was cruising through Collateral and came across “Caliber” by Jenifer Browne Lawrence. It’s a stark image of a dual life, and a glimpse at the lived reality of combat PTSD, for the veteran and their loved ones. It’s tough. |
| Reading (Fiction) | With the rate at which I read The Poisonwood Bible, I’m surprised that I’m not done. My goal is to read 2+ pages each day, or 62+ pages this month, but I am meeting that every couple of days. I wonder if I’ll finish this project or this book first. |
| Reading (Nonfiction) | We’ve all heard about the Oregon Trail, but I don’t remember learning about the California Trail (just the Gold Rush) or the Mormon Trail. Collectively, the three trails are known as the Emigrant Trail, and that’s what I read about today. Mostly I wanted to look at maps, because I think my book will travel along a portion of it. |
| Music | Oh dear. With all my enthusiasm, I think I overdid it yesterday. My left hand is swollen and stiff, and my grip strength is null. I tried playing a little uke, but stopped after a few minutes. Try again tomorrow! |
| Postcard Poem |
 I chose the postcard specifically to amuse the person who’ll receive it; the poem is unrelated. Guy helped me with this one, albeit inadvertently. It started when I tried to make a coding-related analogy, but I was wrong (not unusual) and what I said was nonsensical. As Guy enlightened me, some of the phrases he used struck me as equally nonsensical, and a few of them were poetically beautiful in their own right. Here is what I did with them:  I try to view the world as a computer does: ones and zeroes, all logic. He speaks of heaps being sorted— one must insert things into a heap, quite unlike heaps of laundry (you wouldn’t use a floor on a structure.) He says trees grow down from their root; there are no branches, only smaller trees on and on until you reach the leaves, which have no children, even the self-balanced red-black ones. I imagine a tree: one node is logic, another nonsense, descending from their philosophical root. “Sonnet in C” – Sarah Reebs, 10/24/2019 |
| Trash Pickup | Instead of cleaning up the neighborhood, I stayed home while Guy took Howie for a long walk and cleaned up our house. We live in a townhouse with wood floors, and it takes about twenty minutes just to sweep the stairs. The walk that I went on with them, we had a destination and a timeframe, so I couldn’t dawdle to pick up trash. It was tough to walk past everything. |
Today’s Challenges
Well. Today, for day 4 of 7 of my songwriting challenge, I had planned to write my lyrics and hash out a melody. That did not happen. I had the time to do it, but not the energy, and I just didn’t force myself to do it. Depending on how tomorrow goes, I may add another day to my challenge (consider this a rest day) and record Monday instead of Sunday, but if I exceed my own expectations and get today’s and tomorrow’s work done tomorrow, then I may hold to the original plan. TBD.
My other to-do item was to write for NaNoWriMo. I didn’t really do this either. I did talk with Guy about my ideas, and I did read about things that will support my writing, and I did spend time thinking about my story, but I didn’t write down anything new. Instead, I worked on a side project (a bit of sewing) while I watched a quasi-apocalyptic film, Children of Men, for inspiration. I also invested time in making some Halloween-themed treats (chocolate truffles) but that was frustrating, because the mixture is off, and not cool enough to scoop. So I will have to finish that tomorrow, along with my fifth Great British baking challenge. Wish me luck!
Featured image by Randy C. Bunney, Great Circle Photographics, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15535545