Every Day

I hesitate to share this because it sounds egoic/bragging to me, but if it were a day of writing gratitudes in my journal I would definitely include this, so it only seems right to put it here.  I exercised every day for the month of January.  

 At first it wasn't on purpose.  It was because we didn't have skiable snow until the very end of Dec and the warm temps and great snow meant that it was around Jan 7th or 10th and I thought.  "I've exercised every day this month thus far, I wonder if I could do the whole month?"

These are my favorite types of goals, ones that begin of their own accord, kind of arising by themselves instead of manufactured by my brain.  I have a few routines - Michael and I usually do yoga together (that I improvise) Monday mornings.  He has some resistance bands so we've been using those once a week to find an online work-out to do.  Then I usually do an online class with my local yoga studio.  And the weeks that Michael's daughters are here - the oldest and I do a work-out on her phone.  So lots of small routines pile up.

There was one Sunday that were it not for my goal I wouldn't consider exercising. I thought that morning, "I could make myself do some video online or something."  But that would have just been ego, so I could say, "I did it."  That wasn't the energy I was looking for, plus I had other things I wanted to spend my time on that day.  I let the goal go and thought, "Oh well." I think it was Jan 17th. 

Then that afternoon a couple friends I asked if we could meet on Zoom, preferred to be outside during the day.  So I went to one's house and we were either going to sit by a fire pit or go for a walk.  I brought some ice cleats for our shoes, as it was super icy.  "So you want to walk?" one asked.  

"Either is fine.  I just brought these as an option."

We ended up going for a walk and when I got back to the car I realized we had walked for about an hour and a half.  "That counts!!"  I exclaimed to myself.

Today I finished the month with an outdoor cross-country ski with my brother and family.  My brother mentioned how my mother would have liked that they can ski/walk to a course the high school uses.  

That is true, she loved to ski and would walk to a tiny park a couple blocks from where we grew up, where she'd make a loop, or even in our backyard.  I can hardly imagine a more boring ski setting to go around and around a tiny circle.  Growing up I rolled my eyes at her, but now I marvel at her contentment with little things.

Last night I held a reflective Zoom gathering, using my birthday as an excuse for a bunch of friends.  There were a few people that had told me they were excited to come and then didn't show up.  One in particular had been one of the first people to respond to my idea, with great enthusiasm and then later said how much he was looking forward to it.

So I emailed a couple of them to say I appreciated their support of the idea and I hoped that whatever reason caused them to miss was a happy one.  They both responded that they remembered too late, one woke in the middle of the night.  I mentioned to them, as I did last night, that preparing poems and writing prompts for this made me want to do something similar on the anniversary of my dad's death which is fast approaching.  And if at least one other person would like to spend some quiet time in reflection about loss (any sort of loss) that it would motivate me to make this happen.  One person emailed me that the day after my dad's death will be the 2 year anniversary of her dad's death.  Wow.  Ok, I've got one person, that's all I need.

Then my enthusiastic friend who woke up in the middle of the night said that in March will be the 2 year anniversary of his dad's death.  He is coming too.  As is the other woman who missed last night. 

 #1 - Wingspan - the board game I gave the family for Xmas, finally all 4 of us played together.  It is the 4th time I played and I seem to get worse - or maybe I try to do strategy now that I understand it and my strategy failed.  But we had fun.  #2 - Michael said it was a cool game, and I got it with him in mind so that made me happy.

#3 - I spent quite a while this morning reading poetry, mostly Mary Oliver.  I picked out a few to share with my monthly poetry group and also maybe to honor the anniversary of my dad's death which is approaching.

#4 -  I'm planning an online introspective activity at the end of the month and the invitations I've sent out have led me to corresponding with people I usually don't hear from.  It's been super fun.  AND fun to hear that a co-worker/friend from 20 years ago who had a flirtatious relationship with another co-worker has been talking to him again recently. 

#5 - I learned to play a d/f# chord on guitar, an easy version of it.  And finally with repetition, I was able to play it fast enough to accompany Wailin Jenny's Heaven When We're Home.

Zoom Party

#1 - I don't make new year's resolutions, however, I did decide I needed some modified/intentional social activity especially in January this year.  I decided to organize an online meet with a couple people each week, accumulating in a more structured/formal bigger online gathering at the end of the month.  When I thought about who to invite to the larger event I knew geography was no limit so I could invite quite a lot of people.  But who would be interested?  The more I thought about it, the more I realized I would never be able to guess who would be interested, so I just needed to extend the invitation and let people decide.  This led to some vulnerable invitations - like my soccer team.  It seems a bit silly that I hesitated to invite them, but we play soccer together, not do personal reflection, so it felt vulnerable.  I thought, "If even one person is interested though it will be worth it."

Despite me telling them they did not need to RSVP.  Today the second person on my team said he'd love to join my "Zoom Party". (I hope he realizes it will not be party like.)

#2 - This has also given me an excuse to reconnect with people.  I just left two vm's with long ago friends to make sure the email invite I sent got to them.  And it made me happy just to hear the voice recording.

#3 - I made a preventative doctor appointment.  I didn't go in for my annual exam last year, both because of Co-Vid and because my doctor, whom I loved, retired.  The replacement doctors at my clinic do not have a holistic focus, so I thought about trying to research moving to another clinic and did some research but eventually gave up on it.  Today I got a reminder that I'm overdue for a visit, so I'll just try one of the doctors at my old clinic and see what I think.

#4- Despite making many phone calls, my father still gets more mail (forwarded to me) than I do.  Today I called the American Heart Association to get him off the list and the woman's southern accent and shpeel were actually soothing to me.

#5 - Call me a research assistant - because my partner has some family members that believe in the election fraud - my partner wanted the details that negated fraud.  He wanted evidence reported, ideally on public radio, and was complaining that they were refuting the election fraud without providing the in depth reporting/reasons.  So I sent him a bunch of links on their reporting the details.

Shared Politics

 #1 - I asked my partner if he wanted to do gratitudes with me since he is sitting beside me.  The first gratitude he listed was, "running into a hot guy on the ski course" which is the positive spin on him running into me.

#2 - We were skiing at the local golf course, which is less than 2 miles away, and he has never skied there.  Now I hope he will be more likely to consider it.

#3 -Yesterday afternoon and evening I was pretty captivated by the news.  When I turned off the computer I thought, "I want to talk to my father."  This afternoon I joined a monthly writing group on Zoom.  One woman in her first write talked about how she suspected her father might be in support of what happened at the capitol yesterday, but she didn't know because they no longer communicate.  This mention of being the political opposite of her father reminded me of my thought last night and I wrote about one of the easy things with my father - politics.  #4 - I just read that writing to Michael and it felt good to read, good to write, good to read.

#5 - I have a bright orange wool sweater that I've already tried to sew and now has a couple more small holes, so today I used it as a ski sweater for the first time.  Perfect, purpose transfer.  It even has a great/long turtleneck.

Wingspan

 

#1 - I gave "Wingspan" a board game where you learn about birds as a Christmas gift, but I didn't have the brain capacity to figure out how to play it over the weekend.  Today I started watching instructional videos on it and I almost have it.  I discovered there is a Youtube channel called BoardGameGeek where they not only explain the game, but you can watch them play the entire board game.  

#2 - One of the comments under that board game video said, "This video helped me learn the game. Reading 12 pages of instructions really makes someone question if it’s worth it. The video made it easier."  

#3 - I would like to be able to play this game with my brother, sister-in-law and niece.  I miss spending time with them, but am very fortunate.  Even though we aren't getting together indoors right now, they live very close to some cross-country skiing, so that is something we can do together this weekend.

#4 - I made some fish tacos for dinner with a grapefruit-jalapeno-avocado salsa.  I don't think I'd choose to put grapefruit in my tacos again, but at least I tried something new.

#5 - I didn't really think about my dad this Christmas as the four of us went to a camper cabin at a state park.  I wasn't sure sharing a one room cabin would be a good idea since the four of us have already spent so much time together these past months, but it actually went really well.  I read out loud to them, which they seemed to be getting too old for, but I found a book they liked which we started listening to on the drive, an adult novel this time  - Handmaid's Tale.  We played games and cross-country skied.  But all 3 nights since we've been back I've dreamt about my dad's home and getting it cleaned out, or selling it, and now it does seem sad to not be able to call him or stop by.  Though with Co-Vid I wouldn't want to stop by anyway and I imagine he would be quite lonely.  Hopefully he is in a better place, I used to believe that to be true, now I don't know.

Conjunct

 #1 - My friend tried cross-country skiing yesterday.  I emailed to ask how the lesson went and she wanted to call me to tell me about it.  Yeah, way better than a screen!

#2 - After looking to the sky just after sunset the past 5 or 6 days to see if I could see the jupiter/saturn conjunction, it was finally mostly clear at that time.  We hopped into the car and drove to a water tower a mile or two away to found a small group of other people doing the same, one with a large telescope.

#3 - I had an interview for a job at NAMI MN (National Alliance for Mental Illness) a couple weeks ago.  I didn't hear back about a second interview, but I signed up anyway for a couple of their online trainings.  Today I took one on suicide prevention. The woman presented both interesting facts as well as personal stories from her own life. 

#4 - Since the session was on Zoom and none of the participants had their cameras on, I was able to sort my parents' photos while I listened.  

#5 - This meant the photos I've had laying all of the floor are now stacked into relatively chronological piles.

Think Small

 I will postdate this entry as I forgot it was a online gratitude day yesterday.  It was one of those days that I struggled to get to five gratitudes - not because I had a bad day - just because nothing really stood out.  When that happens I practice my mantra in this situation, "Think Small".

It was really hard for me to wake up in the morning as my alarm went off in the middle of a dream.  In the dream, even though I had passed on the keys, I still had a set and went back to my dad's house.  They hadn't changed the locks so I went in because I knew we left more things over there that still needed to be cleaned out.  I took a skillet from the kitchen and then I went in my brother's room and there were a number of things - a fishing set etc.  I was nervous Habitat for Humanity (who bought the house) was going to arrive while I was over there.  So I was trying to finish taking care of things while watching for them.  Of course they did arrive.  They were not angry at all, but I still felt stressed/deceptive.  Anyway my gratitude in all this is that when I finally woke up, this was just a dream and we DID clean out everything we needed to from that house.

#2 - Michael arrived to our yoga class (which we try to do together at home once a week) at 6AM, and I needed yoga this AM because my neck was cricked.

#3 - Michael liked the kale and apple quesadilla I made for dinner which is a super quick and easy meal that I enjoy as well.

#4 - Laying by the heating vent with my feet is super relaxing and a great bedtime transition and time to reflect and be quiet and think about my dad.

#5 - The trash in the kitchen was smelly, I emptied it and washed out the can as well.  I also put the sink drain/stoppers in the dishwasher.