A Time For Everything

Image courtesy of IMGBIN. 

I probably could have written this in November or October for that matter.

My attempts at getting back on track with most of the non-writing goals were thwarted.

I struggled more with mental health (as a result of Mom's death) this quarter than I thought I would. I never felt sad, per se, but I had periods of days when I just really felt blah.

I've also been in learning mode and taking in a lot of information and processing it. It took me some time to realize that that had/has also contributed to my feelings of blah and general tiredness. 

There were some external stresses that contributed to my struggles as well, so making extra things happen took a back seat to getting the basics taken care of.

One of those external things was learning that my shadow aka Rayna had cancer. Needless to say, some of my focus turned to making sure she has a good end of life experience. As of right now, she's still with us. However, I think she's taking a turn and it's not going to be much longer before we say our final good-byes. 😢

Even before her diagnosis, I'd planned on taking some half-days off to do yard work once the weather changed. Post-diagnosis, those days became even more important. Rayna likes to be outside but often won't spend a lot of time in the yard without me. And I'm not always keen on being out there.

But after being house-locked for most of the summer when being outside was a break from the stress going on inside my house, I looked forward to fall and cooler temps. Also, once Mom passed, I'd vowed to throw open all the windows and air out my house once the weather turned. I never got to do that as fully as I had hoped. Maybe in spring.

All that to say I spent a lot of time keeping my sanity in check and very little time doing chores, exercising officially, or cooking healthy meals.

But this post is supposed to be a review, so let's review the final quarter of 2022. I'm going in order of the list on the right side...

1) Grandma continued to receive missives from me. I'm all that's left of her daughter, so yeah. I'm even getting more consistent with it. Finally.

2) No exercise other than upping my average daily step-count and doing yard work, although that tapered off after the first real cold snap. I'd hoped to get back to yoga or riding the elliptical, but I just couldn't carve out the time, and I didn't really have the energy these past couple of months.

3) Honestly, I don't know how long cooking & eating healthy lasted this year. And once Mom moved in, that fell completely by the wayside in favor of more carb/calorie heavy meals. She needed them. After that, food was a comfort. Thankfully, I only gained about five pounds. Then lost a few and gained a few. *sigh*

4) Housekeeping just never really got off the ground for me, no matter how much I wanted it to.

5) I kept up (mostly) with my writers group duties. There's a lot of improvement there to be made here, but I think a list of tasks will help.

6) My one book got published and once Mom passed, I worked consistently on the next hockey book. But consistency was mainly wrought in five-minute chunks just so I could "stay in the manuscript" (on a daily basis) as the saying in writer circles goes. That faded the farther into December we went.

7) I didn't spend a lot of time on learning the craft of writing. I spent money on virtual conferences where I can go back and watch at my leisure, but not much time doing so.

8) I added a few things to the Etsy inventory, but didn't double my stock as I'd hoped/planned.

9) The one thing I have done and will always do is READ. Reading is almost as necessary as breathing to me. In fact, I read about 80-ish books this year.

10) I got back on the Goodreads horse somewhat right after Mom passed, but then slowed down again. I don't think I solidified anything really.

This year (2022) will always be the year that everything was knocked off the rails by Mom's move to Texas, her illness, and her death, so I don't know that I can rightly grade myself. Especially for the third and fourth quarters.

I did what I could when I could, and I made it through the year. That, in and of itself, is a success.

As I've mentioned in a couple of previous posts, it's time to rethink writing and to decide what my plan is going forward.

As I've done for the last umpteen years, I'll post my fresh start goals at the beginning of January.

Have a great week and I'll catch you Thursday.