Amusing Anecdotes From a Lady of a Certain Age

Every time I start to think or write about plans, these words come to me.  They're from one of my kids' favorite books when they were young - Big Plans by Bob Shea.  That books was read over and over and over.  It may even be one of the ones they got from Dolly, but those days were so long ago.  Still, it's a book that was read so often that it's become synonymous with the thought of plans.

And this took me out on a tangent that probably didn't need to happen, but I've gotta be me.

Yesterday, I was planning on coming out to the porch to do some writing, reply to some comments, do some writing.  Instead, I came outside with my laptop bag, my phone and my drink.  And my laptop never came out.  I spent several hours on my phone playing various phone games.  I blame the fact that I got about 35 minutes of sleep the night before.  I felt a bit guilty for not writing, because I do have things I want to say, words that need to come out of my brain and through my fingers.  But I'm trying to give myself more grace when I don't hit my goals.  I'm trying to remember that I need to be about progress rather than perfection.  It's a tough lesson for me to learn.

I was also planning on doing deliveries last night.  My husband has been in the rabbit hole of his latest RPG obsession, a gaming system called Enclave.  It's perfect for him in a lot of ways because it's always small groups (no more than three or four players and the conduit (read GameMaster) and rarely lasts more than a couple hours.  The character creation system is much more simple than a lot of the heavy weights out there, which gives the perfect set-up for pick-up games.  Which means that many times when he's not working, he's got a game going.  Especially on the weekends. And honestly, I'm ok with that.  It gives me time to do my own things without feeling guilty, and he always checks to make sure he's not missing anything on the family calendar before saying he'll join or run a game.  So yesterday, I figured he had a second game in the evening and even if I hadn't done deliveries earlier in the day, I could do it that night.  But his game was cancelled because the person running it was dealing with a migraine.  And I realized that, since he was gaming Friday night and I was out at SourMix, we missed our weekly date night.  So we turned on Strange New Worlds and got almost completely caught up.  (Yes, our date nights are usually nights at home, in the bedroom, watching TV shows together.  Much easier on the wallet.) Personally, for all that I want to get back to making money, I think my time last night was better served spending quality time with my husband.

"Tomorrow morning," I thought.  "I'll do deliveries tomorrow morning."  But after two hours of sleep (yes, this is a common problem) and seeing that I had comments to reply to, I thought that I'd much rather go out and do a breakfast delivery for the family while Hubby was playing his morning game, and then actually do some writing outside.  The weather is starting to get a little cooler, and I really do love my space on my porch.  Well, if I can keep the ants off of me.  I need to find a better way to get photos somewhere I can share.  Because I can take them on my phone, but typing on my phone is a pain in the ass.  And it does get tiring going back and forth between the phone and the computer just to give anyone reading my words a look at the view of my calm, quiet parking lot.

Where was I?  Oh, yeah.  Deliveries.  Hubby has another game tonight, so I'm thinking of trying to get some deliveries in then.  I've found that holidays can be feast or famine in the gig delivery world.  I've had some holidays where I've been moving all over the county, making lots of money as I deliver everywhere from the ritzy areas of town to the areas that are more depressed.  And I've had some holidays where I spent more time waiting in a random parking lot in an area I am hoping to get a delivery in than actually going out and doing the deliveries.  I'm not really sure what kind of night tonight is going to be.  But if I don't take that first step to get back into it, I'll be dipping into savings for my trip to see my comet partner, which is not sustainable  And tomorrow, I'm not going to be able to do any deliveries because I've got two doctor's appointments and my monthly chat with my partner.  Wednesday, though, I should be back on track.  I hope.

What I really need to do is figure out how to make all of my plans fit together.  I've got so many things that I want to do.  I want to make money.  I want to write.  I want to do more epoxy resin work (especially the hummingbird in which I'll be putting some of my mom's ashes).  I want to have a cleaning plan in place to keep up with everything.  I want to start walking again to get more exercise (though, to be fair, I do get a lot of walking done when I'm doing deliveries). I want to find a local partner that I can spend more time with, and attend more local events. And I know that I can make all these pieces fit together.  I don't have to do all of them every day.  But my executive functioning is seriously dysfunctional.  I've got workbooks and notebooks all over the house to "help" me find a way that works.  Most of them have a page or two written in them and then they're off to the side.  I've definitely got to find a better way.

One of the big projects that I want to do is get my apartment organized.  It's hard to do when there are four of us, none of whom are particularly orderly.  I know I need to do it with baby steps, and I know that a lot of the things I have in the house really deserve better homes than mine.  But that's another piece of the puzzle that I need to figure out where to fit in. Sometimes, I think I just need a personal assistant whose sole job is to keep me on track.  But then I'd start to resent them and.... that would be a problem.  I wish I had more local friends with free time and that I'm not ashamed to have see the mess that is my apartment so I can get someone to body double for me.  But all of the friends that this used to fit have moved from the area.  I just need to figure out how to do it without help from others (well, other than talking about it all with my therapist every other week).  

Maybe I'll take some time this afternoon, trying to put the puzzle together again.  Maybe I need to pull out my sticky notes and index cards so I can visualize a schedule.  Maybe I need to figure out priorities.  I've never been good at ranking things.  Or maybe I'll just keep winging it the way I have been not succeeding over the last 35 years.  But the big plans will always be there, waiting for when I have time to make them happen.