Do anything, do something

Hello from my home office.

I’ve been walking outside more, never as much as I’d like. I’ve been drinking tea and sitting with a book for a few minutes in the afternoon. I’ve been working to be kind to myself, to set meaningful, attainable, goals. I’ve been doing yoga more consistently. I’ve started to take two minutes a few times a day, get up from my desk and do some exercises. I’ve been trying to learn to spell ‘exercise’ not ‘excercise.’

I hope you, hypothetical reader, are finding the things which help you manage and maybe even find some victories amid the ongoing chaos here in our Jackpot.

Lichen on White Pine (detail), taken with a GF1, March 30, 2020

I’m working on things in my job that I enjoy, most days, and have made space to do some self-taught programming stuff during the work day that I’ve been struggling to allow myself to do since it’s the sort of learning with a long-term payoff on the order of “do lots of things a bit better and faster while doing some things less now.” Working my way through this programming book over the next month or so.

I’ve always got three or six things I’m ‘working on’ that are small, creative things: craft projects for lack of a better word. Little software things that resemble games, micro-publishing projects, small electronics things or websites or little essays here. I am trying to make space for these things, accomplish a bit, do some novel cooking, make some bread.

This is the good bread I made for Feaster, we ate good food and I spent a lot of the day baking. It was as good as can be and it was nice to spend a lot of the day in the kitchen. (Which we’re in the process of renovating/paying a friend to help us with paint & carpentry.)

Chessie got me these little note pads above, a little daily affirmation for myself of ‘three things’ in my case ‘three things I want to do that I don’t have to do that will make me feel good and/or better. So, I think that fits in very well with what I’ve been describing here: do something, anything, that’ll help you through that’ll make you feel better, more equipped to help yourself, those your with and those you’re not. Remember the things you love to do and try to do them. Knit the sweater, play the video game, hem the skirt, make the bookshelf, weed the garden, take the long walk: make space to be kind to yourself.