Hey… How you doin’?
i’m really having a hard time getting my butt in a chair lately. If you’ve been playing along at home, at the turn of the year i repeated my ‘three focus’ charter. To maintain accountability, i’m doing quarterly updates on progress.
Steady going through the end of the first quarter, with a bit of a mixed scorecard by end of the second quarter, getting stuck in a few spots. i’ve managed to get myself unstuck as i roll into autumn, so i’m not displeased with the report for the third quarter of 2015!
The categories:
Bridges – repairing relationships that have mattered to me.
Ducks – getting things in shape to assure the least hassle to my children after i die.
Vessel – assuring that my body can carry me through the adventures i desire.
My scorecard for the third quarter:
Bridges: Although there are still a few rocks i haven’t picked up yet – rocks that sit upon regretful closures – i’ve enjoyed reconnecting with a few old friends. Two notable cases popped up within the last week! Denise, had a day of training nearby, and pinged me to see if i’d be around on a Friday night to get together for dinner and drinks. Timing was perfect, and on short notice we were able to arrange a slumber party – dinner, shopping (egad!) and a long night spent catching up. We’d been besties in 7th grade, and lost touch until Facebook brought us back together in 2009. Since then, we’d become occasional running buddies, but hadn’t had a chance to sit and yak for two years! Some darkness, some light, and a lot of turf covered.
On my way home from my evening fitness class tonight, stopped by the grocery to pick up some odds and ends. As i doubled back, lost, looking for the fucking marshmallows, i almost ran over an older gentleman pushing a cart. “FRANK?!?!? Oh my God! It’s been five years! How the hell are you?” We had worked together 20 years ago, developing an innovative training program for our organization. Retired a few years back, he spent his time running a fruit farm, and spending winters in Florida. He used to send the occasional e-mail, or Christmas card, but we’d lost contact. After a quick synopsis of ‘what’s up?’ in the coffee aisle, we swapped updated e-mail addresses, and will likely get together soon. An unexpected ‘win’ for this category on the last day of the quarter!
Ducks: Mom’s estate is officially settled. Met with her attorney in July, signed a ton of paperwork, cut some checks, and closed it all out. There are still many non-estate financial dealings i need to work, but the legal bits are done. With a large storage locker still holding a ton of her personal items, and a monthly bill of $250 to pay for said locker, my goal for THIS quarter is to get that thing cleared out and off the books. Work day scheduled with my sister on Saturday.
Regarding my own estate ‘ducks’, a little bit of progress, but not nearly enough. Late this month i finally dug out all beneficiary forms for life insurance, retirement savings, and the like, and managed to change those to my kids, rather than my ex-husband. For this quarter, i must update the “doomsday” file – where i keep important information for whomever has to clean up after me when i’m dead. Likely to do another will before the year is out, too… i’ve learned a lot processing Mom’s estate, and need to put some things into practice for my own.\
Just ducking around at a local festival…
Vessel: During the second quarter i spent four weeks in Europe, and indulged in far too much food and booze, Studley and i doubled down, and started another ‘cleanse’ at the beginning of September. i’d regained all of the weight i’d lost in the first half of the year, and refused to continue on that path! So far, i’ve managed to lose 10 pounds by going back to a ‘clean eating’ focus – no sugar, alcohol, refined grains, processed food, dairy or caffeine. Once again, i’ve missed cheese most of all – but am slowly adding back one serving per day… because cheese! Also upped the exercise substantially – which is part of the reason i’m not home in the evenings to write (or read blogs!).
There it is… Time flies… i’m happy, getting healthier, and loving life – even though i’ve had some darkness chewing at me along the way. Working 40 hours per week, member of two non-profit boards, and recently appointed by my local municipality to serve on an advisory commission, i don’t have a lot of discretionary time! Here’s to the home stretch of 2015! Hope you’re all doing well with whatever goals you set for the year…
Trailer Park Refugee 
Oh gawd! it’s ALWAYS the damn’ cheese, isn’t it?
But when you set it all out, like a “proper” report, it makes pretty good reading. i can think of a few CEOs who’d be envious. Here’s to the home straight-cheers!
I’ve written a few reports in my day… I don’t consider this blogging, or writing, or anything other than accountability. Some recent developments have given me TONS of material I need to write, but I have been in constant motion – and October is my busiest and most favorite month, so I’m not optimistic…
Cheese. Yes. It is always the cheese. And the chocolate!
Once I’ve gone 3 or 4 days without sugar, the cravings drop – including the craving for chocolate. That still surfaces, however, when the hormones rage – and I apparently still have a few of those lurking! After a month of cleanliness, I had my first taste of bourbon this week – and I’ve decided I miss that, too… drinking shall only be on Friday / Saturday. At least until Thanksgiving when I launch my ‘month of fuck it’…. Will have to be mindful not to undo what I’ve gotten started!
Cheese is what stops me becoming a vegan.
Congratulations. You have done good. V good.
i’ve learned that dairy makes me feel bloaty and puffy. Logic and research tell me that it really isn’t all that good for us. The vegan diet is clearly the proper path…. But cheese? Butter? These are so very necessary! I’ve just got to learn to moderate the consumption to make it work… Mozzarella on a pizza? Bleu cheese on sirloin? These are matches made in heaven!
wicked! nice hearing from you, sigh I miss cheese so much but its healthy or cheese not both, same with booze and dammit I miss beer.
You know the pain, sister! I miss beer, but not nearly as much as I miss bourbon! We will be able to imbibe on occasion, but no more ‘during the week’. Last time we did this? We slowly added Thursdays to the weekend… and then Sunday, because tomorrow is Monday… and then Monday was ok because it was Monday. When you restrict your alcohol consumption to Thursdays – Monday, you’re not really doing yourself much good!
Good on ya for getting the estate settled. I don’t envy you the job of cleaning out the storage locker. Cleaning out The Boyo’s little one was hard enough. It could be worse, however, at one time he has five chock full storage lockers. Agree with Archie about the cheese and chocolate, they rule me. Good to see you here, and at the other place.
The locker is the last bit of physical ‘stuffs’ that we need to go through. Photos are in there, as are some of Mom’s personal papers. My niece and her husband plan to have a garage sale to sell off the rest, and i’m good with that… but i’m NOT good with paying $250/month for a half empty locker! My plan is to go through everything, leaving only what is theirs to sell. Pay one more month’s rent and tell them it’s on them to either sell it or move it to a smaller locker and start paying on it. Mom’s cash has been going into that locker for over 6 years – at $3000 per year. It’s time. Grrr….
i’m working hard to convince a colleague to have a program review in Seattle… i would really like to get out there again and see you! i’ll be sure to be taking a ‘cheese and chocolate deprivation holiday’ when i do!
If I ever get to the United States, I’ll smuggle in some of our finest unpasteurised cheese from here in Lancashire.
i will eat all of your cheese…
good on ya, sugar! xoxoxox
now if i could just be as tenacious in getting myself settled down to catch up on reading all my buddy blogs!
Good stuff here… In particular I’ve realised I don’t “put my hand out” enough to those from the past. Now many I want to leave there as they offered no value there and no value now. But some others – are worth the effort. I’ve recent had a protracted email conversation with one about life the universe and his place in it. I need to do more.
Thanks for reminding me – updating wills is on my to do list but not moving forward much sadly
the key for me is to have nothing left unsaid… i don’t want to be as my mother was, biting on a respirator, unable to say those final words that i feel compelled to say… it was hard to watch, and she must have had additional misery with those words unspoken…
still stuck on getting those ducks in a row, but am hopeful that after my most busy month of October i will be able to get back to it in November!
You are nothing if not tenacious. I admire you a great deal for keeping it up. This sort of sustained and public record-keeping gives us nowhere to hide our personal choices (e.g. cheese). This post has apparently been rattling around in my subconscious for a while now, and gotten me thinking about some of my own un-fucking endeavors over the years. Maybe I will even get a post of my own out this quarter.
i’m spending a lot of time working out. that takes away from time spent writing, or reading. i noticed last weekend that the majority of my laundry for the week was sweat-encrusted workout gear. i suppose that’s part of the process, but i am looking forward to a gentle slow down in November… i’ve also been spending a ton of time working on halloween costumes… and dia de los muertos projects… This month is always busy… but i’ll get to the reader soon and check on your quarterly post!
I meant to add a nugget about ‘meeting a blogmate in person’ to this post, but by the time i got to writing, it leaked out of my ears! it was so nice to put a face and a voice to your words! Here’s to next time!
I miss Daisy!! Funny thing happened, as a long time reader of the lounge i’m guessing you might remember the Late Night Maudlin Street posts, well my mom and sis were at it again and my sister hadn’t spoken to our mother or let her see her grandson (who’s autistic) for since May because she was pissed, i had to go home for my grandma’s funeral (see post) and while i was there talked to both of them and basically said they needed to be cool and abide and shit, and while they both kind of shrugged me off something must have sunk in cuz i called my moms last week and who was she with but her eldest grandson, who would have thunk that i’d be the voice of reason and compassion and tolerance? maybe i’m finally learning something in my old age.
i am a bit kinetic at the moment… Miss catching up with you, too, and plan a long night of drinking and reading at the Asshat Lounge in the next week or so!
It’s cool that your mom and sister heard you… something about burying family can either completely sever relationships, or mend them.
i was stunned to spend part of my day today with my niece, DQ, her entire family and some friends, and my sister, S, who made the one hour trek to my little town for a dia de muertos event… four years ago, if you’d told me i’d be socializing with them after my mother died, i’d have given you a glassy-eyed stare and assumed you were stoned. but we’re all good… and i don’t think i could have ever predicted this.
one of about a million posts i need to sit down and write, but i’m not sitting these days…
dealing with some caretaker issues for the next bit – Studley had bilateral knee upgrade. Pretty serious surgery. He’s amazing, and doing well, but he just had both legs cut apart, and needs tending… so i’m tending… Will get over your way soon, i hope.