Retired

I have been retired for about 33 months.  Most of that was spent preparing to go to China, being in China, and getting home form being in China--no small task.  I am often guilty of vast amounts of unaccounted for time.  I  can read days away or knit days away.  So in an attempt to grab time by the necktie, I got up last Monday morning and made a to-do list.  Here is my accounting of that list:

What I Accomplished
1.  Read 30 minutes of scripture.  This isn't a true confessional blog, but I will say here that I wish I could be the person who says they do this every day...

2.  Forty minutes of exercise.  Yes, I biked and glided all to the background of "Hello Dolly" on the VCR.  I did NOT know that Gene Kelly directed that!  It's a great one.  Go watch it.  I remember when it came out and I was working at the movie theatre, I went in three nights and watched the second movie after my shift was over.  This was Day 1 of my exercise recommitment.  Hold your applause.

3.  Mend two sweaters.  I'm pretty good at this.  I can take a snag or an unraveling and fix it!  A weird talent, I know.

4.  Finish alpaca mittens.  Mittens made out of alpaca, not mittens FOR alpacas.  My youngest son accuses me of ambiguity when I write.  I am trying to become a FINISHER of projects!  My problem is that I absolutely LOVE starting a project.  It gives me an adrenalin rush.  I have a closet of unfinished knitting projects.  I am committing to finishing one a week.  

5.  Finish It's All Relative.  Yea, verily I did!  Punish me with the briar patch of finishing books.  Go on.  I dare you.  This is a smashing book!!  I wrote about it on Goodreads.  Get thee there.  Everyone should be on Goodreads.

6.  Catch up on my Q&A 5 Year Journal.  I have been keeping this journal for four years this month!  I answer different questions each day on four lines--at the end of five years I'll have five different responses for 365 questions.  It's kind of a hefty little book, so when I travel I leave it home and consequently get behind.  Every October 22 it asks me to write a haiku about my day.  I ignore it every October 22.  Here's a random example:  April 18, 2017--Write down a problem you solved today.  My response:  Lots of problem solving today!  Five students came to cook Chinese food in our apartment.  Logistics.  Space management.  Ingredient substitutions!

7.  Catch up books read on Goodreads.  I am usually religious about this, but I finished a couple of books on the same day, so I was a little behind.

8.  Email students in Beijing.  I had to write a very sad note to tell them all that we passed through Beijing while they were all on spring festival holiday...We had been planning a get-together...

9.  Get plants from Sheryl.  She's been babysitting my plants for the past 5 weeks.  I am happy to report that my avocado that I sprouted from a seed is 14 inches high and has about 9 leaves!!!

10.  Get books from the library.  Yep.

11.  Do laundry.  Boring.

12.  Finish Jana Riess' talk on youtube.  Fabulous.  She gathered all kinds of stats about millenials.  Email me for the link.  I met Jana in our Princeton ward.  She had been a graduate student at Princeton some years earlier and often came to visit.  We chatted in the hall about Mormon kitsch.  She has a particular fondness for it.  Jana was introduced to the church at Wellesley by a good good friend of ours, Anna.

13.  Drink 64 oz. of water.  I only made it to 32.  Water consumption is not my strong suit.  But I soldier on.

14.  Eat only between noon and 6 P.M.  My new intermittent fasting regime.  I should post on it someday. 

15.  Transcribe 10 pages from my Survival journal.  I crank away at this.  It's a delightful crank.  

16.  Wash car.  I was a little concerned that the outside temperature of 27 degrees would freeze me into a Chevy  cocoon.  

17.  Practice piano for 30 minutes.  I'm teaching myself basically.

18.  Visit Virginia in the care facility.  She is 98.  We laughed and laughed, but that was after she shed tears as she told me about being left on the john for waaaaaaaaay too long right before I arrived.  It is very very painful for her because he spine is deteriorated.  She is the mother of my best friend from high school who has lived in Alaska for nearly 40 years.  

What Didn't Get Done
1.  Finish a blogpost I started a few days ago.

2.  Spend one hour working on photo sorting project.

3.  Do the business that I have been procrastinating for two months.  Shame on me.

4.  Find some yarn for my friend's summer hat.  I have to move a bunch of stuff, and I just wasn't up for it.

There.  I am kick-starting the new me--one who is productive!  Yeah, yeah, yeah...

Go Team Grammy!!!!