Workin’ It Out

photo by fdecomite

So, I’ve been trying to get my new, improved blog going.

It’s not going well.

Layers and layers of confusion tied up with a poopy brown bow of frustration.

Oy.

I could complain about this on SO many levels, but then I’d have to be all “oh, but here’s the  silver lining” and  “this is probably really good for me, I just don’t know it yet” at the end of the post.  I’m not in the mood.

Plus, I have a cold.  Watery eyes.  Tight chest.  Wheezy mouth breathing.  I sound like that bass guy from the Statler Brothers when I talk (to myself).

A couple of days ago, when I was feeling mortally frustrated with The New Blog and before I realized that I’m only one step away from spending the next 6 years in an Iron Lung, I was thinking about how it’s probably good for people to keep taking on challenges…especially after the age when we think we might be done doing big things.

‘Course “big things” at 56 look a little different than they did at 26.

At 26, I wanted to change myself and the world.

At 56, I’d be happy to change my underwear size and maybe a corner of the dining room.

Get my taxes done.

Declutter my closet.  Maybe the kids’ baby clothes.

Vacuum that dusty cold air return in my bedroom.

Small stuff that becomes big stuff if I don’t do it for long enough…but all pale in comparison to The New Blog.

What I’m kvetching about today is my turtle’s pace progress on this BIG project while I struggle not to crap out on all my little day-to-day tasks and projects…on which I had been making pretty good progress before.   To add insult to injury, The New Blog has at least 13,000,000 new tasks…widgets…add ons…plug ins…stat counters…feedburners… design options…dropbox files…URL choices…that I’m trying to learn-as-I-go.  It is killing me.  How the heck do I find a new place for this BIG project…without it totally consuming me (which it can)…and forcing me to eat Tombstone frozen pizza and watch King of Queens reruns (which it has)?

How do Big Project Old People do it?

I don’t know.  But I do know it’s not easy.

One thing I am learning is that I make better progress when I hang out with people who are in the same boat…or better yet…in the boat ahead and willing to tow me awhile.

The more I study success (and by success at this point, I mostly mean progress), the more I see that success rarely happens in a vacuum.   BUT…before you get too optimistic that I’m feeling optimistic…you have to understand that most of these boat-towers speak blogdesigncomputerese…which is a language I don’t know.   I might catch a familiar word now and then…but it’s a total crap shoot on whether or not it has any real meaning for me.   So, it’s like they’re all smiling and patting my hand and murmuring encouragement and giving me directions in Japanese.

What I need now…like I’ve never needed it before…is to develop the ability to compartmentalize my time…so that I can single-task within all this multi-tasking.  Especially if I’m going to be a world-famous blogger and stuff.  Time management is NOT my strong suit…just the thought of throwing myself into that ring makes me want to start sucking my thumb (again).   I can see how developing more productive pockets of time is essential to succeeding.  And, actually, not only for succeeding, but staying at least minimally hopeful and only semi-psychotic along the way.

Cherie’s Time Pockets:

Writing Time, check.

Empty the dishwasher.  Check.

Load the dishwasher.  Check.

Clean the Toothpaste off the Bathroom Mirrors. Check.  Check.

Work on Taxes.  Check.  Check.  Check.

Swear at The New Blog.  Check.  Check.  Check.Check.  Check.  Check.Check.  Check.  Check.

For those of us who work from home, it’s tough to stay on task.   (Especially for those of us w/DVR’s who are hooked on Ruby, American Idol, and the final season of Lost.  And Facebook?  The Devil.)   It’s so easy for work to become this amorphous, endless cloud…that stays with us and on us 24/7.   It can be really hard to find progress in all that fog.

Thank God for those other wandering crazies bumping around and feeling their way through together.

It helps.  Help is good.

Oh, crap.  That silver lining thing again.

Take It or Leave It

Just a second or two to write.

I’m winning the paperwork wars – or at least a major battle or two.  Set up the new filing system I should have done right after we bought the farm.   Huge deal for me and Tom and I’m proud of myself for finally facing the monster and sticking him in yellow and red accordion files (plus brown AND blue).

Just wanting to connect this morning.  To feel the love.  Nothing like sifting through a big pile of expired 2-for-1 dining out coupons to make you feel like a lonely loser.

Trying to pump myself up for the final move from Lowden next weekend…and fight the ultimate Declutter vs. Bring-It-to-Waukee battle of my life.  This is Tom’s junk I’m talking about, of course.  My junk is priceless.

His basement.

His garage.

The attic is mine.  Baby clothes and Hug-a-Bunch dolls in big plastic containers and dusty garbage bags.  The frame of an old couch that was there when we moved in.  Two cribs from back when Jenny and Lorie were babies. 

Now, Jenny and Lorie have their own babies.

I keep telling Tom that if we haven’t used it in a year and a half, then we don’t need it.  Of course, that’s not entirely true (when it comes to my stuff).  And I guess we do still want our table saw and Tom’s reloading bench and that enormous horizontal file cabinet (see paragraph #1).

I’m thinking this morning about how our lives are shaped as much by what we leave behind as what we bring along.

More and more I feel like I need to travel light.  I think it’s the key to enjoying being a middle-ager.  But the more I try to fling the extraneous, the more I butt up against the hard fact that…in order to do that…I have to be willing to change myself…to let go…not only of physical stuff, but my attitudes and ways of looking at things. 

Like my old problem solving strategies…the ones which aren’t working as well for my new life as a 50-something. 

 When I was younger, there was just so much more energy to throw at challenges.  Something wrong?  Work harder!  Work longer!

Now, there’s less drive, less energy, less in reserve.  So, now maybe it’s more about living simpler and working smarter.  More about being disciplined and consistent over time.  Less about furious bursts of energy in the moment. 

More doing your homework every day and less cramming for finals.

Which is a  lesson I started learning  when I became a mom and finally got it:  The key to progress is consistency.   Then, I got more practice when I went back to college in my 40’s.

Still learning it.   (Learning is a good thing.)

Stuff  (commitments, projects, crises) can slow us down to a turtle’s pace.   Just the mere lugging it around…emotional baggage, spiritual shortcomings AND material things…can eat up all our time…

Lots to do today and for a few days to come.

Don’t abandon me if I’m incommunicado for a bit, because I’m not abandoning you. 

 I just have all this crap to move and this old house to sell….

Love you guys.

Acute Entropy Disorder

The other day I was reading up on entropy on the Internet.  You have to be careful with online info, of course, because people can write that entropy is monkey lipstick and 10,000 people pick it up and put it on their websites and the next thing you know, it’s in Wikipedia.  Or used in a quote by Abraham Lincoln.

 

Anyway.  

 

In case you’ve forgotten your high school science class, entropy is an actual law of physics and everything…Number 2, to be exact.  To put it simply, entropy means that an organized system will decay into disorganization (lose energy and structure) if energy (which has to do with the First Law of Physics) is not continuously applied. 

 

(Though, apparently the law of entropy is being re-written, or at least amended, to make room for evolution theory, which assumes that matter and energy are getting more organized all the time.  FYI.  Rewriting physics to support a theory.  Knew you wanted to know that.)

 

Entropy sort of rests on the assumption that matter and energy got organized a long time ago and is now falling apart (Big Bang…expanding universe).  Winding down. Slowly losing energy and organization. 

 

Let there be light…and there was light.

 

This is important information…in case you’re thinking Not So Much. 

 

Well, actually, not so much important if you’re trying to use it to prove the existence of God.  Which smarter people than you and me have tried to do.  It’s actually much more important than that.  It finally explains why I have started (and continue) to lag in the organization department.  It’s a freaking physical law of the universe!  It’s all making sense.  I’m running down. 

 

I have Entropy.  (Don’t be surprised when you see commercials for medications to treat Acute Entropy Disorder.  You can thank me later.)

 

Finally.  It has a name.

 

You know what?  Here’s something else about me you may not know or care about.  I love, Love, LOVE 17^th and 18^th century British literature.  I got totally hooked on it because one of the underlying assumptions (by the writers of that time) is that creation came about when God brought order out of chaos. 

 

There was chaos – the dark and void – and then God reconfigured matter and energy into Creation.  Which is actually very scriptural, if you know Hebrew.  According to old Brit writers, we are most like God when we are creatively separating things into organized patterns.  Which is also one definition of art.

 

17^th century writers and artists were all about putting things in their proper place. 

 

I am totally on board with that (in theory).  But…it’s an ideal I support a lot more when I’m feeling more organized and/or artistic.

 

Apparently, according to the Laws of Physics, we have to apply energy in order to keep things organized.  My problem, it seems, is that I’ve been using all my energy to blog and work out and search the internet for the perfect cheap bar stool and the meaning of entropy and fast forwarding through the commercials on Top Chef.

 

No wonder I’m cranking out so much cosmic clutter.