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Year 4 of Bloglikecrazy

Today is Day 30. The last day of bloglikecrazy challenge. As predicted, there would be times where I didn’t feel like it or I was grasping at straws to find just the right thing to write. As I promised myself at the beginning, there was no beating myself up if I couldn’t finish this or anything else.

At the beginning of the month, I started Miracle Mornings, rising just before 5am to learn more about morning routine, entrepreneurship and exercise. I realized I was left a mess on most of those mornings and gave it up halfway through the month. I have no regrets. I acknowledge my limits and abide by them.

I also had a rough draft to turn in. I did and although I have plenty of work and writing left to do, that first part is over. I also led a self-care workshop for co-workers and am in the midst of planning my first community workshop for this weekend.

Some of my greatest joys from this month came this last week from an invigorating walk, seeing my family over Zoom and a couples Zoom game night with my sister and her husband. I remembered how much I loved our game nights in their kitchen. My sister can attest to me being a little loud (especially when I win) and competitive but all in good fun.

I rejoined the See Jane Write Collective. The virtual write-ins were integral to me getting work done on pieces I hadn’t fully developed yet. I also had a post inspired by a podcast interview with Lewis Howes and Pulitzer Prize winning poet Jericho Brown, “Make a Plan”, retweeted by the poet himself!

December will bring lots more work, classes and aching to see my family. I am not even mentally prepared to be without them on Christmas Day. My husband and I will have to start our own special traditions.

Each year, I ask myself if I will participate in bloglikecrazy again. I always end up saying yes. November becomes my month to pay closer attention to the wisdom I hear, the beauty I see and the love inside and around me.

I get to walk through this process with See Jane Write sisters. I learn about their traditions, families, businesses, art, healing and passions over 30 days. It doesn’t leave me with much of anything to say “No” to. I am proud to say year 4 is done and year 5, I look forward to you.

Sometimes You Have to Say No

I am currently working on a project that will be released very soon. As excited as I am about it, I am trying to meet a deadline. The pressure is self-imposed but I care about meeting it for myself.  I want to be confident in the work I am creating and if it takes time away from cooking and blogging about a meal here this evening, then it will just have to be.

It’s interesting that the more I try to stretch myself, the more obstacles seem to crop up. For instance, I was supposed to devote a lot of time Sunday to my project and finish up today. However, I didn’t plan for hubby to get violently ill and for me to take care of him in the wee hours of Sunday morning into the evening. Which also meant I didn’t sleep very well and tried to grab a few minutes of sleep here and there while checking on him. I am always happy to put him first but of course that means my head is not with the work nor should it be.

So I am adjusting. Saying no to driving to the store, scrambling to cook something, take photos and post about it.

Even though I know I have other work to do, on a laptop that decided to start giving me problems late last night as I tried to get more editing done, there is still a part of me that wants to say Yes and believe I can do it all. To take No out of the vocabulary.

But I am not listening. I am sticking with “No” because I don’t have longer than 24 hours in a day and it’s more than OK to acknowledge that.