As part of my review of my websites and blogs, which is thing 13 in my 21 for 2021 list, I’ve decided to move my blog to a self-hosted WordPress site.
I have my own shiny new domain, steppingonthecracks.com, and I’m currently on a very steep learning curve trying to work it all out.
I’ll continue to post updates on here until I work out how to notify readers who have already signed up to this site about the new site. At the moment, my world consists of email forms that don’t actually seem to send emails to me.
I hope you’ll join me on my new site and continue to share in my adventures.
This week in the Change Journal I tried out the Eisenhower Principle chapter, which I am familiar with but don’t think I’ve ever actually used. It’s a way of prioritising things according to their importance and their urgency. I’ve seen it used to organise things in a long term way as well as to prioritise things on a daily basis. (James Clear has a good explanation of it.)
One of the ideas it promotes is to try and focus most of your time working on things that are important but not urgent, so that you work on them before they get to the urgent stage and you start to panic. However, we also know that many things that crop up on a day to day basis might be urgent but they aren’t really that important in the long term. And there a lot of things we might do that aren’t urgent or particularly important, such as excessive social media scrolling, which we (by which I mean I) spend way too much time on when we’d be better using your time on things that are important.
Chapter 6 lays out an Eisenhower matrix for each day of the week so you can have a go at prioritising your tasks each day according to their importance and urgency.
I had limited success with this as a daily planning exercise and I think it would work better for long-term planning. I see it more as a way of identifying the things I want to be prioritising and the things I would be better off limiting, and then developing my daily to-do list from that and giving it a way of identifying the top priority things (a la the Circle technique). Something like that anyway. Because, for example, I’m not going to put “check twitter” in the not urgent/not important box of a daily list, but it is something that in a long-term big picture view would go in there.
I’m sure that makes no sense. So I’m calling that chapter done.
I did some work on my resume (thing 18) this week. Due to a recent reorganisation in my team this week, I started a new job this week, which is going to give me some new challenges and, I hope, more of an opportunity to use my strengths and skills. As a result of that, I’m not sure I need to apply for a new job this year, so I’m taking that part of thing 18 off. I’m only going to apply for a new job if something irresistible comes up. I’ve been putting off saying my resume is finished because there are a couple of statements in there that I’m being overly picky about wording and it‘s holding the whole thing up.
I think I just need to do it and be done with it. It’s not like anyone is going to see it right now.
Vegetable of the week
Thing 2 is to choose a different vegetable every week from the book In Praise of Veg and make a recipe from the book using that vegetable.
This week I cooked with fennel, which is anther vegetable I don’t think I’d cooked with before. The recipe was called Fennel Cacciatore with Free-form Polenta Dumplings (page 72), and it’s Alice’s twist on chicken cacciatore. It’s another simple dish, which involves browning the fennel pieces mixing in some olives and garlic, then cooking with tomatoes for about 45 minutes. Alice says you can add chicken if you like or, as I did, cut up some pork and fennel sausages, cook them and add to the sauce.
The recipe also calls for what she calls free-form polenta dumplings on top, which I found a little bit dry, and I imagine you could also serve it with a creamy potato mash.
This was another for the “will make again” list.
Regular projects
There are several things on my 21 for 2021 list that I have made a regular commitment to doing in the hope that this will be more likely to make me do them. I worked on these ones this week.
Thing 5: Spend an hour a week working through my annoying undone things list. How about ten minutes reading one of the books on that list?
Thing 8: Spend an hour a week working on Kramstable’s videos. I spent a couple of hours on one of these videos on Sunday afternoon.
Thing 9: Write my mother’s life story. I went to see my mum on Thursday and talked some more about her school days.
Thing 17: Brainsparker gym*. This week, I completed Module 5. I was supposed to attend the live workout on Thursday morning but I managed to mix the time zones up and tune in an hour after the actual start time. That was 3 am, and there was no way I would have got up for that! I only managed to get up at 4 because I woke up then anyway. But I missed it, and went for a very early walk instead.
Ursula enjoying the wet weather this week
21 for 2021 week 18 summary
Things completed this week: 0
Things completed to date: 2 (1, 20)
Things I progressed: 7 (2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 17, 18)
Things in progress I didn’t progress: 7 (6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16)
Things not started: 5 (3, 12, 15, 19, 21)
Blast from the past
Following on from my 10-year review of my blog, here’s the final flashback to my favourite posts from 2011. This one is from 17 December 2011: The unchristmas tree. Coming up to midwinter (okay, that’s a few weeks away . . .), it’s a good one to finish this series with.
I think that means I probably should have finished sorting out my websites to coincide with the 10-year blogiversary (thing 13) but I haven’t. It’s a small matter of getting some words right. (See above comment on my resume.)
What I’m reading this week
On Writing by Stephen King
Dæmon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling by Philip Pullman
Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit
Habit tracker
Days I did my morning planning routine at work (Goal = 5): 5
Days I did my post-work pack up routine (Goal = 5): 5
Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 2
Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
Days I did yoga stretches (Goal = 7): 6
Days I had a lunch break away from my desk (Goal = 5 work days): 5
Days I went for a walk or did other physical activity in the afternoon (Goal = 7): 1 (er . . . )
Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7
What do I want to do better next week?
See that number one next to the number of days I did some physical activity in the afternoon . . . ? That.
Working through the Change Journal (thing 4) I’m still working on the journalling chapter (Chapter 24), which relates to the new habit in Chapter 7 that I’m trying to form of doing 20 minutes of writing every morning. I didn’t start a new chapter this week.
I did a lot of work on one of my annoying undone things (thing 5) this week. Following my discovery about how to potentially address my Mac’s issues, I decided to post in the Apple support forums to see what the Mac gurus thought would work best in terms of getting an SSD to replace the useless hard drive. Before I did that I ran an Etrecheck scan, which they alway ask to look at before answering people’s questions. It came back with flashing red lights and the scary message that, not only is the hard drive useless, it is FAILING!
Nothing to see here
The Mac gurus’ advice was to get an external SSD as soon as possible, and one of them sent me some instructions on how to set it up as a startup drive.
After a bit of research, I decided which drive I wanted and went to order it. My delivery options were two weeks to have it delivered to my GPO box or I could pick it up from the post office shop on Tuesday. Two weeks to get it from the post office box or three days to get it from the counter AT THE SAME POST OFFICE.
Okay.
It’s ordered.
The other thing I did from that list was to take Kramstable into the bank and open his new account.
I spent an hour on Sunday afternoon working on Kramstable’s video (thing 8) and I went to see my mum on Thursday (thing 9). We tried to work out from Google maps where her childhood farm was. I got a vague idea but not the exact spot. I didn’t think it would be that hard, I mean if Saroo Brierley can find his childhood home in India on Google Earth, surely we can pin down the location of a farm on South Riana Road. Apparently, we can’t.
I worked on lesson 7 of The Compelling Frame (thing 11) and started module 5 of the Brainsparker gym* (thing 17).
Sunday morning walk
21 for 2021 week 15 summary
Things completed this week: 0
Things completed to date: 1 (1)
Things I progressed: 7 (4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 17, 20)
Things in progress I didn’t progress: 8 (2, 6, 7, 10, 13, 14, 16, 18)
Things not started: 5 (3, 12, 15, 19, 21)
Blast from the past
Following on from my 10-year review of my blog, here’s another one of my favourite posts from 2011. This one is from 23 October 2011: Find your passion. The lesson I still need to take from this, ten years later, is
I need a big push to get me started on anything, even if it’s something I love doing. This can only come from me. There are no excuses. I can either take the easy way and procrastinate, do nothing and continue to feel bad about that, or I can push through the pain of the resistance barrier, do something and end up feeling good about what I’ve achieved.
When did I listen and what did I learn this week?
I’ve been working through the Wicking Centre‘s Understanding Dementia MOOC, and this week I learned more about caring for people with dementia and the approach called person-centred care.
I learned that there are many different definitions of person-centred care, but to me it’s about recognising that every person is a unique individual with their own likes and dislikes. They have things that make them happy, they have things that make them sad. And before we attempt to provide care or address behaviours in a person with dementia, we need to know who that person actually is and what matters to them. What is actually important to them? What makes their life worthwhile? What is it that they really can’t stand? Things like their background and their history, what their occupation was, what their hobbies were underpin person-centred care so we get to know them as a person rather than as a “dementia patient”.
I also learned that people with dementia can get offended when people brush off lapses in their own memory as “dementia” if they don’t actually have the condition. Dementia is a terminal condition, not something to make jokes about in that way.
Finally, I learned that what is good for your heart (in terms of exercise diet etc) is also good for your brain.
More Sunday morning walk
What was the best thing about this week?
I took part in an assessment for a community grants program, which I really enjoyed. I felt a bit out of my depth as I didn’t have a lot of knowledge about the program and what was expected, but the program team had prepared clear assessment guidelines and outlined their expectations really well. I felt a lot more confident meeting with the rest of the panel and finding that for the most part, my views and rankings were consistent with what others had thought and that I wasn’t way out of the ball park. I also felt more confident knowing I had picked up on points that the some of the others hadn’t noticed. It was great to meet new people and to come together for a process like this and I appreciated the opportunity to be involved. This is a program I expect to be more involved with in the next few months, so it was a great introduction for me.
What I’m reading this week
On Writing by Stephen King
Dæmon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling by Philip Pullman
Habit tracker
Days I did my morning planning routine at work (Goal = 4): 4
Days I did my post-work pack up routine (Goal = 4): 4
Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 6
Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
Days I did yoga stretches (Goal = 7): 7
Days I had a lunch break away from my desk (Goal = 4 work days): 4
Days I went for a walk or did other physical activity in the afternoon (Goal = 7): 2
Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7
I’ve split this week’s post into two because I wrote so much about my vege cooking exploits. You can find part one here.
Sprouts. I cooked them.
I’ve been working through several chapters of the Change Journal, as I was last week. This week, I completed Chapter 11 (Reading), which is obviously something I am going to continue, and I’m working on Chapter 24 (Journalling), which actually has space for 37 days writing rather than just a week.
I did some more behind the scenes work on my website (thing 13) and a bit more set up for my UK trip album (thing 10).
Monday morning walk. It’s not always bad when your plans don’t go according to plan.
There are several things on my list that I have made a regular commitment to doing in the hope that this will be more likely to make me do them. I worked on these ones this week.
Thing 5: Spend an hour a week working through my annoying undone things list. I worked on a couple of these things. One of the annoying undone things is to sort out why my computer is slow and do something to fix it. I had a list of suggestions from the Apple support people, which I finally tried on Saturday. Unsurprisingly, none of them worked, because I think that the problem has been that the hard drive is too slow for the software that I use. (This is a thing. I googled it.) I believe that the solution to this is either to get a tech person to pull out the hard drive and replace it with a new SSD or to get an external SSD and set it up to be the startup drive for the computer so it bypasses the internal hard drive. So that’s next week’s job.
Thing 8: Spend an hour a week working on Kramstable’s videos. One hour on Sunday afternoon. I was going to do this then I discovered that someone had updated my movie editing app, which had deleted the version that I’d been working with, and the project wasn’t fully compatible with the new version so I couldn’t open it. Aaaaaaargh! After considerable panic and attempts to get the old version back, I finally managed to restore it from the backup. Who’d have thought.
Thing 9: Write my mother’s life story. I went to see my mum on Thursday and we talked some more about her school days.
Thing 17: Brainsparker gym*. This week, I finished module 4. We talked about the “helicopter view”. I have a friend who will be most amused by this.
21 for 2021 summary
Things completed this week: 0
Things completed to date: 1 (1)
Things I progressed: 9 (2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 13, 17, 20)
Things in progress I didn’t progress: 6 (6, 7, 11, 14, 16, 18)
Things not started: 5 (3, 12, 15, 19, 21)
I have a Very Important New Job. Or just a folder I found in the stationery cupboard. Take your pick.
Blast from the past
Following on from my 10-year review of my blog, here’s another one of my favourite posts from 2011. This one is from 25 September 2011: Let’s talk about housework. That three things to-do list is something I should consider doing again, I think. My lists these days seem to be getting longer and longer, especially on weekends. I don’t think it’s healthy to see a mass of undone things at the end of every day.
A morning rainbow. And a cloud that looks like a cat.
When did I listen and what did I learn this week?
I learned that if you hold down the ‘a’ key on a Mac keyboard a range of options come up and you can type the number according to the character you want. For æ, it’s 5. It works with c, e, i, l, n, o, s, u and z as well. In case you ever wanted to know how to type ł.
What I’m reading this week
Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit
On Writing by Stephen King
Dæmon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling by Philip Pullman
Habit tracker
Days I did my morning planning routine at work (Goal = 3): 3
Days I did my post-work pack up routine(Goal = 3): 3
Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 4
Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
Days I did yoga stretches (Goal = 7): 7
Days I had a lunch break away from my desk (Goal = 4 work days): 4
Days I went for a walk or did other physical activity in the afternoon (Goal = 7): 3
Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7
I still haven’t started a new chapter of the Change Journal (thing 4) but I have been working my way through the Habits chapter (7), the Clarity chapter (8) and the Pitch Yourself chapter (9).
I mentioned doing the UK trip book (thing 10) to my mum a few weeks ago and she sounded interested in seeing it. I wrote a travel blog with photos while I was on the trip on a platform called Travelpod, which no longer exists, but I was able to save all the entries as webpages so I can see them in a browser. I could just print them but it would look a bit shitty so I think putting everything into a nice photobook would be a nice thing to do. It will give me a chance to go back and choose the photos to tell the story with more distance from the events, rather than being on the trip and having to pick photos on the spot every day for the post. And hopefully do a better job editing them. So I started looking around for a platform to make the book on and trying a few test templates to see what will work best.
This week, it rained. The chickens got wet.
Vegetable of the week
Thing 2 is to choose a different vegetable every week from the book In Praise of Veg and make a recipe from the book using that vegetable. This week I used (most of) the rest of the pumpkin from the weekend’s soup to make the Classic Zesty Pumpkin Risotto (page 168). It took a lot longer than I expected. I don’t know if that’s because the rice was so old (as in, the last time I made risotto was before we moved to this house at the start of 2017 and the rice was left over from whenever that was) or if the recipe was just over-optimistic.
Pumpkin risotto
Regular projects
There are several things on my list that I have made a regular commitment to doing in the hope that this will be more likely to make me do them. I worked on these ones this week.
Thing 5: Spend an hour a week working through my annoying undone things list. One hour on Saturday morning. One of my undone things (actually, two) is to read a book I borrowed from a friend and haven’t read, and give it back to them. This week, I started reading one of those books.
Thing 9: Write my mother’s life story. I wrote up some more of my notes and spend way too much time googling my great great aunt Annie’s family. Someone made a comment on a post I wrote on here about my great great grandfather (aka Alfred the builder) a few years ago, to tell me that his grandmother was Alfred’s daughter, Annie. As Annie was my grandmother’s aunt, she’s my great great aunt, which makes this guy some sort of cousin (I think). My grandmother spent some time in NSW looking after Annie’s kids, so I’m guessing one of them must have been the parent of this guy. I would love to get in touch with him to find out if his parent ever said anything about their childhood and knowing my grandmother, but his comment has no contact details, so I have no idea how to do so. I’m following a couple of other leads to see what I can find. It’s fascinating how the idea to write my mum’s story has turned into a quest to find out about other family members.
Thing 11: Complete the Compelling Frame course. I did some more work on lesson 6.
Thing 17: Brainsparker gym*. This week I completed the second lesson of Module 4.
Saturday afternoon walk
21 for 2021 summary
Things completed this week: 0
Things completed to date: 1 (1)
Things I progressed: 8 (2, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 17, 20)
Things in progress I didn’t progress: 6 (6, 8, 13, 14 16, 18)
Things not started: 6 (3, 7, 12, 15, 19, 21)
Blast from the past
Following on from my 10-year review of my blog, here’s another one of my favourite posts from 2011. This one is from 29 August 2011: Dear inner critic. This is one I still battle with. Reading back on this made me cry.
What I’m reading this week
Diana: Her True Story – In Her Own Words by Andrew Morton
Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit
Writing the Story of Your Life: The Ultimate Guide by Carmel Bird
Habit tracker
Days I did my morning planning routine at work (Goal = 4): 4
Days I did my post-work pack up routine(Goal = 4): 4
Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 2
Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
Days I did yoga stretches (Goal = 7): 7
Days I had a lunch break away from my desk (Goal = 5 work days): 5
Days I went for a walk or did other physical activity in the afternoon (Goal = 7): 5
Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7
Some time ago I was chatting to my GP about getting older and how I want to make sure I stay as healthy as I can for as long as I can. I said one thing I’ve always had a problem with was exercising; that even though I walk a lot, my cardiovascular fitness isn’t fantastic and I know that as women age they start to lose a lot of bone density, which can be, if not prevented, then minimised by increasing their strength. I’ve tried exercise programs in the past, most recently before I got pregnant. Yes, that was 15 years ago. I have no wish to join a gym, I don’t like exercising, I have some very weak points in my back, and I can come up with every excuse under the sun not to exercise. Meanwhile, time marches on and little niggles in my body start to let me know they are there more and more often.
My GP suggested seeing an exercise physiologist to get an assessment of where I’m at, what I need and what I can do that I’m more likely to stick to and that takes into account my weak spots. I had never heard of exercise physiologists before so I had to google what they were. I learned that exercise physiology provides injury rehabilitation and injury and illness prevention through exercise. The aims of exercise physiology are to prevent or manage injury or illness and to assist in restoring optimal physical function, health or wellness. It can include health and physical activity education, advice and support, and lifestyle modification, with a strong focus on behavioural change.
That ticked all the boxes for me. It sounded exactly what I needed. Now the only thing was to do it. It might not surprise you to know that I had this conversation with my GP about 18 months ago and she had even recommended someone to see. I was brilliant at coming up with excuses why I couldn’t do this. I put it on my list to do this year (thing 1) hoping that having it there might act as an incentive to do it some time this year. The first time I went onto the practitioner’s website earlier this year, there were no appointments available but this week there were two or three. I told myself there was no excuse to not do it. So I booked an appointment and it’s done and now I just have to show up.
I’ve been working on the Habits chapter of the Change Journal (thing 4) , one of which is to implement the pre-work routine (thing 20), which I have now done every day for three weeks. It’s probably time to start exploring some of the other chapters in the journal now.
Vegetable of the week
Thing 2 is to choose a different vegetable every week from the book In Praise of Veg and make a recipe from the book using that vegetable.
I decided to make up for missing my vegetable cooking last Saturday and do one of Alice’s veggie recipes mid week. This one was Samosa-mix stuffed peppers (aka red capsicums). I had never made samosas before and I had never stuffed capsicums before. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, it turns out, nothing. It was a pretty easy recipe and the spice combination of mustard seeds, turmeric, garlic, curry powder (mine is called x-hot) and garam masala smelt so good when it was cooking. The only things I didn’t have were green chillies (accidentally overlooked at the shop) and coriander leaves for the garnish, which brings me to another topic of food waste, which is coming up very soon. I even used the rest of a tub of yogurt that was a week past its best before date (don’t tell anyone; it was fine).
This was really good and a lot easier than I’d imagined
Saturday was regular veggie cooking day. I have had Alice’s yam recipe on the list for a few weeks because Slabs saw them in the shops a while back but I’ve always had a backup in case he can’t get them when he does the shopping. Today was no different and he came home and said I was cooking eggplant. Yay! I love eggplant.
The recipe is Sichuan Sticky Eggplant (page 270 if you’re playing at home) and requires you to cut up the eggplant and let it sit in salt for an hour until it softens. Somehow I’ve never learned from past mistakes of not reading through the recipe earlier in the day so I know how much prep time I need. Dinner was going to be late again.
After that, though, the rest is pretty simple. You make the sticky sauce from a variety of Chinese sauces that until today I had never heard of but now have in my fridge. You dry out the salted eggplant pieces (Alice calls them “batons” I’m not sure how big they’re supposed to be but mine looked a lot like chips), coat them in cornflour and fry them in a shit-tonne of rice bran oil.
I know, right. I said I don’t fry. Seems as though I do now. And I didn’t burn the house down.
Sure, I fry
Then you cook some rice, mix the eggplant into the sauce (which I think I overcooked a bit) and serve with the deep fried sliced garlic and red chillies that you prepared at the start.
The end result
It was really good. I’m going to ignore the sugar content.
Regular projects
There are several things on my list that are going to work best if I make a regular commitment to doing them. I worked on these ones this week.
Thing 5: Spend an hour a week working through my annoying undone things list.) One hour on Saturday morning.) I cleaned out the back foyer and closed some bank accounts.
Yeah, you can see why this was on the undone annoying things list, right?Much better
Thing 6: Grow some vegetables in the garden bed. (One hour on Sunday afternoon for garden projects.) I did a bit of work on Sunday and threw some seeds in. In hindsight, perhaps 3pm in the middle of summer isn’t quite the best time to be doing that. Especially not in my morning walking clothes that I was still wearing, including my polar fleece. Incredibly bad idea.
Thing 8: Spend an hour a week working on Kramstable’s videos. I spent my allocated hour on Sunday afternoon doing this.
Thing 9: Write my mother’s life story. I visited my mum during the week and started to write up what I’ve been learning.
Thing 10: Complete the Compelling Frame course. I’m working through the first lesson.
Thing 17: I did the first lesson in module 2 of the Brainsparker gym* program.
21 for 2021 summary
Things completed this week: 0
Things completed to date: 0
Things I progressed: 11 (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, 17, 20)
Things in progress I didn’t progress: 1 (18)
Things not started: 9 (3, 7, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 19, 21)
When did I listen and what did I learn this week?
I continued to expose myself to Indigenous voices on the issue of 26 January. I was, like many people, appalled at the Prime Minister’s suggestion that 26 January hadn’t been such a “flash day” for the people arriving on the British boats either, as if a few months stuck on a dodgy boat was in any way comparable to the atrocities committed against the original inhabitants of this land, and the continuing disadvantages and systemic discrimination faced by their descendants.
I have learned a lot recently and I have a lot of time spent in ignorance to make up for. As in any area of growth, however, it won’t achieve anything for me to be mad at past me for what I haven’t known or understood. I can only change me now, and acknowledge that I have a lot to learn, a lot to understand and that I have to do more of what needs to be done starting now.
I saw this quote from James Clear during the week, which I think I need to keep in mind at all times, because worrying about what other people might think is something I do very well and it often stops me from doing the things I want to do.
When I notice myself worrying about “what other people will think” I find I’m usually not worried about any single person’s opinion. If I pick a specific person, I‘m rarely concerned about what they will think. What I fear is the collective opinion in my head. It’s imaginary.
Saturday sunrise
What did I do for the Earth this week?
I recently saw a reply to a comment on Instagram post from someone who said they were committed to never throwing out food. The reply was along the lines of what that person did in their kitchen really wasn’t the biggest food waster. True, but if everyone thought like that and didn’t care how much food they threw away, there would be a huge snowball effect, right? In her book Simplicious Flow, Sarah Wilson says if waste food were a country, it would be the third largest producer of CO2 in the world after the US and China, and that the number one contributors to this are consumers.
I don’t know if that’s true, but I did find out from here that
On average, Australians throw one in five shopping bags of food in the bin—that’s about $3,800 worth of groceries per household each year.
Australian households throw away 2.5 million tonnes of edible food each year—that equates to nearly 300 kilograms per person—and the average Australian household sends roughly 4.9 kilograms of food waste to landfill each week.
In Australia, 7.3 million tonnes of food is lost or wasted each year—enough to fill 13,000 Olympic sized swimming pools. Households are the biggest contributors (34%), followed by primary production (31%) and manufacturing (24%). 3.2 million tonnes of this is sent to landfill, and 75% of all food that is sent to landfill comes from our households.
Rotting food in landfill produces methane, which is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. For every tonne of food waste in landfill, a tonne of CO2-e greenhouse gas is generated.
When we waste food, we also waste the natural resources that go into making it, like land, water and energy.
Sorry, instagram commenter, I think what that person does, multiplied by 25 million people, could make a pretty big contribution to reducing emissions.
There is a whole world of opportunities here to make a huge difference to my footprint on the Earth and that is my focus moving forward. I realise I also have to stop collecting tips to reduce food waste and start not only buying smarter but making better use of what I buy.
I saw a post recently from someone who said you can regrow spring onions if you just chuck the bottom of them with the roots still attached into the ground. Apparently, the tops will regrow and you can keep cutting them as you need them, and this person said they never buy spring onions any more. I had some left over from my eggplant dish, so they are part of the veggie box now. I will wait and see if this works.
After the hot afternoon debacle, I went out later when it was cooler and threw some (very past their use-by date; one packet said to sow before 2010) basil, coriander and spinach seeds in and left it at that. I pulled the cover over the veggie bed, not that it’s much good as all the plastic has deteriorated and it’s mostly holes, so I don’t hold out much hope of it shielding them from the 31 degree sun tomorrow. But since the seeds are so old, they might not grow anyway, so this was really just to see what happens.
I rode my bike to work
Summary of the week
What I’m reading this week
Hollow Places: An Unusual History of Land and Legend by Christopher Hadley
Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad
A Life on Our Planet by David Attenborough
The Queen of My Self by Donna Henes
Habit tracker
Days I did my morning planning routine at work (Goal = 5): 5
Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 2
Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
Days I did yoga stretches (Goal = 7): 7
Days I had a lunch break away from my desk (Goal = 5 work days): 5
Days I went for a walk or did other physical activity in the afternoon (Goal = 7): 7
Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7
This was my first week back at work so I decided it was as good a time as any to get back into the pre-work planning routine from the LifeHack program (thing 20). The video suggests following the exact routine for 66 days to cement it as a habit loop in your brain. I am struggling with that, not least because I’m not in the same place every day. It also feels very weird to try and work through a structured checklist like this. However, I will persist.
Coincidentally, there is a chapter in the Change Journal (thing 4) about forming new habits, which also suggests trying new habits for 66 days. It gives you space to track seven new habits, presumably staring a new one every day for a week consistent with the way the rest of the book is structured to allow you to follow a new idea each week. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to try and introduce a new habit every day for a week, so I’m going to use this section of the book to track seven new habits over the course of the year. Unsurprisingly, the first one I’m going to try and follow for 66 (work) days is the pre-work planning routine.
I worked through the first module of the Brainsparker gym* (thing 17) and learned something really interesting. Well, as a contact lens wearer, I found it interesting. I learned that the modern contact lens was invented by a Czech chemist called Dr Otto Wichterle and his colleague Drahoslav Lím. Dr Wichterle had to leave the Institute of Chemical Technology after a political purge by the institute’s Communist leadership in 1958. He was appointed as leader of a new institute but, as it didn’t have a building at the time, he continued his research at his house. In 1961, he succeeded in producing the first four hydrogel contact lenses on his kitchen table with a machine he had made himself from a children’s building set, a dynamo from his son’s bike and a bell transformer.
The lesson from this: Keep going, even if the circumstances aren’t perfect. Use what you have and keep going.
Vegetable of the week
Thing 2 is to choose a different vegetable every week from Alice Zaslavky’s book In Praise of Veg and make a recipe from the book using that vegetable. This week I chose radicchio, which is another vegetable I’ve never cooked with (and, like okra, wasn’t exactly sure what to do with). I picked the radicchio and sausage pasta recipe.
Radicchio & sausage pasta ingredients
It uses pork and fennel sausages that you take out of the casing and smash up. Alice says to use the “fancy” ones, not ones that are packed full of fillers. It seemed a little sacrilegious to me to destroy the butcher’s work in putting these things together, and I wondered if using pork mince and fennel seeds might work as well. Perhaps I’ll try it one day. The recipe includes fennel, which is another vegetable I’d also never cooked, so I got two for the price of one with this dish!
It worked out well and everyone had seconds. So maybe it was worth destroying the sausages for. And I learned a very cool tip for adding zucchini to pasta rather than cutting it up and adding it to the sauce: use a spiraliser (I have one of those. I think I’ve used it once. I never forgave it after I cut myself on it). You put the spiralised zucchini in the colander before you drain the pasta and then let the pasta water soften it a bit.
Spiralised zucchini, yeah!The finished product.,
Regular projects
There are several things on my list that are going to work best if I make a regular commitment to doing them. Consistency is the key. Brainsparker gym* is one (an hour a week) and the pre-work routine is obviously another one. So are these ones.
Thing 3: Complete the 30-day voice training course. I haven’t allocated time for this yet.
Thing 5: Spend an hour a week working through my annoying undone things list. One hour on Saturday morning. I didn’t do it this week because we went out most of the day, but I did work on a couple of the things on the list another time.
Thing 6: Grow some vegetables in the garden bed. One hour on Sunday afternoon for garden projects. I pulled out all the weeds and cleared space around it. I’m a little concerned that the cover for this garden bed is plastic that is rapidly deteriorating and I’m not sure what to do about that. No matter what I do, the plastic is still going to be somewhere, whether I throw it out or leave it.
Thing 7: Clear out the area at the side of the house and make a space to sit. One hour on Sunday afternoon for garden projects.
Thing 8: Spend an hour a week working on Kramstable’s videos. One hour on Sunday afternoon. I started the next video on my list.
Thing 9: Write my mother’s life story. This week, I arranged with my mother to visit once a week to talk through this project and capture her memories.
Thing 10: Complete the ImageWork course. I haven’t allocated time for this yet.
Thing 11: Complete the Photoshop Classroom in a Book activities. I haven’t allocated time for this yet.
Yeah, I know I don‘t do well in sticking to a plan, but I have had some success in fixing regular times to do things in my week and making them habits so I’m hoping this will work for these things too.
Nice afternoon for a walk
What else did I achieve this week?
My regular check in: I finished the final collage for my 2020 photojournal and I now have all of them printed so I just need to stick them into the book to finish that off. It’s one of my annoying undone things.
I didn’t work on my Hobart Street Corners project on Thursday, which is the night I usually work on those photos, because my computer was playing up and it took two hours to even get any photos off my phone, much less edit anything. I finished off my backlog of 2020 photos on Sunday morning instead.
Last year I had some questions that I asked myself every week that would set me up for the new week, about what didn’t got so well that week and what I might do better next week. Most of the time my answer was that I was scrolling through my phone too much, and I never really kicked that habit, which I’m sure made for boring reading. It also made me realise that this approach wasn’t working so it was time to try something different. I have a bunch of questions for myself related to areas where I want to do better, not all of which I might be able to answer every week, so I thought I would answer just one or two of them on the blog each week rather than run through the entire list every week.
What did I do for the Earth this week?
There is so much going through my head. So many things I could do and so many things I should have been doing for years. Part of me wonders why bother? I can take all the small steps in the world to reduce my footprint but it won’t make a lick of difference if world leaders don’t make some hard decisions. We have to stop using fossil fuels and overfishing the seas and destroying rainforests and all the things we do that make our lives easier. We can’t sustain what we’re doing, we just can’t.
It all seems too overwhelming so, rather than give up because I don’t know what to do, I need to start somewhere and keep learning and making changes.
There are a couple of things that are extremely low-hanging fruit and I have no excuses not to do them.
The first one is the kettle. I had a habit of filling it up every time I use it, which is, I learned (and if I think about it, actually knew) a massive waste of energy I couldn’t find any exact numbers for Australia, but suffice to say boiling a kettle with 1.7 litres of water when I only need 500 ml is very inefficient and I don’t do it any more.
What was the best thing about this week?
Getting my new glasses so I can see again!
My blog also celebrated its tenth birthday, so I will be posting some more on that in the coming weeks.
Getting out for a lunchtime walk
Summary for the week
What I’m reading this week: A Life on Our Planet by David Attenborough.
Things completed this week: 0
Things completed to date: 0
Things I progressed: 7 (2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 17, 20)
Things in progress I didn’t progress: 0
Things not started: 14 (1, 3, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21)
Habit tracker
Days I did my morning planning routine at work (Goal = 5): 5
Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 3
Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
Days I did yoga stretches (Goal = 7): 2
Days I had a lunch break away from my desk (Goal = 5 work days): 5
Days I went for a walk or did other physical activity in the afternoon (Goal = 7): 6
Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7
Susannah Conway’s Unravel Your Year 2021 workbook asks you to describe the year just gone by in three words. It’s left open to you how you interpret this: you could, I imagine, choose three words that describe the year from a global perspective, from a personal perspective or anywhere in between. There’s one word I’ve heard more often than I care to remember that has been used to describe 2020 that I never want to hear again and I have no intention of using it. It starts with unp . . . .
And that is the last I will say about that word.
I’ve chosen three words to describe the year from my own isolated perspective from the bottom of an island at the bottom of the world. They are:
Unexpected
Inconsistent
Introspective
Unexpected because I didn’t in my wildest dreams imagine that the world would be thrust into a pandemic that shut everything down, took so many lives, and shook everything up, leaving people jobless and causing so much worldwide despair, uncertainty and confusion. On a personal note, I didn’t expect the issues I was having in my workplace with noise to be (temporarily) resolved by having to work from home. There were other unexpected things too, not all good, and not all for this blog.
Inconsistent because, while I made a lot of progress in some areas I wanted to work on and I achieved a lot, I didn’t do as much as I’d hoped in other areas. I completed my uni course, and I had some good results at work but, there were other areas I was less successful in developing (no judgement here, just stating a fact) and they continue to haunt me. A lot of that is connected to me not being able to stop procrastinating and giving into distractions. And not getting into an exercise routine that works for me.
I struggled to find a third word but I chose Introspective because I started to work on some long standing personal issues in my head that are preventing me from being the person I want to be. It was hard work but rewarding, and I think I am starting to discover small chinks in the façade I’m trying to break down.
I would also add interesting to the mix . . .
I started the year with beautiful sunny Sunday morning photo expeditions, a couple of times with a good friend and other days by myself. It seems like so long ago now . . .
Sunday morning explorations with my camera
A major focus of my year was my uni program, of which I had three units to complete. The first one was intense, involving a lot of self examination and analysis, which left me feeling drained but also with some very clear ideas of what areas of my life I specifically needed to work on. I finished the course in October and received my qualification in December and am very glad that’s over but also grateful for the opportunity to have done it and learned so much.
I managed to keep reasonably healthy in 2020, not least because I have now gone for nine months without drinking alcohol and, as a formerly very regular moderate drinker, I’m particularly proud of my efforts to do this. I read the book The Alcohol Experiment by Annie Grace, and it totally changed the way I looked at alcohol. I’m not saying I will never drink again but for now I’m very comfortable with my decision not to.
This book changed my life
I had a potential issue with my eyesight that I had to have checked out a couple of times during the year but it all seems to be okay for now and the professionals are monitoring it. I got a hearing test at the start of the year, which revealed I have a low noise tolerance, which makes sense of all the issues I’ve been having at work and in other situations. I’m not sure what we do about this but a retest later in the year showed that my sensitivity had increased and I still don’t really know how to manage it. I kept up with my dental checks and my physio visits to resolve long-standing neck, back and posture issues.
I’m grateful there was never a time during the lockdown that I wasn’t able to go out on my regular morning walks. That would have made it a lot more unbearable.
Morning beach walks, muwinina Country
I started riding my bike to work, which became a whole lot easier when everyone had to stay home because of the pandemic and, as I said at the time, while I didn’t love riding in the traffic, I didn’t necessarily want the roads to be clear because no one was allowed outside. I stopped doing it as much (at all) as the weather got colder, the buses stopped charging fares and, eventually, when I was working from home full-time. It’s something I will start to pick up again when I go back to work after the holidays.
Bike riding to work
Another habit that I actually stuck with was reading, and there were a couple of things that made this possible. First, my goal was to develop the habit, rather than to set a number of books I wanted to read, which the pressure to read a certain amount off and allowed me to just focus on doing it. Second, keeping my no alcohol month going the whole of the year led to me going to bed earlier, which meant I could read in bed before I went to sleep. As of today, I have finished 34 books, which is 13 more than in 2019 when I set myself a target of only 12 books to read and never really stuck with it after I’d finished the 12th book.
The most powerful book I read in 2020, Truganini by Cassandra Pybus
I didn’t do as much work on learning Photoshop as I had intended at the start of the year when I signed up for a bunch of courses. Even though my uni work took up a lot of time, I still had a lot of free time that I could have done this work and I’m not sure what was stopping me. It’s not like I have to do the courses all at once or that there’s a time limit. I can do them in my own time, and maybe that’s the problem. I’ve worked well to deadlines where there is a clear assignment to complete but with these courses there are no assignments, just instruction and it’s up to you to play around with what you’re shown and see what you come up with. This is one of the areas I’m disappointed that I didn’t achieve very much in, and I want to do more in 2021.
I completed the major photography project I wanted to do this year, which was to spend 50 days making a photo a day with my 50mm lens. I’m really pleased with that project and it’s made me appreciate and understand that lens a lot better. I certainly won’t be keeping that one stashed in the bag again!
50mm photo of the Aurora Australis, the day before she left Hobart for the finial time
I had a couple of exciting moments in my photography in 2020 too. In January, one of my photos was published in Australian Photography magazine.
My first photo published in a national publication
I was equally chuffed when the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court asked if the court could use one of my photos of the court in their Christmas cards this year.
Supreme Court 2019
And just before Christmas, I found out that one of the photos I had taken of the Hobart Magistrates Court at the Open House Hobart weekend had been chosen as a winner of their photo competition, which was a lovely way to end the year. I’ve really enjoyed my photography this year.
Hobart Magistrates Court 2020
I was lucky to be able to get away for a couple of short breaks during the year. We had a trip to Bridport in the July school holidays. I hadn’t been there since I was a kid and couldn’t remember it at all, so it was great to be able to explore a part of Tasmania I wasn’t familiar with.
Old pier at Bridport on pyemmairrener Country
In October we had a night at Port Arthur, a place I am always somewhat reluctant to visit because of the many sad layers of history held by the area. And then, as a reward for finishing my uni course, I took myself off to Launceston for a photography retreat and I had a wonderful time photographing some of my favourite buildings and walking all day.
Tessellated Pavement near Eaglehawk Neck on paredareme Country
Kramstable adapted really well to online school and I was impressed with his commitment to his work, his ability to self-direct and to manage his workload. The schools did a huge amount of work to ensure that kids could continue learning during the lockdown and I have nothing but admiration for them for what they achieved. Thank you seems like such a lame things to say to convey how grateful I am for what they did. It has been wonderful watching Kramstable learn and grow this year, and for it to start to become more obvious what his strengths are and where his passions lie. The high point of his film work was his nomination as a finalist in one of the categories of this year’s My State Film Festival. It’s also exciting to watch his work and interests develop outside of school. Seeing his dedication sometimes makes me wonder how my life might have been different if I’d had such a passion as a teenager and had been supported to pursue it in the same way I hope I’m supporting him.
Sadly, Bethany the Australorp chicken and Rex the rabbit died earlier in the year. Two new chickens joined the flock in November, Dorothy and Shirley, who are black copper Marans and are very cute. After a month in a cage in the chook yard, they are now finding their feet with the big girls, some of whom are none too pleased to have them there.
The new chickens
Aside from the working from home, covid didn’t have a massive impact on my life. I don’t like going out much, I detest shopping, I don’t play or attend sport and I don’t enjoy being around large gatherings of people. I spend a lot of time at home anyway, and I love it. So I pretty much did what I always did, it’s just that I didn’t have a choice any more. Regular Friday night dinners at the bowls club were replaced with trying out various takeaway and home delivery options from local restaurants and pubs. I actually reversed my no caffeine strategy and started getting takeaway coffees from my local cafe (I am sorry for the plastic, but they weren’t allowed to use keep cups). I’m not sure why. One day I felt like a coffee and it was a valid reason to get out of the house and one day tuned into a couple of times a week, turned into every day. And when they were allowed to reopen, it because my go-to place to write. And a place to work when I needed a change of scenery.
Monthly review at the coffee shop
I realise that I am incredibly lucky that this was my experience when so many others suffered greatly and many continue to do so. I am so grateful for having the job I have and that the Tasmanian Government did what it needed to do to keep our state safe. I haven’t stopped being grateful for being in the position that I’m in this year.
It was, indeed, an unexpected year.
A weed is just a plant growing in a place someone doesn’t want it to grow in
Unravel Your Year asks you to consider what the gifts of 2020 were. I know for many, this would be difficult. I offer the following.
2020 brought me the gift of afternoon walks. Instead of being at work all afternoon, packing up and catching the bus home, I packed up my home office and went for a walk every day. I watched the afternoon light dance on trees, rocks, water and the opposite shore, and I made photos of what I saw. I would never have been able to do this if I hadn’t been working at home.
2020 brought me intense self reflection and the deep inner work that I need to do to start to heal myself.
2020 brought me a confidence boost that tells me maybe I do have an artistic side.
2020 brought me a brain that is no longer befuddled by alcohol, and the clarity and health benefits that go along with this.
2020 brought me respite from a work environment that was becoming increasingly stressful and difficult for me to cope with. My stress and anxiety levels are lower than they have been for a long time as a result.
A friend recently posted that we all need a little more yellow in our lives. I agree. You can never have too much yellow!
Goodbye, 2020.
You were not the year I expected you to be. I know the challenges you have presented, both on a global level and to me personally, are not going to disappear when the clock ticks over to 2021. In reality, the date on the calendar is just an arbitrary thing anyway. The sun is going to come up tomorrow, covid is still going to be here and I’m going to have the same struggles I have today. The climate emergency hasn’t gone away and there’s a lot of work to do. However, the end of the year is a good time to have a bit of a reset, to re-examine my priorities and goals, and make sure the course I’m on is still the one I need to be on.
Thank you, 2020, for the gifts and the opportunities you have offered me. I ticked 18 things off my 20 for 2020 list. I haven’t made the most of everything, but I think I’ve made some progress and I have learned a lot. I intend to continue to learn in 2021.
One thing I know, 2020, is that I won’t forget you in a hurry.
What did I want to do better this week? Keep pushing with the morning planning routine at work.
So, how did that go then? I didn’t do it. I did, however, start to set up what I hope is a better way to manage my work that will make it easier for me to keep track of things and I’m going to try to use this routine as part of that next year. I’m off work for a week now. Not going to think about pre-work routines. Or work at all.
On to 20 for 2020 This week was the last full week of 2020 so, even though I still have a few days left of the year, I know I’m not going to get any of the remaining things finished. I decided to do my monthly review for Unravel Your Year on Sunday and then to focus next week on an annual review, as well as starting to plan for 2021. That will include making my 21 for 2021 list and exploring my “word” for 2021 using Susannah Conway’s other workbook, Find Your Word 2021.
So my final tally of how I went in my 22 things for 2020, at 29 December 2020 and unlikely to change, is:
Things completed: 18/22
Things I worked on but didn’t finish: 3/22 (the Photoshop course, the home studio and the graphics tablet)
Things I didn’t do: 1/22 (the fermenting class that got cancelled because of covid)
All up, I think it’s a pretty good result.
What did I achieve this week? My regular check in: I kept up to date with my weekly photojournal and my Hobart Street Corners project.
I had some upsetting news that has shaken me up and I’ve not really been able to focus on much else. It’s not something I’m ready to share and it doesn’t directly involve me, but it is going to have an impact on my life over the coming months and it will mean I need to be gentler on myself for a while. I suppose it will also be an opportunity for me to learn to not try and change things that are outside my control.
As well as that, I had some exciting news, which is that one of my photos was chosen as a winner in the Open House Hobart photo competition for 2020.
Hobart Magistrates Court
I was super happy about this, and it was all the more rewarding because I had made the photo with my 50mm lens as part of my 50 photos challenge (thing 9). At the start of the Open House weekend, I was a little annoyed at myself for having timed the challenge to coincide with the weekend so I wouldn’t be able to use my 10-22mm lens, which is the lens I normally use to photograph buildings. But rules are rules and the wide-angle lens was locked away from temptation. I’m so glad I stuck with the challenge and only used the 50mm lens as it proved to me that I can make decent architectural photos without a wide-angle lens and has inspired me to keep experimenting with this lens.
What didn’t go so well? I’m going to say I did as well as I could this week, and that’s enough.
What do I want to do better next week? Be kind to myself, get as much rest as I need, and be present with the people I care about.
What did I want to do better this week? I wanted to track how many times I mindlessly picked up my phone and scrolled through stuff for no reason.
So, how did that go then? I forgot. Again. Also, to be fair, I was sick most of the week and the phone was a welcome distraction.
On to 20 for 2020 I went through the exercises from Indistractable (thing 13) to identify what I actually wanted to do out of it. I came up with two prompts that came up early in the book that I have now incorporated into my daily journalling. They are: • One thing I did today that moved me closer to what I really want and the benefit I received from that action. • One thing I did today that moved me away from what I really want and the foregone benefit of taking that action.
I think they are really useful prompts that (should) make me think about the actual consequences of doing things like scrolling on my phone, as well as the identifying the benefits of doing something positive.
I’ve now distilled everything from the book that I want to do into a (fairly) short list and I’m going to be working on putting those things into practice over the next few months. For now, I’m happy to call that thing done.
I also finished my 50 in 50 project (thing 9) this week. Day 50 was Wednesday, which was the first day I was sick, so spending most of the day in bed, I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to take photos but I did it and you can read the wrap-up blog post about it here. All the photos are on that blog too, split into weeks, if you want to have a look.
I’m proud of this work. There are a few dodgy photos in there but there are more good ones than bad ones. I’m really pleased with myself for putting in the effort, taking a photo every day for 50 days and wrapping up the project within a week after I’d finished it, rather than letting it linger as I so often do. I think it’s important for me to acknowledge an achievement like this and to recognise the work I put in to it. So well done, me!
And while I’m on the subject of acknowledging achievements, my graduate certificate (thing 8) was conferred on Friday and I now have an official transcript of my study in that course. I’ll get the piece of paper early next year, but I don’t need that to make it official. I really am done with that thing!
What did I achieve this week? My regular check in: I kept up to date with my weekly photojournal and my Hobart Street Corners project.
Apart from that, I took it easy.
Waking up with a sore throat on Wednesday made me a candidate for a covid test, so I went along to partake of that experience and had to stay home until I got the result. The testing seems pretty efficient at the moment. I called them at 8.00 am to register my details, got a phone call to book in for a test a bit after 9.00 and had the test at 10.40. It did, I have to say, feel somewhat odd rocking up to the test centre, which is designed as a “drive-thru”, on foot. I felt a bit like I was in that skit from many years ago of people who formed themselves into a car-like alignment and went through the Macca’s drive-thru on foot. The test wasn’t the most pleasant thing I’ve ever had done to me, but it was mercifully quick and I was sent home to rest and wait for the results, which came through just after 7.00 pm.
It seems very incongruous to have the testing site, with people masked up and in protective gear, so close to the waterfront precinct where people are going out, eating, drinking, seemingly oblivious to the reality that the virus is still around and that it wouldn’t take much for it get out again (just look at NSW this week, for example). It’s like there are two worlds here: most people’s world and covid-world.
What didn’t go so well? I’m not sure if this is a useful thing to ask this week.
What do I want to do better next week? Keep pushing with the morning planning routine at work, since I did it exactly zero days this week. To be fair, I didn’t work two days, but there’s no excuse for the other three days other than “it feels weird”.
stepping on the cracks 