21 for 2021: week 17 update

Week 17/2021: week of 26 April 2021

I  had a lovely day out with my sister and her friend at Mt Field National Park on Saturday, which was great because I could forget all about my to-do list and concentrate on  not rolling my injured ankle clambering over large rocks on the Tarn Shelf. Did I succeed? No, I did not. But I can still walk, so I don’t think I did too much damage.

I still have a tonne of photos to sort through, so here are just a couple of them.

21 for 2021 update

This week in the Change Journal I worked on chapter 5, Digital Detox.

I don’t know that I learned that much from the exercise other than that on a bad day, if I was on social media and email and watching TV as much as I was that day every day of the year, I’d spend the equivalent of 43 days a year doing that.

43 days!!!!

Actually, this is a bit misleading, because I don’t normally watch TV and I have been lately because I watch Masterchef with Kramstable, and I check the Twitter feed about the show on my phone at the same time, so a lot of the time I counted as being on social media was double counted as TV time as well. If I hadn’t been watching TV, I might not have been on the phone either.

 The idea of the chapter is to track your usage over the first four days of the week, to track your non-usage over the last three days and then work out how much time you’d save over a year by not going on the phone. I found that difficult, to actually track the times I thought about picking up my phone but didn’t do it, especially as I was out and away from the journal for most of the time so didn’t have any way to record near-misses. I sort of get what it was trying to do but it didn’t work for me. 

I know what my main triggers for wasting time on the phone are. They are being in between tasks, not being sure what I should be doing or not really having anything to do. I know that on days I have a lot to do and I just sit down and do it, I spend a lot less time on the phone. 

So I found this chapter more of a reinforcement of what I already knew, rather than something new.

Also, I completed 66 days of the habit of doing the pre-work routine (thing 20), which is part of chapter 7, so that thing is done. I’m also working through the journalling chapter (chapter 24).

I did some more work on my resume (thing 18)

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’s dish was Carefree Cabbage Curry (page 456). I’m not a huge fan of cabbage. In fact, I reckon it’s up there with Brussels sprouts and we already know what I think of them. However, Alice says, “Often, when cabbage gets braised, it is shredded, grated or chopped in some way where you lose the beauty of its folds and undulations. Here, the rich golden marinade and equally shimmering gravy only serves to emphasise the grandeur of this brilliant Brassica.”

Wow! What a description. It’s a love letter to cabbage, right? Writing like that is almost enough to turn the most ardent cabbage hater. 

Almost.

For this dish, you cut cabbage into wedges, marinate it and then cook it in what is a very tasty curry sauce. (Note to self: you have run out of Kashmiri chilli.) It’s actually nice.

Marinating cabbage. It’s a thing.

There, I said it. There is a cabbage dish I liked.

I think having the cabbage as such a big chunk bulks it up a bit so you don’t feel like you’re missing out by not having any meat in it. I can imagine I’d make this again. 

I even had nigella seeds already

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. I didn’t do this on Satirday as I was out but I did read a bit from one of the books that’s on the list during the week.
• Thing 8: Spend an hour a week working on Kramstable’s videos. I worked on this for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon.
• Thing 9: Write my mother’s life story. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to my mum this week, but I got her to identify some people in some old photos
• Thing 17: Brainsparker gym*. I finished lesson 3 of Module 5.

21 for 2021 summary

• Things completed this week: 1 (20)
• 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 another one of my favourite posts from 2011. This one is from 11 November 2011: eleven, which is about how I spent 11/11/11. Sick on the couch at home, it turned out.

I took a photo every hour that day for the 11Eleven project, which seems to have now disappeared. I don’t know if the book ever happened but I’m pretty sure none of my photos would have made it in!

When did I listen and what did I learn this week?

I went to a webinar on age discrimination in the workplace, which I found very interesting. One of the panelists asked why we have this constant fixation on chronological age, and said that focusing on age to categorise older workers is deficient and limiting. I found Kay Patterson, the Age Discrimination Commissioner, a real inspiration at age 76. This is all going to be relevant to my work in the coming months so it was a useful and thought provoking session for me.

I was also interested to see Hobart Council’s Crowther Reinterpretation Project in Franklin Square. This project provides local artists with the opportunity to respond to the statue of William Crowther, a public figure in mid-19th century Hobart.

The first project is called “Truth Telling” by Allan Mansell, and it considers Crowther’s treatment of Aboriginal man William Lanne (King Billy) after Lanne’s death, including decapitating his body.

There will be four temporary artworks involving the stature over the rest of 2021. While I was aware of Aboriginal people’s bodies having been desecrated in the name of white people’s “science”, I didn’t know about William Lanne’s particular story, and I think this project is a good opportunity to, as the project description says, “acknowledge, question, provoke discussion or increase awareness about the story of Crowther and Lanne”. These are important stories that we need to learn about.

What was the best thing about this week?

The Tarn Shelf walk.

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 = 4): 4
• Days I did my post-work pack up routine(Goal = 4): 4
• Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 4
• Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
• Days I did yoga stretches (Goal = 7): 5
• 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): 5
• Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7

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21 for 2021: week 11

Week 11/2021: week of 15 March 2021

21 for 2021 update

I’ve been working on several of the chapters of the Change Journal (thing 4) in fits and starts. In the habits chapter, I finished 66 consecutive days of yoga stretches and am continuing with the pre-work routine (thing 20) and the post-work routine, as well as starting a new habit to do ten push ups every day. That’s one of the exercises from the exercise physiologist (thing 1).

I also worked on chapters 8 (“Clarity”) and 9 (“Pitch Yourself”) and started thinking about my strengths and skills. I had one of those a-ha moments while I was reading through some career advice for my personality type. It said one thing people like me often enjoy and are good at is “extracting and explaining the basic storyline running through a set of ideas, as well as translating technical jargon intro everyday language”.
I had a look at some of the things my managers had said about me at work in the past, which included things like putting complex ideas into plain language and explaining complicated concepts for different audiences.  I thought about the work that comes to mind when I think about what work I’ve really enjoyed doing. It’s exactly the same work. It’s fascinating to realise that my brain is wired to do the type of work I not only enjoy but also am recognised for. So this is all going towards updating my resume (thing 18).

 I did some more photo work in the “unexplored areas” (thing 14), though it wasn’t particularly successful. I got my SLR photos back (thing 16) and have realised that the shutter button on the camera is broken and I don’t know whether this is going to be fixable. So that thing has come to a screaming halt until I decide what to do with the camera. 

When you can’t find a quiet room in your office to do your stretches so you have to go outside and do them under a tree

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. 

On Tuesday, I chose sweet potato in a recipe called Darl’s Daal (page 146), which is a completely different dhal to the one I usually make. It had pumpkin and sweet potato in it for a start. And lots of coconut milk. I really liked this one and there was enough left overs for lunch for the rest of the week.

A week’s worth of exercise done in cutting this pumpkin up

On Saturday, I stuck with the pumpkin theme and decided to make Alice’s pumpkin soup, which isn’t an official recipe in the book but I needed pumpkin for one of next week’s recipes so I figured soup would be a good way to use up some of what I wasn’t going to use. I also made the Hasselback Parsnips with Rosemary Oil and Salt (page 56). They were okay, but my oven is really bad at crisping things up, so they weren’t super crunchy like I’d hoped they would be.

Not-very-crunchy Hasselback parsnips

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. It’s working and it’s not working. I worked on these ones this week.

• Thing 8: Spend an hour a week working on Kramstable’s videos. One hour on Sunday afternoon. I did some work on this.
• Thing 9: Write my mother’s life story. I went to see my Mum but we had other things to do and I didn’t get a chance to ask her any more questions this week. Instead, I did some work on writing up some of the notes from our previous sessions and tried to track down where my grandmother had been in between the time she left school and when she married my grandfather.
• Thing 11: Complete the Compelling Frame course. I did one of the exercises from lesson 5.
• Thing 17: Brainsparker gym*. This week I worked on the first lesson of module 4.

21 for 2021 summary

• Things completed this week: 0
• Things completed to date: 1 (1)
• Things I progressed: 9 (2, 4, 8, 9, 11, 14, 17, 18, 20)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress: 4 (5, 6, 13, 16)
• Things not started: 7 (3, 7, 10, 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 7 July 2011: Here I write. I remember this time. I wasn’t in a good headspace then at all.

Views from the garden

What I’m reading this week

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Diana: Her True Story – In Her Own Words by Andrew Morton

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): 5
• 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): 4
• Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7

21 for 2021: week 10

Week 10/2021: week of 8 March 2021

21 for 2021 update

I feel Ike I haven’t really progressed much this week in terms of my 21 things. I didn’t do any cooking so I didn’t make a new vegetable recipe (thing 2) and I didn’t start a new chapter in the Change Journal (thing 4). I had planned to do some work on my resume (thing 18) and link that with the chapter on strengths but it didn’t happen. I’m still working through the habits chapter, including the pre-work routine (thing 20).

We went away for the weekend so I didn’t have my regular time to work on the undone things (thing 5), the vegetable garden (thing 6) or Kramstable’s videos (thing 8).

I did, however, find myself in one of the unexplored areas I wanted to photograph (thing 14). I had an hour on Tuesday night to wander around a suburb I don’t usually go to. I didn’t have my camera, so I just took my phone and made some ideas for a future photo walk in the area.

Adventures in suburbia

I took the film from my SLR to get developed (thing 16) and they scanned images came back on Friday afternoon. The pictures look like they were made on a trip to Great Lake in May 2012. The photos that I made last week to use up the film didn’t turn out at all, so I need to talk to the camera shop about what might have happened to them; whether it was the film being so old or whether there might be something wrong with the camera. I hope it’s the fomer!

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 9: Write my mother’s life story.I went to see my mum and we talked about how she met my dad. 
• Thing 11: Complete the Compelling Frame course. I commented very constructively on some photos people had posted in the class Facebook group, and on my adventures into unexplored territory I made some photos for the lesson 5 exercises but I’m not sure how close to the mark they were.
• Thing 17: Brainsparker gym*. This week I finished Module 3. 

21 for 2021 week 10 summary

• Things completed this week: 0
• Things completed to date: 1 (1)
• Things I progressed: 7 (4, 9, 11, 14, 16, 17, 20)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress: 6 (2, 5, 6, 8, 13, 18)
• Things not started: 7 (3, 7, 10, 12, 15, 19, 21)

What else did I achieve this week?

This week the Ten Days on the Island festival has been running across Tasmania and I particularly wanted to see Julie Gough’s exhibition, Fugitive History, at the Ross Town Hall. This was part of the “If These Halls Could Talk” series of events that were held in community halls across the state.

We decided to make a weekend of it and go to Launceston for the night.

Ross Town Hall

The works were deeply moving, showing us “the often-unrecorded atrocities perpetrated against Tasmanian Aboriginal people by the colonists of Van Diemen’s Land”.

Part of Julie Gough’s work

It made me think a lot more about some of the things I’ve been learning and reading about recently, and I’m glad we went.

It was raining by the time we got to Launceston, so we spent the afternoon at the QV Museum & Art Gallery looking at some of the new exhibits. Last time I was there in October, there was a lot being prepared and not a lot to see. This time there was a lot to look at.

Nest, by Alastair Mooney, looks at “the resilience and beauty of Tasmania’s native birdlife in the face of human consumption and destruction”.

Nest

Lost Landscapes, by Anne Zahalka, gives new life to old museum dioramas, reflecting the way these displays contain “powerful messages about the way institutions privilege particular narratives about the environment”.

Skin showcases Garry Greenwood’s leather sculptural works that include musical instruments and masks.

Skin

And finally, Herself, which celebrates the range and richness of art by women in QVMAG’s collection. It includes works from female-identifying artists from 1820 to 2020, including Julie Gough, whose work we saw earlier in the day. So that was a nice way to round off the day.

Sunday morning photo walk

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 5 June 2011, where I got to hang out with the wonderful gardening guru, Peter Cundall, who is now 93 years old.

Tread lightly.

When did I listen and what did I learn this week?

This week, I signed up for the Understanding Dementia MOOC, which is run by the University of Tasmania’s Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre. Through this, I learned that dementia is not a disease itself. Rather it is a condition that is caused by a variety of diseases, the most common of which is Alzheimer’s disease. It is a terminal condition that involves the progressive loss of mental and, ultimately, physical functions, which results from the ongoing and irreversible death of brain cells.

I’m finding it very interesting and am learning a lot.

What was the best thing about this week?

Going away for the weekend.

What I’m reading this week

• The Summer Island Festival by Rachel Burton
• The INTP: Personality, Careers, Relationships and the Quest for Truth and Meaning by A.J. Drenth
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Walking back to the hotel after dinner

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): 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): 5
• Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 6

21 for 2021: week 9

Week 09/2021: week of 1 March

21 for 2021 update

Last year, one of my 20 for 2020 things was to have a month without alcohol. I started that on 2 March 20202 and I haven’t had a drink since then. So this week marked the one-year anniversary of my last drink. We went to Dunalley for lunch at the pub and stopped at Barilla Bay to get oysters on the way. I bought a can of their Oyster Stout, which I was going to drink at home that evening. I didn’t and it‘s still in the fridge where I left it on 1 March 2020. 

I still haven’t decided whether the alcohol-free thing is a permanent change. I quite like saying “I don’t drink” but I still have some rather delicious beverages in my beer cellar that I would very much like to try. So I need to work out a way to drink them but not make drinking a mindless habit like it used to be for me.

I had some interesting work to do this week, which made the week go faster. That was nice and I actually enjoyed being at work. Well you know, apart from the noise. On the recommendation of my audiologist, I got some noise-cancelling earbuds, which are a lot more portable than the headphones I’ve been using and they’ve been making a big difference in my capacity to function and not get overwhelmed in noisy situations both inside and outside. 

I’ve also been working through a couple of non-work courses in my spare time, which are on two topics that are totally unrelated and I’m finding great joy in discovering the connections between two topics that I would have thought were completely different areas. It has been an interesting week of discovery for me. 

I’m still working through the habits chapter of the Change Journal (thing 7) with my yoga stretches, the pre-work ritual (thing 20) and now the post-work ritual. Now that I have my exercise program from the exercise physiologist (thing 1), I need to build that into my routine as well. I’ve decided there are a couple of the exercises that I will try and do every day and track them in the Change Journal, and then the rest of the program I’m going to do four days a week instead of my afternoon walk.

I had to get out of the house on Saturday afternoon, so I decided to take my SLR camera for a walk (thing 16). I picked up this camera, a Pentax Z70 with a 28-80mm lens, from a second-hand camera shop in Canberra many years ago. I went to a class to learn how to use it but found everything too overwhelming, and ended up staying in green mode most of the time. Around that time I moved to the country and, having been inspired by the work of a local landscape photographer, spent some time photographing rural scenes with it. I didn’t use it much after I got my first digital camera. I remember going through a roll or two of film when Kramstable was a baby but, apart from that, it’s been sitting in a drawer for the past 13 years or more. I still had a battery for it and there was a roll of film in it with about seven exposures left on it. I have absolutely no idea what is on the rest of the film, so I figured what better way to find out than to finish it off. The film is very expired so this could be very interesting when I take it into the camera shop to get processed.

After having gotten used to a digital SLR, I found the controls on this camera to be very minimal, and the instruction book that came with it even more so. I eventually worked out how to put it into manual mode and how to adjust the exposure and shutter speed. Before now, I’d only used it in manual mode for the class, when all of this was very new to me. At least now, having had the experience of using a digital SLR in manual, I had some idea what I was doing, even if I wasn’t sure exactly how to do it.

For my first photo, the camera wouldn’t focus. This was not going well. Then I remembered that the lens gets stuck at the extreme end of its focus range and needs a little jiggle to get “unstuck”. Right. It was so weird to hear the buzz of the film advancing as I pressed the shutter instead of the digital click, and even more odd that I couldn’t look down at the non-existent LCD screen to see what the photo looked like. That’s a habit that’s very hard to get out of.

I used up the film, it rewound itself and I’m going to take it into the shop next week to see what’s on it. I’m not calling this thing done yet. I want to go out somewhere and make photos with it for a few hours and use at least one roll of film.

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 chose bok choy and I cooked Alice’s Grilled Bok Choy with Peanut Sauce (page 434) on Tuesday. I have to say the amount of peanut butter I’m going through to cook the recipes in this book is pretty phenomenal, but peanut butter, yum! I’m not complaining. 

Grilled bok choy

I probably could have served this with another veggie dish but I poached some chicken breasts, shred them and serve with rice noodles. It was a simple dish overall, excellent for mid-week. 

On Saturday it was time for a fully vegetarian dish, Seven-Spice Butternut Tagine (page 160). This had a lovely combination of coriander, cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg and pepper. As well as butternut pumpkin (squash), it had tomatoes, chickpeas and red capsicum. It was really nice with lots of leftovers. I’d definitely make this again.

Butternut squash tagine

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. I didn’t do this. In lieu of this, Kramstable and I spent at least an hour trying to catch one small chicken and lock her away with the others after we’d seen a hawk in the yard. Four of the others were appropriately terrified and huddled in the chook house. One so much so that she let me pick her up and hold her for basically as long as I wanted. I had managed to lure one of the other two, who are now candidates for the most stupid birds in the flock, into the cage with food, and had almost got the last one in when the first one got back out again and refused to be caught. It was a very traumatic time as we imagined what her fate might be if the hawk returned and she was still running around the yard, but catching her seemed like an impossible task. In frustration, I decided to get some water to fill up the bowls and while I was out of the yard, Kramstable, by some miracle, had finally managed to grab the elusive chicken and we got her into the cage with the others.

The elusive chicken refusing to be caught

• Thing 9: Write my mother’s life story. I went to see my mum on Thursday as usual. She showed me a photo of her grandfather’s house in Scotland that he had built in 1918. I managed to locate it on Google streetview, so it was cool to see where it was. I doubt the oil rigs would have been the bay in 1918 but it was cool to see the town where his family had lived for a time. 
• Thing 11: Complete the Compelling Frame course. I worked some more on lesson 5. I need to do the practical exercise. It’s been hard to photograph something in full sun when the days have been overcast and rainy though! I watched the video for lesson 6 as well.
• Thing 17: Brainsparker gym*. I worked on lesson 3 of the third module, which explained the “empathy map”. I missed this month’s live workout on Thursday because my alarm didn’t go off, which I’m very annoyed about because I really enjoyed the last one.

21 for 2021 summary

• Things completed this week: 0
• Things completed to date: 1 (1)
• Things I progressed: 7 (2, 4, 9, 11, 16, 17, 20)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress: 5 (5, 6, 8, 13, 18)
• Things not started: 8 (3, 7, 10, 12, 14, 15, 19, 21)

Blast from the past

Following on from my 10-year review of my blog, here’s another one of my favourite 2011 posts. This one is from 9 May 2011: Happiness what.

I think the point I wrote then is still true today:

. . . while I’m waiting for my life to be perfect, my life goes on. I’m wishing some things were different but I’m not doing anything about them, and at the same time I’m not really appreciating the things I do have

9 May 2011

What I’m reading this week

• Personality Hacker by Joel Mark Witt & Antonia Dodge
• Me by Elton John
• The Summer Island Festival by Rachel Burton

I totally enjoyed this. It made me laugh, it made me cry. Recommended.

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): 3
• 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): 6

21 for 2021: week 6

Week 06/2021: week of 8 February
21 for 2021 update

I did a thing!

I had my exercise physiologist appointment (thing 1) on Friday. I didn’t really know what to expect, walking into a gym to meet someone who I imagined would be super fit and super motivated and having to explain how I had got to be a middle aged sloth with back and neck issues from years of a sedentary lifestyle wedded to my computer. 
You might be able to understand my reluctance to do this and have put it off for 18 months.

However, there was no need for me to be worried or feel bad about my lack of fitness, which I am very grateful for! After me explaining my predicament, we ran through a few tests of my strength, because that’s a key area I said I wanted to focus on. Apparently, my grip is strong enough to gain me entry into the police force. I doubt any of my other results would satisfy the criteria, but at least I could hold on to . . . whatever it is cops have to be able to hold. It’s probably an easy test that they do first that most people can pass so you don’t feel too bad about your lack of fitness that’s revealed elsewhere as you go through the rest of the tests.

I say “tests” like it’s a formal assessment, but it really wasn’t like that. It was more like a session with my physio, where I had to twist and turn to see my mobility limitations, of which there are quite a lot, and some assessments of my core strength. That didn’t take long, primarily because my core strength doesn’t exist.

I came away with a very small exercise program that I have eight weeks to put in place before I have to go back. I think I can do this!

I’m still working on the pre-work routine (thing 20) through the Change Journal (thing 4) and I think it’s almost time to pick up a new habit. Maybe next week.

I also did some behind the scenes work for my website (thing 13).

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’s vegetable was zucchini and I made Alice’s Summer Slice, which is like a frittata that you’d make to use up a glut of zucchini. It was pretty easy to make and really nice with a side salad. 

Summer slice (you’ll have to trust me that there’s zucchini in it)

Regular projects

There are several things on my list that I’ve 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 offloaded a bunch of recyclable plastic that had been breeding in the kitchen for months, maybe years.
• Thing 8: Spend an hour a week working on Kramstable’s videos. I did this for my allocated hour on Sunday afternoon. Who said I can’t stick to a schedule?
• Thing 9: Write my mother’s life story. I had my regular visit with my mum on Thursday for the next instalment, and I found out where my grandfather went to college. Then in a fabulous bit of research, after locating the uni that the college is now part of (University of Western Sydney), I found some of his records online, including photos of him in the college rugby team.

21 for 2021 Summary

• Things completed this week: 1 (1)
• Things completed to date: 1 (1)
• Things I progressed: 7 (2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 13, 20)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress: 4 (6, 11, 17, 18)
• Things not started: 9 (3, 7, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 19, 21)

Blast from the past
Following on from my 10-year review of my blog, here’s one of my favourite posts from 7 March 2011 called Pushing papers. I’m not sure much has changed since then . . .

When did I listen and what did I learn this week?

I learned that being irrationally irritated by the sound of someone’s tapping keyboard at work is actually normal for people who have a noise sensitivity like I do. I also learned (after a follow-up hearing test) that I’m not making this up and I’m not being a big sook when I say I can’t stand the noise. Having a low noise tolerance is a real condition, and the audiologist says that it really does affect people’s quality of life. So all this time when I thought I was being overly sensitive and needed to get over it, I’ve actually been blaming myself for something that does make my life miserable at times, and it’s something I can’t talk myself out of.

What was the best thing about this week?

I went to TMAG this week to see David Keeling’s exhibition, stranger, which was intriguing and thought-provoking, especially the gallery with the “Contested Sites” artworks, which show David’s impressions of the Midlands of Tasmania, “scarred by perennial battles over custodianship and management”.

David Keeling exhibition at TMAG

I also loved seeing David’s selection of sketchbooks.

A selection of David Keeling’s sketchbooks

I also visited the exhibition of the finalists in the Frank Hurley Photography Awards, which was an amazing collection of photographs that celebrate Frank Hurley’s legacy. Until recently I had only known him as the photographer who went to the Antarctic, but his work is much broader than that, and he has a fascinating story.

What I’m reading this week

• The Tea Room on the Bay by Rachel Burton
• The INTP Quest by A J Drenth
• Personality Hacker by Joel Mark Witt & Antonia Dodge
• Burning Out by Katherine May

Habit tracker

• Days I did my morning planning routine at work (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): 6
• Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7

Back to the future: part 1

I started this blog in January 2011, so this month is its tenth anniversary. Happy Blogiversary to me!

It’s changed a lot since then and I’ve had periods when I’ve blogged a lot and others where I have blogged very little. As a tenth anniversary thing, I thought it would be fun to go back over the last ten years of blogging to remind myself how it all came together and how much it (and I) have changed since then.

I made my very first post on 5 January 2011 about a photo I took on 1 January. (I needed to double post for a few days to catch up.)

My first post, 5 January 2011

There was no introduction to the blog, no explanation of what it was about. I just got straight into it. Back then, the blog was called PastPresentFuture, and an entry from my journal dated 4 January 2011 provides some insight about what that all meant.

I’ve been wondering the last few days about the meaning of the Three of Wands, which is the card that came out when I did my iPhone single card Tarot reading. (Yes, really, I have an app for my phone that gives you a single card reading.)

The question I was pondering was what should my direction for 2011 be. It’s an appropriate card, because it’s all about new ventures and such.

[Here followed a lengthy analysis of the Three of Wands card, which included insights such as:]

• This is a card of vision and foresight—looking for greater possibilities. This card asks you to be a visionary—to dream beyond current limitations. The three of wands tells you that now is the time to accept your vision and be confident that you will achieve it. You are being encouraged to move fearlessly into new areas.
• Threes represent the idea of creation, gifts, challenges, opportunities and imagination. New directions and growths can take place. There is divine creation and spirituality and a regeneration of creativity.
• This card represents the undertaking of a creative project or goal. It also signifies the change and the challenges represented by this new beginning.
• Patience. Purpose. Energy to move in new directions.
• The querent may . . . be someone skilled at seeing the connections in life, or someone who seeks to develop and understand connections; where she is, where she has been, and where she is going.
• A successful beginning of a project or inspiration and fire of the artist or the inventor. The basis of the work is firmly established and the undertaking can be fearlessly continued.

Before I started the blog, I’d decided to embark on a 365-day photo project, which was to take a photo every day in 2011, and I was going to do that using an app on my phone (probably called Project 365, I can’t remember). But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted an outlet to share this work as well rather than just keeping it on my phone. The tricky part was working out what that would look like. In the end, a few things all fell into place all about the same time. I’d been chatting to people on Twitter about blogging, one of my scrapbooking friends was also thinking about starting a blog and that morning while I was in the kitchen it just came to me that a blog was going to be my new project.

Screen shot of the first couple of weeks of Project 365 in 2011.

Pastpresentfuture occurred to me as a name because the very first interpretation of the Three of Wands I had seen talked about the three wands as representing past, present and moving into the future, and that was exactly what was on my mind when I drew the card.

So the connection was made. I imagined that the blog would be something new I could do that will help me remember the past (through posting about my scrapbooking and memory keeping), live in the present (by taking a photo of one moment in time) and design my future (which is the bit that never really took off—I was going to start my own Happiness Project but I never really got there. I think I was already busy enough . . . )

I did this project for the whole of 2011. How I managed to take a photo and write a blog post every day for an entire year, when I was juggling working, still being at home with a four-year-old Kramstable and getting him through the first year of Kinder, I will never know. Because I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to do it now!

Anyway, I did it.

Some days I didn’t post much more than a photo and a couple of lines, and others were much longer posts where perhaps the photo wasn’t the feature.

Part-way through the year, I discovered some photo editing apps for the iPhone and my photography changed dramatically (see this post for an explanation).

I am more than a little embarrassed by these photos now but am trying to accept them as part of my journey of discovering what I like and what I don’t in my photography. I thought they were super cool at the time! Thankfully, this phase was short-lived.

After 2011 was over, I think I was exhausted and I fell out of blogging very easily, going for weeks or even months without posting. I had a bit to say, but it never translated into posts. I remember having a vague idea of making the blog about my scrapbooking and memory keeping processes, but I think that fell over because I wanted to be doing that work rather than blogging about it.

To be continued . . .

2020 in review

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.

20 for 2020: Week 51

Week of 14 December 2020

My 20 for 2020 list.

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”.

Summary for the week

• Things completed this week: 2 (9, 13)
• Things completed to date: 17 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21)
• Things I progressed: 0
• Things in progress I didn’t progress: 4 (7, 11, 17, 22)
• Things not started: 1 (19)
• Days I did my morning planning routine at work (Goal = 5): 0
• Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 4
• Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
• Days I did yoga stretches (Goal = 7): 0
• Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7
• Days I went for a walk in the afternoon (Goal = 7): 1
• Days I had a lunch break away from my desk (Goal = 5 work days): 3

20 for 2020: week 50

Week of 7 December 2020

My 20 for 2020 list.

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.

And to force the morning ritual at work.

So, how did that go then?
I forgot about tracking my phone pickups and I did three out of four work days of the morning ritual. It feels forced and awkward and I am going to keep pushing it to see if it works.

On to 20 for 2020
I’m coming to the end of my 50 in 50 photo project (thing 9), where I only use my 50mm lens for 50 days and take a photo with it every day. I’ve been posting those photos on my instagram and on my photoblog.

Day 45: Farewell to the Aurora Australis (there are more photos on my photoblog).

I flicked back through the book Indistractable (thing 13) and looked through some of the thing I said I was going to do. I think I need to sit down with this once and for all and be done with it.

What did I achieve this week?
My regular check in: I’ve been staying up to date with my Hobart Street Corners project and my weekly photojournal.

One of my things this year was to develop and maintain a daily habit of reading (thing 14). It doesn’t matter how much I read, a few pages, a chapter or an entire book, as long as I read each day. Mostly, I’ve been reading a few pages every night before I go to sleep. Shutting down my computer earlier and getting to bed earlier has meant I’ve actually been awake enough to do this. I haven’t read a lot during the day. Sometimes on the bus but otherwise it’s mainly been an evening thing. And I’ve managed to read 30 books this year, a few pages at a time. Making reading a habit rather than setting myself a book target for the year has been a lot more of a successful way to read more, so I’m happy with how this has gone.

While I have been reading books a few pages at a time, there are sone that I haven’t been able to put down. One of those was Truganini by Cassandra Pybus, which I bought last week. I finished most of it in a day and found it a profoundly moving and disturbing read.

This week’s reading

As I read, I was reflecting on my own position in this country, and it occurred to me that had the events described in the book not occurred, not only would my ancestors have never come to this country, lutrawita, but I would not have been born. It’s a confronting thing to think about, but something that I have to own, and my thoughts were very much along the lines of Cassandra’s in the book’s Afterword. She writes

 . . . every Australian who is not a member of the First Nations is a beneficiary of stolen country, brutal dispossession, institutionalised racial discrimination and callous indifference. The expropriation of the territory of a generous people, and the devastating frontier war and dispersal that followed, is Australia’s true foundation story, not the voyage of Captain Cook or the arrival of the First Fleet.

The question we must all wrestle with is how the majority immigrant society acknowledges what is owed to the original people who possessed their territory for more than sixty thousand years, and who have never ceded that sovereignty to the British Crown of the Commonwealth of Australia. The very least we can do is pay attention and give respectful consideration when the original people of this country tell us what is needed.

The First Nations of this country want their unique relationships acknowledged and respected; they want to hold their heads high in their own country. That is not too much to ask.

This is something I feel strongly that I have an obligation to learn more about, and I also believe I have to find out what I can do to play a role in what this nation needs to do to build a stronger relationship with its First People.

What do I want to do better next week?
I want to be finished with Indistractable!

Summary for the week

• Things completed this week: 0
• Things completed to date: 16 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21)
• Things I progressed: 2 (9,13)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress: 4 (7, 11, 17, 22)
• Things not started: 1 (19)
• Days I did my morning planning routine at work (Goal = 4): 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): 0
• Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7
• Days I went for a walk in the afternoon (Goal = 7): 5
• Days I had a lunch break away from my desk (Goal = 4 work days): 4

20 for 2020: week 49

Week of 30 November 2020

My 20 for 2020 list.

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.

On to 20 for 2020
I’ve been focusing on my 50 mm photo project (thing 9) this week. I got a bit behind in editing so I spent some time catching up with that.

Day 34 of the 50 in 50 project

What did I achieve this week?
My regular check in: I did my weekly photojournal and worked on my Hobart Street Corners project.

Apart from that it’s been a pretty slow week. Last week I was talking to someone about Christmas trees and I said I hadn’t put mine up last year until a couple of days before Christmas and had assumed no one was interested. Then Kramstable asked why we hadn’t put up the tree and it was done in very rapid time. The very day after that conversation, he asked when we were putting it up. So we did that together.

Oh Christmas Tree . . .

As you can see, I put a lot of effort into it.

I went to the optometrist during the week to get all of my scripts reviewed. This resulted in me needing new computer glasses, new normal glasses (my current pair is over six years old), and handing over a lot of money. It was one of those times when I didn’t realise how much I needed new glasses until I saw what a difference a tweak to the script would make.

What didn’t go so well?
I’ve just learned about a new way to plan my work days, which may or may not be helpful for me. It involves sticky notes. I’m going to try it over the next couple of months and see if it helps me.

The idea is to follow the routine exactly as written for two months to implant it in your brain so that it becomes a habit. I did it for one day and it felt awkward and forced and I didn’t do it the next day. I’ll blame being really late for work the second day because I was at the optometrist and I’ll try again next week.

What do I want to do better next week?
Force the morning planning ritual.

Summary for the week

• Things completed this week: 0
• Things completed to date: 15 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21)
• Things I progressed: 1 (9)
• Things in progress I didn’t progress: 5 (7, 11, 13, 17, 22)
• Things not started: 1 (19)
• Days I did the morning planning ritual (Goal = 5): 1
• Days I worked on my art (Goal = 2): 6
• Days I read a book (Goal = 7): 7
• Days I did yoga stretches (Goal = 7): 0
• Days I shut my computer down before 10.15 (Goal = 7): 7
• Days I went for a walk in the afternoon (Goal = 7): 3
• Days I had a lunch break away from my desk (Goal = 5 work days): 5