productive
thursday, january 2, 2020


i've actually been pretty productive the last few weeks, except for a couple down days right after christmas. for a good week and a half before christmas, i was baking 2 or 3 cookies or other things a day to be ready without putting myself in a back brace. even without my weight creeping up and losses in strength and stamina, my back has always been a problem. working out made it better but never took the problems away. so even when i was doing much better, i always broke up the baking. still, i had one item go wrong and need to be remade, and another one got dumped out because of time, so i may start a little earlier this year. we'll see where i'm at then. if i'm stronger and healthier and being consistent with my exercise, i may not need to.

i also started a lot of prep work for my goals for this year, and a lot of that prep work continued after christmas into this week. some of this was just to get me mentally ready, but some of it was definitely prep things, especially for writing.

there were a small number of online related things: creating this simple layout and updating site copyrights. i did a bit of prefilming for the channel and editing and scheduled those, and setting up for a new series. i canceled two of my subs, changed my filming schedule (regaining a day for other things), and have been unfollowing a ton of "wanna" accounts on ig (stuff that makes me want but that we can't afford). slowly working my way to a new mindset with the channel.

i had to go through all my old submissions and do some updates. i haven't updated my records since 2018. there was no point; i didn't submit again until december. i put all those no rsponses at the end of december, so it looks like a blood bath in my sub record for 2019. i had to make decisions about assassin's (which is finished but unlikely to sell as written, so needs to be streamlined) and tirs (which is its first round of revisions but hasn't been touched in over a year, so all the old revisions will be dumped, and i'm starting from the base draft again). i also had to decide if i was going to work on shorts any more (no: too much of a time suck for next to no return; in 18 years, i've made $300).

today and tomorrow i'm drowning in mostly house things: cleaning the kitchen, doing the laundry, paying the bills (every friday a.m.), changing the bed, going to the laundromat (our dryer is broken), and grocery shopping. saturday is video day, sunday is editing and going live on facebook day. while i wait for hub's check to hit thursday night, i can do writing related things, but my thursday through the weekend has been pretty tied up for awhile now. fridays is also when we go see taz's doctor once every other month or so. and i'm cooking dinner twice a week, on specific days. all of this is setting up a routine that's going to help with reestablishing my workout habits.

and today i lifted! i dropped my dumbbells down 2 pounds and my ankle weights down by 1 1/2 pounds, and i actually worked out about half the time that i used to, but i did it. and i felt every damn minute. i didn't do a lot for my core, but i've been working on not slumping and...ow. just ow. LOTS of ow. and what little core i did...more ow. because of the things going on over the weekend, next workout day is tuesday (helps me skip hub's one day off, so he can relax in the living room without me taking over), but i also need to build up my stamina again. so eventually will be bringing in my faves from core de force, hip hop abs, and turbo jam, plus walking on wednesday when it's warmer. right now, though, easing in.

the real test of all this will be to keep it going. one workout isn't meeting the goal of consistent exercise for the year. setting things up to write isn't the same things as consistently writing. and one of the things i noticed last year was wanting to do these things but struggling to actually DO them. i know now it was depression and to some small degree my mindset.

but now i feel ready. and even if all the things leading up to now, if all the prep isn't actually doing the things my goals focus on, they did help set a foundation for me moving forward. and being this productive, crossing things off my prep list, has set me up on some success, which can help motivate me to keep going.

except...i have to wash brushes tomorrow. and as much as i need to do them...not sure all the successful productivity in the world is going to motivate me to do them. but, yea, i know they need to be done. just...there's so many. anyone want to come and wash them for me?