Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak...

It only took six months to get this way!

I'm back.

Or at least, I'm back for this one post at least.

What in the world happened to me for the last half of last year? I wish I could point to monumental happenstances which prevented me from making entries here. Sadly, that is simply not the case. I've been at my computer almost daily, as is my wont, yet none of those days led me to this corner of the Internet. Part of me feels guilty about this, but a larger part of me refuses to beat myself up about it. Let's face it: most of what's put out here is just me screaming or whispering into the void in any case, so the person I first aim to please is, quite selfishly, me. And "me" has had other, mostly mundane, things going on.

So, let's spend a moment catching up with where I left off since my last entry in June of 2019, shall we?

Summer breaking

This summer saw Number Two Son moving in with us in order to begin his journey through college. It also saw us procuring a car for him, that car being involved in a wreck, and procuring ANOTHER, VIRTUALLY IDENTICAL car for him. If he hadn't actually been there when the wreck occurred, I'm not sure he would have believed the cars were different.

Number One Son was also involved in that wreck as well as an accident with HIS car that required repair. Thankfully, neither of the sons was hurt at all during any of the above. We're sincerely hoping that this has gotten both of them past the statistical portion of accidents while driving.

Fall beginnings/ends

Fall had Number Two Son enjoying his first semester of college. He says he enjoys it more than high school. I think it has to do with him being able to set his own schedule a little better as well as not having to get up early any day except Monday. He even went to a couple of social things, although I don't think he's actually hanging out with anyone regularly. I remember having similar experiences my first couple of years of college. Then again, I always had a girlfriend back home, so I didn't spend much time actually *living* while I was there.

Meanwhile, Number One Son finished his final semester, graduating with an Associates of Applied Science in Web Design and Development. Garrett was really worried that he wasn't going to be able to find a job, given the ratio of applications he was making to responses he was getting. Then, over the course of about a week, he set up an interview, had it conducted, and accepted a job with a company called Revature. He's now preparing to head off for their three-month-long coding boot camp in West Virginia, after which he'll be placed with a client to begin a two-year contract (with Revature, not the specific client). I'm all emotions wrapped together for him -- excited, proud, anxious, happy, sad, freaked are the most dominant currently. 

Mostly, I'm coming to grips with the fact that Garrett is, in fact, all grown up, and about to be off on his own. Gabriel is right behind, living mostly independently from Tanya and I even though he's right upstairs. It really does seem like the virtual blink of an eye since they were toddling around. I'm reminded of that daily by some picture or memory of them from the past, primarily via their Contact pictures on my phone (which are, of course, from when they were little bitty) juxtaposed with two men, both at least as tall as me, and sporting beards I could never grow.

I'll stop here, but encourage all of you to cherish EVERY moment of your life, especially those shared with people you love. Each moment is completely unique and will never occur again in all of existence. Ultimately, they are the sum total of who we are.

Autumn Vacacay

We took an Autumn trip to Minsk and Spain and have a zillion pictures. I REALLY considered blogging about those as they happened, but was very focused on other things at those times, like being *IN* those places instead of looking at them in third person. I'm glad I resisted the urge and remained (mostly) disconnected from reality for those days.

Suffice to say that I thoroughly enjoyed visiting Minsk in the fall, and was finally graced with some proper weather (gray, slightly rainy, and chilly). Leaving Minsk and arriving at Tenerife in the Canary Islands was a culture shock of another kind, and was breathtakingly gorgeous, marred only by the fact that driving (and parking) there is painful. A day in Barcelona wasn't enough, but we saw enough of the city to say that we've been there. It was a trip worth taking.

NaNoWriMo

I wrote another book. It was a return to the world of Aether, and I actually finished it, all the way through. Most of it is, as usual, crap, but there were at least a few scenes in there that make it worth editing. The next step will be to go back through it and start writing the first draft of a REAL book. I might not dump too much, as Tanya will be better than I am about identifying what things are interesting versus boring.

This makes for a total of four books I've written: one that went through a couple of rounds of revision, two that weren't worth finishing, and another that is to-be-edited. Add to that a handful of short stories and a ridiculous haiku collection, and I suppose I have to consider myself to have an actual hobby.

And before you ask -- no, I never picked up the other hobby (drawing/playing an instrument). I didn't have that much extra energy.

What's next?

• The year-end reading challenge review is in flight. I'm hoping to add a couple of interesting statistics to it this year, but we'll see how that pans out.
• I've already mentioned the first real draft/edit of the NaNoWriMo2019 book, so that'll happen.
• Supporting Number One and Number Two sons.
• Trying to maintain good habits in health, fitness, work, and play.

I make no promises, but as of now intend to create more content here as well. I'd tell you to stay tuned, but that seems self-serving as well as disingenuous. Tell you what -- check back every now and then, checking the monthly post totals. If any of them have gone up since your last visit, have at them!

And I sincerely wish all of you all the best for this year!

A Mindset Reset

Mel Robbins -- Mindset Reset!

This might come as a surprise to some of you, but I'm not always a positive thinking, happy-go-lucky person. Sometimes, in fact more often than I'd like to admit, I get down on myself, beating myself up for not being more clever, or quicker/better at work, or fitter, or myriad other commonplace things. It doesn't particularly matter my level of achievement in each/any of those areas, I still feel like I should be better.

Worse still, I have a tendency to, once I've started with a negative attitude, find reasons to perpetuate that attitude. Suddenly, EVERYTHING is terrible, NOTHING works right, and the entire universe is against me. This attitude makes me pretty unpleasant to be around -- and to be honest, I don't like being around others when that bit of darkness has seized me.

Why do I bring this up? Two reasons. Let's start with Tanya, which is always a good place to start. :-)

Mindset Reset

At the end of last year, she caught wind of a new program Mel Robbins was offering. It was going to be entirely short, web-based, live trainings, and opting in was free. The series was titled "Mindset Reset." Given the challenges she'd been facing with her back, she was really interested in seeing if going through a program like this would be beneficial, and asked me if I'd be interested in doing it too. I didn't really think I'd get much out of it, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to give it a try, so I said "yes."

At first, I felt justified in my skepticism. Mel went over some pretty common sense things that I already do. But it didn't take long for her to start offering some insights and things to try that were novel for me and immediately beneficial.

Visualization

She spent time early on talking about visualization, which is something I was already familiar with. The insightful part was when she explained how combining the imagery with the projection of the emotional content formed extra connections that help the visualization become impactful.

Journaling

She demonstrated a specific ritual around journaling.

• First thing in the morning
• In the same, calming spot
• Use a prescribed form
• Do it for at least 10 minutes

She made a pretty compelling case for why this is the way to do things. I won't get into it, since it's covered really well here. Suffice to say that I had been journaling pretty steadily since last April, so this wasn't a huge challenge for me. I was really surprised to find that, after making the changes she suggested, I was doing it EVERY DAY, including weekends.

Sample journal entry

Mindfulness of negativity

As I mentioned earlier, I have a tendency to descend into dark moods sometimes. One of the things Mel suggests is to actually identify the negative patterns in your thinking so that you can think something else when they arise. Just paying attention to the ways I beat myself up sometimes and switching those thoughts to something more positive has been an interesting experience. The first day I tried it, I realized I hadn't thought a single negative thing all day, and assumed it was going to be a piece of cake from then on. Then, the next day happened.

Luckily, I don't have a deep pattern of negative thinking, but I have my moments. Recognizing when they're happening, and using the 5 Second Rule (for which Mel is most well known) to switch the thought to a positive anchor, has really helped. I can only think of one time in the past couple of months where I just mindlessly raged, and given everything that's going on, that feels like quite a lot of forward progress.

Other learnings

I did find out one other interesting thing that I've suspected since high school -- I don't do well getting up before 6 a.m. for extended periods of time. In high school, in order to attend Driver's Ed, I had to get up at 05:50. Those days were always rough. I've observed it off and on over the years, but it fully quantified during January and early February. Six weeks of getting up between 05:00 and 05:30 in order to get journaling done before exercising was wearing me out to the point where I felt run down all the time. Tanya finally suggested that we shift our schedule to where I sleep until 06:00 or 06:30, and then get up together to do morning routines. I've felt dramatically better since then, despite my shoulder still being wonky.

The other thing

I never mentioned the second reason I brought this up. It's because I suspect I'm not the only person that tortures themselves and their coworkers/friends/loved ones similarly. If you've struggled with similar issues, or are dealing with anxiety or stress and aren't sure what tangible, practical steps you can take to progress, I strongly encourage you to work through the Mindest Reset series on YouTube.

I think you have to play it from the bottom up, though. Kind of like the 5 Second Rule, it's a little backward from what you might expect... ;-)