THANKFUL FRIDAY

Tuesday night, we had what I’m calling Family Dinner night at Jenn and Wade’s. My plan is to make this a monthly potluck like gathering. This isn’t a big party or a hoopla. It is a simple gathering around the table and sharing an evening meal together, a chance to catch up on things and bolster each other. Every Sunday, for a loooong time, my family would meet for a big lunch at my parents’ home and we’d all sit around the large dining table. This was our time for my family to see each other’s faces and catch up. It may not have always been pleasant, but it was necessary. This was my vision around building a Family Dinner night, except make it pleasant all the time.

And I think it worked.

I needed this week’s family dinner. I needed to see those faces and laugh about dumb stuff. Michael and I have spent the last two Christmas Days with Jenn and Wade’s family. That will not be happening this year (for good reasons) and I really needed see their faces before we left. I also needed the ease of such an evening. Christmas day at their house is all soft pants and lazy game play. Dinner is something easy that requires little effort and minimal cleanup. This should be the same for family dinner nights, which it was. The focus is not the food, but the company.

Today is my last day of work before a two week vacation. Most of that vacation will be in Paris and all week, I have struggled to stay present in my daily tasks. One day this week, I was teaching a grad-student how to set up a complicated imaging experiment and at one point she asked “how do you remember all of this stuff?!?!” The experiment had been on my calendar for weeks and the day before I had to walk down to her lab and ask her for a reminder of why we were on the microscope. So my answer to her question was “I make sacrifices.” I may not know what day of the week it is but I can train you to set up a multi-channel, tiled z-stack based off of a specific region of interest created in a sample navigation preview in the Nikon Elements software. My enthusiasm for performing such tasks is waning and this week, with a real vacation in site, being present and enthusiastic has been a challenge.

Family dinner was something that helped me stay grounded this week. Maybe it didn’t do much to improve my enthusiasm for my daily tasks, but it did help to keep me present in this week. I’ve been lighting the Hanukkah candles by myself this week because Michael has been working late with the HS theater department. After I’ve lit all of the necessary candles, I’ve said the blessing out loud for myself and Josephine. There’s a part of the blessing about gratitude for sustaining us so that we can be here to light the Hanukkah lights. It is said on the first night, but I think about it every night as I’m lighting each candle. Then I am reminded of the things and people who sustain me. Every hug I received at family dinner was a lit candle in my menorah.

At the end of this day, I’m closing this laptop and may not open it again until we get back. I’m still on the fence about compiling a Year in Pictures video for this year. If I get it together before Christmas, I’ll post it, but don’t hold your breath. In the meantime, I hope you have moments that ground you and sustain you through the end of the year.

ORGANIZED

Organizing myself for the week.

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Saturday was balanced with laziness and getting things done. At first, I was highly unmotivated to do anything but stare blankly at the TV. Then something happened after lunch and I decided to haul my body off the couch and do some cleaning. I dusted and wiped down all of the surfaces and things. Then I put together the two feed and water shelters we bought for the new coop. You guys, the new chicken coop is going to be fancy. After I cleaned up the packing material and put away the drill, I swept the floors and Michael vacuumed. I ate half a gummy and then Michael and I discussed dinner. The idea of preparing a meal did not sound appealing. I looked at Micheal and said “Can we just order a pizza?” We have not ordered take out since all of this started and Michael replied “Yeah, we can order from Waldo Pizza.” We ordered way too much pizza, but I’m not mad about it. It just means I have lunches for the next few days. Michael told me later that this had been the best idea I had had all day. Saturday felt appropriately balanced, which is more than I can say about the previous week.

I did a whole lot of sitting and staring at screens last week. My Python coding class consumes a large chunk of my days. Then there are the various work meetings and journal clubs that I attend during the week. This doesn’t include life stuff like staying on top of the laundry and household chores. I feel like even though I am staying busy, I am not efficiently busy. I don’t set boundaries on when I stop working on actual work and when I need to work on something for me. I am not taking art breaks and I am not taking health breaks. There were one too many days last week where I ended up crying in secret in my bedroom. I need to make this whole thing feel a little less like Groundhog Day . So I pulled out the old daily planner and set some goals for myself. I organized my days into something a little more balanced and a little more healthy.

I will admit that I have not kept up with my 30-Day digital planner. I mean, I have things written down on various dates, but I have not set a serious monthly goal for myself since probably the first week of March. I had purposefully left that month light because March was supposed to be about getting ready for my art showing in April. In fact, I should be taking Monday off to hang those pictures in Westside Local. I have a large stack of framed prints sitting in wait in the corner of our living room. I am disappointed and when I opened my calendar and saw “Hang pictures at Westside Local” written down for April 6th, I got a little teary. I consoled myself with the reminder that this showing will happen as soon as all of this is over. I erased the whole hang the pictures thing from the calendar. As I did that, I realized just how much I had been hanging onto plans that had already been made. I realized that I had become stuck in place over not being able to do those things.

Plans change. Even without pandemics happening.

Focus on the things that I can do right now is becoming a common mantra. Taking the time to plan out the week ahead made me feel more in control over focusing on what I can do right now. So much of our anxiety, or at least my anxiety, comes from the need to have control over something. I learned the hard way that there are just things in life that cannot be controlled. Being in the uncontrollable moments feels like being suspended inside a tornado, helplessly watching all of the debris and destruction swirl around you. Having that one thing you can control, anchors you. Spending my Sunday morning, planning out my week has anchored me, made me feel grounded and secure. Right now, it doesn’t even matter to me if I don’t stick to every planned thing. Just the act of writing out my goals and needs for the week ahead was enough to make me feel better.

Find the thing that anchors you this week.