Hibernating

Well, we're one week into the new year and I can't say I'm doing very well with any of my plans for it. But that's January, right? You have to be really nice to yourself in January.

Also, I should note that I spent much of the week staring at my computer screen, watching the drama in the House of Representatives play out (on the New York Times website, since we don't have cable/satellite TV). That took a lot of my time and energy.

Here are some of the things I haven't done this week:

• Exercise. Not one walk, one swim, one weight-lifting session. Today we all went outside and worked on the snow/ice problem for about 30 minutes, so that counted for something. I guess. At one point I slipped on the ice on our neighbor's driveway and intentionally fell down into a pile of snow nearby (so I wouldn't fall on the concrete driveway and break something). I crawled over to our driveway and pulled myself up using a door handle on Rocket Boy's car while he watched me, saying "I don't think I can pull you up." After that, I mostly watched the others work. Teen A ended up with several blisters.
  
• Writing. I have done nothing, not one word on my novel, haven't even opened the file. I barely got to this blog post -- it's almost 9 pm and I'm just getting started.
• Cleaning. I didn't vacuum or mop (RB mopped the new kitchen floor today while I took a nap). I cleaned the litter boxes a couple of times, did some dishes, a few loads of laundry. No FlyLady missions, nothing in the desk room.
• Cooking. I made dinner a few nights, but there were also nights when Rocket Boy made the twins ramen and frozen pizza. Tonight he made pancakes.
• The tree. I had hoped to get the ornaments off this week. Epiphany seemed like a good day to do that. Did I do that? No.
  

This is why I set very simple, easy to achieve goals.  Especially in January. Speaking of which, I *am* making progress on cleaning out my email. I'm right on track, have worked on 9 letters of the alphabet so far, and am down to 5911 messages in my inbox (I started with 10,212). 

There were days this week when I couldn't even work on my email, but fortunately there were other days when I could, so I stayed caught up (even one letter ahead). This week I am going to work on emails from names that begin with J, K, L, M, N, and O. Maybe P if I get ambitious.

Unlikely.

Rocket Boy was more productive than I was this week. He worked (for pay), had a job interview, and got around to some of the projects on his honey-do list, such as fixing the lamp in the living room. He took the lamp all to pieces, cleaned it thoroughly, and got it working again.

And then he dropped it and the milk glass shade broke. There's still a very large intact piece, so we have that on the lamp right now (see photo). I discovered that you can buy old milk glass shades on eBay, for $45 plus $15 shipping. Or more. We're going to sit on that for now, look for a replacement around here, maybe a thrift store or an estate sale. Sigh.

I'm not even reading! That is, I'm reading a little, but very slowly, and it's a library book (the one on the top of the stack), so I'm not making any progress on the books from the pile by my bed (i.e., my New Year's resolution). The library book is somewhat interesting -- it's about the group of poets and intellectuals who met up in the small university town of Jena in Germany, in the 1790s/early 1800s. One of them is Novalis, the main character in Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower, one of my favorite novels ever. So I'm kind of enjoying the book, but it's not gripping me. I read a few pages and then I fall asleep.

I don't think I'm going to read over 100 books this year. But we'll see. January doesn't last forever.

I'm doing pretty well on saving money. That's because we haven't gone anywhere. There's still a lot of snow and ice everywhere, and I'm a total, complete, and utter wimp about ice. So I didn't go to Target, Trader Joe's, Best Buy to return the wireless keyboard that Teen A doesn't want, Costco. I did go with Rocket Boy to McGuckin's (to look for a replacement for the milk glass shade, no luck). We bought a new mop (and he used it today, as I noted above).

So here comes January, Week 2. I'm going to try to work on those letters in my emails. I'm going to try to cook dinner every night (except Saturday) (and maybe I can get Rocket Boy to cook one other night). I'm going to try to keep up with the laundry and the dishes, and maybe do a few FlyLady tasks. Maybe take the ornaments off the tree. Maybe do a little writing. Maybe get a little exercise. Maybe finish my library book.

But whatever I do or do not get done, it's OK. It's January.

Post-note: I want to add one thing, even though it doesn't quite fit here. It's something I read in the New Yorker last night. I'm behind, as always, on New Yorkers, always working my way through older ones. I have a bunch of them in the bathroom, which is where I seem to be most likely to read them. Anyway, last night just before bed I was reading the October 10th, 2022 issue and there was an article by Peter Schjeldahl, the art critic who died of lung cancer, in October actually. This must have been one of his last reviews, if not the last one (I just checked -- it was the last one). I wasn't that interested in the subject (a retrospective of a German photographer's work), but I like Peter Schjeldahl's writing, so I read it closely. The retrospective opened on September 12th and Schjeldahl died on October 21st, which means he attended it and then wrote about it just a few weeks before he died. 

In the review he didn't say anything like "I'm close to death, but I wanted to write one more review." But tucked into the end of the penultimate paragraph there was this gem (he's talking about photographs of windowsills taken in the morning):

...Think about mornings. They're when the purest sense of what we are doing, or not doing, with our temporary habitation of the Earth sinks in.

I guess you could read that in a negative light -- mornings are when we face up to our shortcomings -- but I like mornings. Mornings are when I have a little more energy, when things seem possible, when I get to work and get a few things done. In my temporary habitation of the Earth.

Peter Schjeldahl spent his "temporary habitation" writing about art. You could say that's much less valuable than making art, and maybe it is. But he introduced people like me to so many different artists and types of art. He was such a cheerleader for art. I think that was a worthwhile way to spend one's temporary habitation.

Whether or not I am spending my temporary habitation in a good way -- well, in the mornings, I almost always feel OK about it. Even in January.