It's a New Year (Again) and Here We Are (again)

SUMMARY: Huh. Well. Am I done with agility? And facebook? And everything?

So, I had a great time up in the mountains. In my friends' beautiful, comfortable cabin with beautiful, cold, powdery, freshly fallen snow all around. They're fun people, and gracious hosts, and the food was good the whole time (I took some and cooked some, too). And the dogs were happy, got exercise, slept in the evenings instead of pestering me. Hiked probably 13 miles total (in the snow) in two and a half days; felt good.

Then I came home.

House is a cluttered mess. Even with all the cleaning and organizing and putting away I did while cleaning up before putting out christmas decor (and parts really do look pretty nice)...

fact is, it's a cluttered, dirty, half-finished-projects galore, mess.


The last many months, I've been winnowing out and tossing stuff into boxes and piles to get rid of, and mostly doing so--freecycling and giving to friends and family (I mean, most of the stuff I have is not junk--I've just become overloaded with good stuff and I really need to be much choosier about what I keep--anyone want a Hamilton Collection numbered collectible unicorn plate?)--

But SO MUCH STUFF and it's SO hard to winnow out. I've done the easy winnowing.

And it's hard to find time to work on the projects that take longer. 15-20 minutes a day, or 7 minutes, or whatever your favorite GET ORGANiZED NOW guru suggests, is all well and good, but finishing the kitchen stripping and painting is not a 15-minute task. It would take weeks of disruption in 15-minute bits. Can't bear the thought.

So then I read this article (titled in the local paper) What Life Was Like in 1995, in which 600 high school students gave up social media for a week. No facebook, no texting, no email, like that. They had to actually (gasp) call each other on the phone if they wanted to communicate; some had never done that.

I've been saying for a long time that Facebook is a huge time sink. Didn't mean to get caught up in it. Did. I get so much interesting info, and sometimes assistance when needed (or reciprocate it), and even useful info, as well as tons of laughs. But a big time sink anyway.

So I said, no Facebook for a week! (Two days ago now.) I'm actually liking it. Even though there are some aspects I miss. (And I haven't given up Prolific, the word game available through FB.)

Harder to give up email. Work and pretty much every community I'm part of uses email to communicate: 98% of invites for parties and activities come through email, and no one's going to stop and call me alone. Plus work. Plus the online services I use, and so on.

As someone pointed out--no blogging in 1995. Yeah--but when did I first start dinking with finchester.org? August 1998, I believe. And the Bay Team site around May, 1997. And I used to spend a LOT of time in those two places. Now it's mostly blogging and photos, because it's SO much easier to update those places!

I obviously haven't given up blogging or photos.

So then. Tuesday night, first full evening home after vacation. Agility class, first time in 5 weeks! It was cold, but not nearly as cold as the snow. Dogs were, as usual, excited to be going. Only 4 of us showed up for class (others sick, spaying dogs, whatever), so I got to run both dogs all evening, which is good for them and also probably for me.

Good to see my agility friends.

But, you know what, all through class I kept thinking, "Been there, done that. So what, it's agility. It's just like every other class--Tika's a model of 2o2o contacts and consistent performance; Boost is fast and eager but knocks bars and we don't communicate well at least once per run. And its going to be like this forever and ever and, so, big whoop, why am I here instead of at home, making my house more livable? Or reading a book, like I used to do in the old days? Or doing a jigsaw puzzle, which I used to do all the time but not in 10 years? (I got one for xmas this year, even.)"

Just totally blah.

This morning I did my weekly weigh-in at Weight Watchers and I've reduced my weight 10% from where I was in October--only about 6 pounds to get back to where I was 2 years ago (and for many (although not all) of the preceding 20 years). Feels good; clothes feel good, I feel good.

I'm doing some contract work at Apple; the project is interesting and worthwhile, the team members are great; I'm feeling good about my contributions.

The days are getting noticeably longer already--I was out in the yard with the dogs all the way until 5:30, cleaning up leaves, tossing the toy for them. That feels good, too--we're on our way (eventually) into spring and then summer.

I dunno, mixed feelings about where my life is and where it's going.

Gotta go now--time for a Bay Team conference call about worker compensation (at trials).

Happy New Year again, ya'll.