The Ability to Multi-task ~ #MondayBlogs

Like many of us I need more hours every day… and a few more days in a week wouldn’t hurt either. Somehow I don’t think the days are going to get longer. With my luck those extra days wouldn’t be weekend days and then everyone would just be mad at me for having to work more days between breaks. I probably wouldn’t win.

The only solution left is doing more than one thing at a time, I believe that that productive and busy people call that multi-tasking; I call it a desperate act of the seriously overburdened. I type while I juggle phone calls, read while I cook, and return emails from my smart phone while I move from room to room. I don’t have time to sit in one place for very long being idle.

While I adore working from a home office and never having to deal with a messy commute, I also envy those folks who have on-site office hours away from casual phone calls, door-to-door solicitors, and home/family chores. I am fairly disciplined and manage to meet my deadlines, but sometimes it is a struggle to get the respect of others for my time. I already let MOST phone calls go to voicemail and explain to others that I am on deadline and can’t speak…

The truth is that life gets in the way of schedules. Urgent phone calls, unexpected visitors, last minute assignments and our own sometimes inability to concentrate will force us to adjust everything we had planned. There are a few proverbs and other sayings with a similar message, but my personal favorite is from Michael Chabon, “Man makes plans . . . and G-d laughs.”

Year End Back-look ~ #MondayBlogs

One of my New Year’s resolutions will be to stop procrastinating and putting things off to the last minute — I guess that’s the reason I’m not waiting to the last week of the year to write this.

I look back and wonder what I’ve accomplished this year. I haven’t written nearly as much FICTION as I wanted to, but I have increased my NON-fiction business and, almost sadly, I make more money at that so… Since it’s fiction that I want to write, am I selling myself out? Or like many others who can’t survive on their books alone, am I just working towards paying bills and just lucky that my “daytime job” is also writing. It’s a hard decision to decide priorities when one is your dream and the other is your mortgage.

Hubby and I want to get our house in order as we are nearing retirement years and want the opportunity to actually consider the proverbial downsizing. Somehow my closets seem to have some kind of fertilizer though and every time I THINK I’ve pared one down, it just seems to still overflow! And after 35-years in this house and my impossible sentimentality, it is just plain hard to go through draws and files deciding what to actually keep and toss. Besides this is a house that raised a family so the memories have a way of grasping and nearly paralyzing my physical being, …so hard to get things done.

Time! Every day seems shorter and shorter, and I am not just talking about the approach (actually today) of the winter solstice. It’s so difficult to believe that each day has the same 24-hours it always has (give or take the actual few minutes). I remember a time when I actually had time to do things like my work, my dishes, and most importantly stay in touch with people I care about. I feel as if I’m busy, busy, busy and yet a look back and it doesn’t seem that I’ve gotten much accomplished at all. Sometimes I worry that life is rushing by and I am missing out.

A couple of years ago I began an exercise program, but thanks to real health issues (yes, yes, confirm it with my doctor!) I’ve slacked off somewhat and can’t seem to literally get back on track. Mentally I feel about half my age which was a time I had ENERGY, lol. Somehow the energy has retired before I’ve reached that age myself. Our bodies change as we get older, everyone tells me that, so shouldn’t it stand to reason that it feels fresh and renewed once in a while? Instead I wake up with the same, and a few more, problems I had when I went to sleep.

I do look back at the past year and I’ve had a lot of precious moments and I am busy trying to save mementoes in the most compact manner possible in keeping with the downsizing desire. I’ve spent time with family but it’s never as much time as I want. And I have made a habit of saying nightly prayers and most importantly being thankful for my many blessings; that’s something that does make me feel good.

I think after all the looking back I tend to do at this time of year I can make a one word resolution for 2016 —

TIME

·       2016 is the year I will work on time management

·       2016 is the year I will make time for family and friends

·       2016 is the year I will remember all of the good times

·       2016 will be the year I make time to think before speaking

·       2016 will be the year I make MORE time to write my fiction

·       2016 is the year I will look forward in time and not dwell on the past

·       2016 is the year I will make time to take care of myself so that I can be here to give time to my family

·       2016 will be the year that I won’t take anything for granted and I will take the time to say Thank You to everyone in my life

Priorities ~ #MondayBlogs

One of the hardest things about being a grown-up is having to set priorities — we have to be reasonable about keeping our commitments, fulfilling our responsibilities and doing all the things we NEED to do instead of what we WANT to do.

We learn to trudge our way to work in the mornings and come home at night to make dinner, do laundry, help the kids with homework, and finally crawl into bed and wait for slumber just to do it all over again. We work, make money, pay bills, work some more… and while we are busy taking care of business, our children grow, our loved ones go about their business, and we get older and lose people from our lives. One day we look back and ask where did all the time go and wish we had spent a little more time on the things we now realize are the most important in our lives.

I understand that to a point we don’t have a choice, there are bills to pay to keep a roof over our heads, to feed our families, to pay doctors when need be. But should we lose ourselves in work to the point that instead of working to live, we live to work and forget about living.

I remember hearing a relative of mine, upon introducing his second wife to us, tell us that he was retiring because he wasn’t going to make the same mistake, this time he WAS going to take those vacations with the woman he loved, and he was going to spend time with her… and yes, he did regret that he cheated his first wife of time together because he was so absorbed in his job and making money and living up to other people’s standards. This man realized, now that he was remarried, that he had “sort of” a second chance to get it right and he wasn’t going to waste it.

Is it more important that our children look back and think how we replaced our living room furniture every few years or that they remember fun family vacations we all spent together? I believe the kids, especially when young, appreciate tearing the wrapping paper off a gift more than they worry what the price tag was. I watch parents who spend a fortune on holiday gifts, even when they know it is beyond their budget, because they don’t want their children to feel like they received anything less than their classmates. The old expression “keeping up with the Joneses” seems to be alive and well even today.

So yes we have to be responsible and there are things we are obligated to do, but don’t become so obsessed with earning money that your family value is less than your paycheck. Make sure you spend time with your loved ones while you can, take those vacations now when the children are young enough to still enjoy being with parents… even if all you do is make sure you take the time to give hugs and kisses to your children and your spouse and take the time to call your folks and see your siblings, treasure those moments. Birthday parties and phone calls are so much better as precious memories instead of regretful missed opportunities.

When I listen to my grown offspring talk about their childhoods, most of the stories are filled with family time adventures, jokes we shared, places we went together, and of course the “dumb” things Mommy and Daddy did — I honestly don’t recall hearing them talk about how much was spent on their Chanukah presents or whether we stayed in a more expensive hotel when traveling. Yes, there will always be TV advertisements for the latest and greatest and the kids hear the message loud and clear, but you know they survive without the “hottest toys of the year” even if they grumble for a while.

I’ve had a couple of decades to be a responsible and mature adult and now that I am “older” I’ve decided that I will still take SOME responsibility seriously, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have FUN as well.

Separate but equal? ~ #MondayBlogs

What about family?  Family time - family togetherness - simply FAMILY.

Cable companies hawk subscriber packages that permit you to watch different channels (or even the same) on different TVs throughout your home. One fairly recent commercial mocks peace talks and by the end of the ad shows two adolescents watching television programs in two different but neighboring rooms; mom is ecstatic that there are no more quarrels between brother and sister over which program to watch.

Come on people! If the individual TV shows are so very important, the great technology being offered by these same cable stations includes the ability to record a show and watch it later - so take turns who gets to watch now and who gets to watch later. 

By Evert F. Baumgardner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The marvel of cell phones is supposedly the ability to stay connected without having to sit by your home phone — an excellent idea! Excellent except when you can't even hold a conversation with someone in the same room because you are too busy exchanging text messages with someone you have never even met in person ?*%! Put DOWN your cell phones and stay connected in real time. I understand the reluctance to turn your phone off, I don't either, but I only answer it in an urgent situation if it means I am otherwise engaged in conversation with real LIVE people.

Finally while I am on this rant, families should be more concerned with spending FAMILY TIME with each other while the children are growing (and hopefully beyond) than keeping busy with the zillion-and-one separate activities and programs parents are so busy chauffeuring their children to. It may be wonderful for a child to play sports but if their parents don't even have the time to sit in the stands to cheer them on the emotional benefits may very well be lacking. 

Find activities you can do together (even if it just means providing a cheering section once in a while), things you can share, things you can talk during... Take walks together. Play board games together. Visit museums together. Dine together. Read to each other. Even watch TV together. There is so much you can do TOGETHER and many activities don't require depleting your wallet.

By George Burns, 1896-1996, Photographer (NARA record: 1340567)
(U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Enjoy your family; children grow up, people move away... life changes. Hold on to what you have, the memories you create will be yours for a lifetime.

#TBT for real!

Today was just such an appropriate day to unexpectedly meet up with someone I haven't seen in about 15 years — after all, it is #ThrowbackThursday, the day we all try to trigger a bit of a time tunnel trip to the past.

After picking up an item at a local store I was just beginning to back my car out of a parking space when I was flagged down by a smiling woman who had just parked her own vehicle. She looked familiar as she neared my car...

"I know you!"
"You look familiar, too."
"We were in the same Bat Mitzvah class together!"
...

(We were both Bat Mitzvah'd as adults, I was 40 and it was about a year AFTER my daughter's Bat Mitzvah at 13) 

Circumstances had changed, the shul we both went to went belly-up, and we lost touch through the years. But it was just so good to see each other again.

I re-parked my car and went back into the store with her and we just stood and chatted asking about each other's families and the latest news. 10... 15 minutes went by far too fast; maybe it was 20? We exchanged contact info and promised each other we'll keep in touch.

I hope we do.

Acckk! Check out my blog on the VHP Author’s Blog

Check out the VHP Authors’ Blog

ACCKK!! WHERE’S THAT LIST?

Organization, or rather the extreme lack of it, is the bane of my existence. As a self-employed – and too broke to hire assistants – writer, I have to keep track of my different projects, deadlines, invoices, bills and other “I gotta do it(s)”. Organization has NEVER been my forte… (Read More)