It’s been a fairly good week, all told. I’ve been as productive as I could be, although I haven’t gotten everything done, and I’ve been in a fairly good mood – much less fed up than I’ve been for months, so perhaps the new approach to the New Year is working, or perhaps it’s just the unseasonably pleasant January weather. Who knows? At any rate, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
One of our plans has deviated a little since last week. Resetting our lives here on the ‘homestead’ has firmly put every option squarely on the table, and we had a meeting with our NRCS rep to establish a good course of action – we’re going to outsource almost all of the work in an effort to provide ourselves the option of continuing to raise animals and rotationally graze them, so the NRCS project is still live.
So. About those questions I asked myself from last week. Let’s quickly run through them
1.What have I done to start off the job-hunting effort?
I had a busy running around day on Thursday where I cut all sorts of checks to the local Government and kicked off the Job-Hunting effort getting registered at the local American Job Center. They hooked me up with a Jobs4TN.gov account where I found that Aerojet Rocketdyne are hiring. I didn’t even know they were here.
That’s going to be a longer project though, I want to get a feel for the employers in the area and the kinds of jobs they have that match my fields of expertise. After that, or even during, I can be getting resumes together ready to apply for any job that starts after May.
It’s worth going through a Resume class again, but I can’t do that until the wife’s schedule settles down so I can figure out which classes I can make.
2.Did I make my goal of completing four chapters?
No, but I’m in the middle – almost exactly in the middle – of Chapter 4, and I did start over again. Basically, save for the first day – last Monday – when I couldn’t give the project its full hour, I’ve stayed on track.
I plan on getting through the end of Chapter 8 by Friday.
3. Did I keep up with the Gratitude Journal on all three days?
I sure did!
The routine has been simply about making a note of thee things that happened that day, three good things that happened and three things I can be grateful for. The ‘three things’ isn’t mandatory, I’ve just been keeping to that for balance.
I’ve also kept up with five-minutes of mindfulness meditation in the mornings, except the weekend. I started Saturday morning and kept it up through the noise that everybody made, but I’m not sure I got any effect (or exactly what the effects are supposed to be) and our eldest had a friend for a sleepover last night so this (Sunday) morning was out completely.
4. Do I have the Reward Plan set up?
Nope, I’m still thinking about that.
It needs to be something with immediate effect and I need to figure out what that could be. If I get the routine/schedule sorted out, perhaps an opportunity to sit in peace and quiet rather than run around like a blue assed fly, or perhaps a permit to go have a white mocha at Starbucks. Either way, there need to be plenty of options so each one is a rewarding surprise.
The possibilities are really endless, I just need to give it more thought.
Lightening the Load.
As I think I mentioned, I’ve been gradually cutting out things to try to free up time so I won’t be busy from wake-up to securing the chickens for the night. The garden is the first thing to be abandoned. This is possibly the best it’s going to look all year.
These guys weren’t such a huge time hog. It took a few minutes in the morning to feed them and make sure they had good water. Then every couple of weeks it took about an hour to prep their new paddock and about another hour the next day to get them moved and set up with their little shelter, food and water.
Taking them to their final destination was almost as heartbreaking as processing rabbits. In any event, I found it hard not to draw certain parallels between how I was coping with this and how the members of Reserve Police Battalion 101 coped with what they ‘had’ to do – the decent men amongst them, anyway.
While I’m thinking of things that I have going on, here’s something ‘lighter’ if you’ll pardon the pun.
Anyone who knows me should know that I absolutely detest ‘American beer.’ I know, there are decent breweries on this side of the Atlantic, but the quintessential ‘American brews’ are… let’s let Monty Python explain it.
The problem is, Simon Weatherstone is a typical American guy, and typical American guys drink crap beer. Since he is going to be a primary character, I’m going to have to write him enjoying a beer and having something positive to say about it.
Think about it…
Having something positive to say about Miller Lite and writing how someone’s actually enjoying it???
That’s a tough order!
Up Next…
I’m planning on introducing a new habit once a week. Technically I started two last week – the Gratitude Journal and mindful meditation – but this week the habit is going to be much more diffuse and vague: get myself more active.
Next week is also the last full ‘normal’ week before our family vacation, so it’s the last week I can guarantee I’ll get to introduce a habit I can work to keep up.
With that in mind here are my accountability questions for next week.
- Have I kept with my goal and completed notes up to the end of Chapter 8?
- Have I kept up with the introduced habits?
Mindful meditation.
Gratitude Journal. - Have I successfully tracked the effort to be more active and what have I achieved so far?
- How about that ‘Reward Plan’? Anything yet?
With that, I’m going to sit outside and enjoy some of this unseasonably pleasant weather, but I’m going to spoil it with a glass of Miller Lite.
Have a great week and stay safe.
Categories: Accountability, Administrative, Personal, Plans & Planning, Revision
Andrew Wellington 
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