It started simple and snowballed into a whole thing. It’s “birthday bonanza” time, which is the time in late August where Rick and I celebrate our birthdays. We decided to get a new loveseat as a “combined birthday gift” to replace our old, worn out recliners. Of course that required cleaning the den, which we spread throughout the rest of the house. And reorganization, since the space in the den shifted and we wanted to “spruce it up.” Then Rick realized that we’re still storing a lot of things in boxes from when we moved in the house in 2007 that are looking worse for the wear, and decided to replace them with plastic storage containers.
The result? The past couple of weeks have been a deep dive in housecleaning, organization, and purging. It’s well worth it, though. Not only is the house nice, clean and organized, but it feels good to purge all of that old stuff. I actually found the closing papers from when we sold our last house in May 2007. Talk about needing to let go! That stuff found the shredder, along with many other things that I forgot about.
It’s good mentally, too, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect with the release of Singularity on August 1. I haven’t gotten this much into a writing project since The Earthside Box Set. (Ok, I got moderately immersed in Duality. That was a fun one to write last year.) I immersed myself in that world, and it was cathartic to work through my anxiety and personal issues. No doubt that immersion is why I have a monster case of writer’s block now that it’s done. I need to let go and separate myself from it, at least to a “promotion” distance, and not have it living concurrently in my head anymore. That reality has passed on to the world, and it has a different space in my life now.
This cleaning and organization project has been great to open myself back up, reconcile past with present, and embrace future possibilities. I even find myself opening up creatively. For example, I mentioned that so many of my novels have been “life or death” stakes, and said I’d like to do something different. Weeks of reading (and cleaning) now have me pondering, what about the consequences of bad decisions? I haven’t done that kind of thing since I published The Tanger Falls Mystery ten years ago. A decade of experience should be good for bring new approaches to that. Or at least I should have found ways to make stupid more dramatically entertaining.
It is amazing how things change. It’s so easy to think you’re going through the mundane routine of day to day living, and not realize how many shifts and switches have happened along the way. Of course the past four years have been a massive upheaval for me (and a lot of us with the pandemic), but these past couple of weeks made me realize that things were moving before the world turned upside down and forced us to reconcile to a new reality. I wonder if anybody else notices. It seems that so many have forced themselves back into the same old, same old. And I say again for the millionth time, I just don’t get it. I don’t get how some have not changed at all, despite the fact that the world around us certainly has.
We each live our own reality. A year ago, I dedicated myself to embracing reality and opportunity. Now I realize that I need to let go to create more space for opportunity and growth. Here’s hoping it continues to get better in year 49.
I wish Rick a Happy Birthday tomorrow (August 21) and look forward to celebrating one more spin around the sun myself next week (August 26).
That’s all today. Take care, and have a great rest of the week.
Bye!
The result? The past couple of weeks have been a deep dive in housecleaning, organization, and purging. It’s well worth it, though. Not only is the house nice, clean and organized, but it feels good to purge all of that old stuff. I actually found the closing papers from when we sold our last house in May 2007. Talk about needing to let go! That stuff found the shredder, along with many other things that I forgot about.
It’s good mentally, too, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect with the release of Singularity on August 1. I haven’t gotten this much into a writing project since The Earthside Box Set. (Ok, I got moderately immersed in Duality. That was a fun one to write last year.) I immersed myself in that world, and it was cathartic to work through my anxiety and personal issues. No doubt that immersion is why I have a monster case of writer’s block now that it’s done. I need to let go and separate myself from it, at least to a “promotion” distance, and not have it living concurrently in my head anymore. That reality has passed on to the world, and it has a different space in my life now.
This cleaning and organization project has been great to open myself back up, reconcile past with present, and embrace future possibilities. I even find myself opening up creatively. For example, I mentioned that so many of my novels have been “life or death” stakes, and said I’d like to do something different. Weeks of reading (and cleaning) now have me pondering, what about the consequences of bad decisions? I haven’t done that kind of thing since I published The Tanger Falls Mystery ten years ago. A decade of experience should be good for bring new approaches to that. Or at least I should have found ways to make stupid more dramatically entertaining.
It is amazing how things change. It’s so easy to think you’re going through the mundane routine of day to day living, and not realize how many shifts and switches have happened along the way. Of course the past four years have been a massive upheaval for me (and a lot of us with the pandemic), but these past couple of weeks made me realize that things were moving before the world turned upside down and forced us to reconcile to a new reality. I wonder if anybody else notices. It seems that so many have forced themselves back into the same old, same old. And I say again for the millionth time, I just don’t get it. I don’t get how some have not changed at all, despite the fact that the world around us certainly has.
We each live our own reality. A year ago, I dedicated myself to embracing reality and opportunity. Now I realize that I need to let go to create more space for opportunity and growth. Here’s hoping it continues to get better in year 49.
I wish Rick a Happy Birthday tomorrow (August 21) and look forward to celebrating one more spin around the sun myself next week (August 26).
That’s all today. Take care, and have a great rest of the week.
Bye!
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