It’s been over a week since I’ve posted anything on this blog, but that lack of posting doesn’t mean that I haven’t been thinking and pondering about various food fads floating around in our modern society. As I said in my previous short post about the blood-type diet, I had thought that I’d pretty well covered at least the most egregious fads out there, but there’s always something more to be explored in this area.
Somehow, we have to manage to do two contradictory things at once: Passionately enjoy and pursue the present, with whatever challenges and pleasures it holds, and at the same time keep at least a corner of our minds focused on what comes next.
I’ve been pondering this lately because, and I’m sure you couldn’t possibly have guessed this, I’ve been listening to Liz Craft, a TV writer and producer and the sister of Gretchen Rubin. I reference her podcasts all the time,
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I decided to re-post the following here at the Intentional Living blog from my Behind the Music blog. This is my last post for the season. Next fall I’ll do something to amalgamate the two blogs for my subscribers. In the meantime, here’s what I wrote about the lovely piece that we’ll be performing to end our concert. Be sure to come if you’re in the area! It’s going to be great. (And if you come on Friday night you’ll get to attend the reception afterwards, which will include my version of Sally’s Baking Addiction Guinness brownies. If that’s not enough of a reason for you to come, I don’t know what is!) So here’s the post, in its entirety:
I don’t post many of my own photographs on this blog as I’m just not that good at it and not at all interested in getting better, but the whole point of today’s post is the fact that yesterday was the deadline I had set for getting our patio cleared off. So did I fail? It sure looks like it! But there’s a plan for everything that needs to go, and those plans were made by EOB yesterday, so I’m counting it as a win. Everything should be gone by the end of the week. A mason is coming this morning to give us an estimate for repairing the area where the patio had to be excavated to repair the sewer pipe. I plan to post photos throughout the summer to document how this cluttered space gets turned into an oasis of order and beauty.
Well, folks, it’s all over. My tiny part in this fairly big production is now a thing of the past. It was so much fun! We didn’t have a huge crowd for either performance, but the people who did come were quite enthusiastic. And our small chorus added to the overall effect. Everyone was pretty pleased, I hope. We added to our stock of good will with the Arapahoe Philharmonic. We bonded. We invested time. And we got to hear Mozart’s glorious, glorious music performed by some very talented singers. I’m so glad I stepped up and volunteered to do this. (Be sure to read Laura Vanderkam’s post about her own singing experiences. So fitting that she wrote about that today!)
And now it’s Monday morning, and life has moved on. I came home yesterday at about 6:00 and just vegged out in front of the TV, but that was perfectly okay. This morning I’m up and at ‘em. There’s so much stuff to do! Writing projects. Gardening projects. Getting ready for the big trip to France in three and a half weeks. Getting ready for the final concert of the year for the Chorale. (Do come! It’s going to be such a nice evening!) And just the ongoing business of life. The lovely performance is receding into the past even as these words go onto the page. I reminded myself several times yesterday afternoon to be present, to pay attention, to be in the moment, and I succeeded in doing that at least some of the time. It’s very hard to keep your mind from racing ahead.
I wrote last week that I had signed up for the Laura Vanderkam Time-Tracking Challenge for 2018, in which participants were asked to log their activities for one full week, 168 hours. I’m happy to say that I stuck to it for the full week this year (having almost immediately dropped out last January) and also thoroughly enjoyed reading Laura’s daily updates (link is to the first day’s post; you can then read the rest if you’re interested) on how she spent her own time. I used my fun app, toggl, which I’ve written about several times, most recently last week, and this morning I had a neatly categorized weekly report, all ready for me to look at and then send on to Laura. I managed to record a total of 167 hours and 22 minutes, so only a little bit of time fell through the cracks. How did I do? Here are some highlights:
Stop me if you’ve heard this before:
My psychology is very weird.
Or maybe not. Maybe you’ve had this experience too: You’re chugging along, making real progress on a project, and then you think, ‘But what will I do with myself when this is finished?’ I used to say this about our various landscaping endeavors at our house in Virginia. What would we do on Saturdays when we got all of that stuff done?
. . . borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
This closing line from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald came into my head Saturday night as I walked out of the building after the final performance of the Cherry Creek Chorale’s wonderful fall concert. Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I very much dislike the novel itself. I can’t stand Daisy and don’t have the slightest idea why Jay Gatsby would carry a torch for her and even take the fall for her.
My current Big Writing Project (BWP) is the finishing up of my commentaries on Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana for publication. I’ve been using the writing software Scrivener, as everybody who’s anybody says it’s magnificent. Well, I’d been finding it magnificently hard to use, to be honest. The final step in my project was the addition of images, and Scrivener just wasn’t cooperating. Until, suddenly, it was. I’m not sure what I did, but I think I had somehow created a table where I didn’t want one, and Scrivener was stubbornly following the
I don’t know if the muse is going to show up on any given day, but by golly, I’m going to be at my desk every day from 8 to 12 every morning in case she does.
Flannery O’Conner
Yep. Hard as it is to swallow, the only way I’m going to get any writing done is to sit in my chair and do it.