Musings

I’m planning an upcoming trip and it’s maybe my favorite thing to research, plan and organize my thoughts.

I usually create a note in my phone’s Notes App and then organize those by year so I can look back on previous trips. Sometimes I’m returning to a city I’ve been to a few times before, like Tulsa, and I like to peruse old notes to see what I didn’t get to visit last time.

What goes into the notes? I might look up restaurants that look interesting, then explore their menu. If they’re open during the days/hours I’ll be visiting, I add them to the Note with hours and address included.

If I’m not pre-booking a hotel then I’ll list out a few options and why I short-listed them (pool, hot tub, gym on site, etc).

Then there’s the hobbies. When I travel I like to visit local quilt shops but they’re not easiest to find so pre-planning is important. I may also look at local bookstores, antique shops or small businesses that I want to check out. It helps to know what opening hours are so I don’t plan a whole day around visiting stores that are closed on Monday.

While I don’t need to write down driving directions, I might note distances between cities so I have an idea of how much of my day will be on the road. When I went from Kansas to Arizona a few years ago it was really helpful to see what I could fit in based on arriving at my hotel at 5pm or 10:30pm. Some days I planned to leave early so I could do some sightseeing or shopping midday to break up a long drive.

Finally, in the notes I’ll make a packing list of the things I want to bring with me or what I need to do before I leave. For example, I may want to put ice chests in my car for the drive or I may need to remember to pack a gift, a donation or a jacket for the weather. While I always charge electronics the night before, I may also need to clear files off my camera’s SD card or download a new ebook for the drive.

Planning a trip is second only to going on the trip and having a great time.

I currently live in Southeast Kanas and we received a small heaping of snow over the weekend. While some nearby cities are buried in feet of snow, we’re dealing with an inch of powder and ice that covers most everything.

It’s really beautiful, but a pain in the butt to be outside. Since my 8am meeting was cancelled, here are my favorite snow day luxuries to enjoy:

• Snuggles with the puppy, especially after he bravely goes outside to pee and has cold feet.
• A hot coffee or chocolate in front of the fire place.
• Sitting in my most comfortable chair with a few big blankets and journaling.
• Reading a book and being grateful for the heat and power.
• A long, hot bath with bubbles.
• Using the good lotion to keep skin hydrated.
• New windows which keep the drafts out and warmth in.

Now that so many people work from home, it’s easier than ever to power through and work work work, even on a snow day. Compromise by taking at least an hour to yourself to enjoy being out of the bad weather and relaxing.

Tonight when I go to bed I will layer up my quilts and cover them with a cheap throw (because puppy isn’t fully housebroken yet!) and then snuggle in to sleep filled with appreciation.

I’ve never been homeless but I have lived through rough winters with no heat, broken windows and negative temps. It has gotten so cold in my home that the Keurig stopped working and the olive oil froze solid. Now I try to remember and appreciate how far I’ve come and the warmth, always the warmth.

I think routines are the topic I’ve written about more than any over, over the course of my life as a blogger online. I am borderline obsessed with finding the best way to accomplish my goals – with balance.

For example, I am not interested in the “rise and grind” mentality unless we’re talking about coffee beans. But I do love to see how I can incorporate an afternoon swim in the stock tank pool now that the weather resembles hell’s front porch.

Here are a few new things I’ve added into my routine that I love:

Lofi & Chill

I think I stumbled across this during the 24-hour Writer’s Sprint in the Spring. Normally if I’m writing for several hours I’ll listen to video game music compilations on YouTube because they’re designed to keep you engaged for long periods of time without becoming repetitive. But now I switch that up with lofi music, think coffee house vibes on a hot summer afternoon when you just want to sink into that overstuffed chair and sip at your frappe.

The music, which I’m listening to right now, is mellow and chill and helps me get through difficult tasks or boring ones. Like updating 400+ contacts in a database and checking them off, one at a time.

Hydration Station

I drink water like it’s my job.

The problem is, my city’s water is not that great. So I’ve come up with a system to keeping good water at hand and it begins with a dozen or so plastic bottles (I’m planning to upgrade to glass some day) that get filled with filtered water from the Brita. Most of them live on the top of my fridge, within reach but out of the way, while 2-3 are always in the fridge.

I like cold water and those who try to convince me to switch to lukewarm or hot are wasting their time. Cold water + ice = perfect. Since the bottles are easily interchangeable, I can pop it back in the fridge if it gets warm and I usually end my night by refilling a couple bottles, plus my water pitcher.

In the event that we have (another) boil water advisory, I know that I have a few gallons of usable water right away. Which makes a big difference.

Fanning Out

It’s summer here and my 120 yo house does not have central heat or air conditioning. Which means it gets hot and then I get cranky. To resolve this, I have strategically placed fans all over my house and I will look for a few more when the season is over and they’re on sale.

Currently I have one in my kitchen, which gets very warm when I’m cooking, one in the bathroom, which has no other way to have moving air, there’s two in the bedroom, one for me + one for the dog, one in the office and one in the living room. I will usually also have the ceiling fans on in the office and living room.

No one wants to move that one good fan from room to room when it’s hot so fanning them out all over the house is ideal.

Weed Battle

In the Spring, I found my yard absolutely covered in weeds and I wanted to pull them out before mowing them down. So I spent hours squatting and pulling out weeds by the hundreds before I got them under control.

Now I have just a few every day to deal with and it was almost easier when I needed to pull 1,000. To keep on top of the new weeds, I place my tools right in the middle of the yard so I always know where to find them and try to get to 10 weeds a day, when I’m outside. I love this chore right after it rains and the ground is soft and more willing to give up the roots.

At first I kept a series of trash cans and buckets around the yard to contain the pulled weeds but as the storms rolled through, I couldn’t always keep up with emptying them of standing water. So now there’s a 20 gallon black trash bag that gets filled up and tossed every couple of weeks. This keeps the gross weeds out of my garden and my trash can.

Laundry Multi Sort

We all hate doing laundry, don’t lie.

For me, what makes it easier is to continually sort sort sort until the piles are small enough to deal with.

When I get the clean clothes out of the dryer everything goes into one basket and gets dumped on the bed. Then I immediately put the linens and towels back in the basket, since these are usually the most bulky items, my pile is reduced by 50% or more.

From there I sort to where the clothing goes:

• hanging clothes
• dresser drawers
• baskets in the closet

Again, these make small piles so I will lay out the shirts and dresses to hang and count them for the hangers I need. Once I know that it’s only 5 hanging items, that becomes a lot less onerous. I also have a dresser drawer for unmatched socks so if I’m feeling especially tired all the loose socks go in there to be matched later.

Clothing items like pajama pants, workout tops, swim suits and shorts all go into baskets in my closet so I don’t even really need to do anything but gather them up and stuff them in. Jeans get rolled but that’s simple to do.

Then I can turn back to the linens and pull out any sheets or duvet covers to fold, pillow cases to put away, etc. I have to look at these because they’re usually the culprit when a sock goes missing and my blankets love to get stuck together with microfiber towels.

Speaking of towels, I do another quick sort for bathroom vs kitchen towels. Some are for hand and face washing and others are for cleaning and kitchen use. Again, this is about reducing the piles into more manageable things to tackle and making it more efficient.

I can put all the kitchen towels into one basket and move that to the kitchen. Cleaning towels get thrown into a basket atop the fridge, dish towels get folded into a drawer. I can do this easily knowing that I have all the towels and won’t need to keep going back and forth as I unearth more.

These are just some simple ways that I’ve added onto my routines over time. If there’s one constant for my routines it’s that they’re always changing to shift my needs and what I want.

I get wild ideas all the time. Most of the time I’ll come to some senses and stop before I actually enroll in the course or book a flight or buy that land but sometimes I go through with the thing I never thought I’d do.

Example: One day I decided that in 2024 I should do 10,000 squats.

For a short backstory, I started in mid-October to do 10 squats per day and then added 10 more in mid-November. I needed some different movement types besides my bike and I figured that squats were free, portable and rarely lead to injury so why not?

But 20 squats per day is a very different goal than 10,000 in a year.

Or is it?

What sold me on trying this wild hair of an idea is the math. If you divide 10,000 squats by 366 (2024 is a leap year) then you will get 28 squats rounded up.

Which is… not many more than I’m doing right now. And if I keep going with 20 per day in December and then increase to 30 per day, I’ll make my goal by November. There might be a few days that I don’t get to 30, but that gives me a buffer.

What’s incredible to me is that 10,000 feels massive. 28 feels doable.

So maybe it feels out of reach to read 50 books next year, until you consider that the average book is 250 pages and that’s just 35 pages a day to get through 50 books in a year.

My cycling goal is another one that I chose randomly, to always match the year to the goal. 2,023 miles in 2023 is just 5.5 miles a day. But if you consider when I travelled (away from a bike), getting the flu, then COVID and just the days when I needed to rest, averaging 7 miles a ride is enough to get me to that goal.

Maybe you want to earn more in the next year, could you make a $27 sale every day to add $10,000 to your revenue?

Or you’d like to organize your home so you pick one room per month and try to reduce 10 items per day. There are so many way to take a big goal, one that feels impossible and break it down into possible pieces.

And, as a bonus, you’re creating the habits that enable you to continue such a practice long term. If you told me I was physically able to cycle 1,000 miles in a few days to hit my annual goal faster and check it off a list, I wouldn’t do it. Not only is that a lot of pressure but the consistency matters more to me than the end goal.

Now, if you start off January 1st with a $10,000 sale, that’s fantastic! But don’t stop the habit of seeking a sale every day. Because some days will be $0 and others will be $27 and others may be $10,000. It all adds up – the money and the habit.

(P.s. This is the kind of math and metrics I love because if you tell me, what’s the point? my product is $400 and I can’t do much then I’ll run some numbers. What if you made offers every day and over a year you made a sale, on average, every 5 days? That’s 73 sales throughout the year. If your average product is $400, that’s $29,200 in a year!)

Anyway, I look forward to looking back after completing 10,000 squats and deciding if I was fully delusional or happy that I set this goal for myself. The nearly 1,000 squats I’ve done since mid-October are just the warm up act.

I never really understood those folks who would take off the last half of December and skip out on all the amazing quiet time at work. I used to love working in my offices during this timeframe because I could get so much done.

Well, I’m joining the crew of being offline and largely unavailable until early January and I have a good list of things I want to do with my break at home.

I suppose I could just lie around in pajamas, do puzzles, watch movies and read books but that’s not really my personality. I mean, I’ll do those things anyway because I love movies and books and puzzles but I also love the practice of habits and pushing myself.

So one night when I was hosting my good friend Insomnia, I started a list. If I could do these specific things by the end of the year, I would be extremely happy. Then, like a good writer, I determined I would need to edit “sober”, aka rested, and make sure I was being realistic.

This is a necessary step because I have the tendency to start a weekend to do list with “clean the windows” and end it, 53 items later, with “re-roof the house.” My brain does not always easily comprehend what I can do in 2 days or 2 weeks.

But the best part of a list like mine is that you can probably start ticking things off right away. For me that included a few accounts I needed to cancel, some emails to send and a couple of links I just needed to save. See, I tend to email myself articles and artists, books to check out or products to look into and then they sit in my inbox. Clearing those out takes very little time and is perfect when my mind is racing at… 2am.

So what happens to all those ideas I can’t get done in my time off? Well, they go into my bullet journal for 2024 to accomplish throughout the year.

Planned Rest

Of course, I do anticipate time to rest, if my body cooperates and allows me to sleep during normal sleeping hours. But I don’t know if you ever experienced those summers as a kid when you didn’t have anything to do and after a few days you were merging into the couch as your eyes glazed over watching reruns on tv… just me?

Well, I feel we all get that way a bit now. We’ve seen the funny memes or videos on TikTok or Instagram, there’s always new rage baiting on Twitter and Facebook, news stories keep on coming, YouTube recommends the same old stuff over and over again… it can be frustrating and actually take more energy away.

I have two books I want to finish by the end of the year, and a nice stack of books to kickoff 2024.

Also on my list is finishing up some quilting projects and when I get to the last part, it’s all done by hand and a little slow. So listening to music while I attach binding to a half dozen quilt projects feels a lot like relaxing (especially compared to days full of video calls and Asana projects and emails).

While I don’t plan to spend much time out shopping, when the weather is good I’ll take a walk around town and maybe stop in the local coffee shop for a drink.

I have the time, after all I won’t have calls to rush home for or appointments until January. And I’m beginning to get very excited about that reality.