NOW: A FLASH FROM THE PAST (WITH UPDATE AT THE END)
My Year 2019 In Review
Wow! Looking back, 2019 was a really big year for me!
- Started off pretty well with continued work at Lowe's, recovering from an on-the-job foot injury, etc.
- I kept up with my sewing seven sets of basket liners, etc. at least in the early part of the year.
- I made some more progress on my Bible Text-Coding project, though not as much as I anticipated.
- Throughout the year I put in over 250 volunteer hours as president of the Friends of Green River Lake. In support of the USACE GRL Visitor Center, I took the lead on what was ultimately a successful 50th Anniversary of Green River Lake event held on June 15th.
- During the middle of all of the above, I started applying for and ultimately was offered a position as Office Clerk for the same USACE Visitor Center. Now my commute to work is less than one mile! WooHoo!
-Between the 50th Anniversary Event and starting my new job, I traveled to my old stomping grounds of Cookeville, TN to participate in the National Speleological Society Convention. I enjoyed visiting with many of my friends there from time I spent as a student at Tennessee Tech.
-I started my new job on June 24th, working full-time, while continuing to work a day on the weekends at Lowe's until September 1st.
-In mid-September I started "moving" - i.e., repositioning most of my belongings downstairs to make room for my sister, Connie, to move in as a more full-time presence and caretaker for Dad. She joined us the first weekend of October.
I know it may seem like a small thing, but I really liked what I was able to do in re-organizing my room. In addition, I completed one personal sewing project I've had on my agenda for a long, long, time - multiple plastic bag holders to hold all different sizes of plastic bags. Now I have them, and I think they look pretty cool hanging from my craft storage rack!
-After thoroughly cleaning the side opposite the workbenches, I also re-positioned all of my boxes that have been stored in the upper level of the set-apart garage to the lower level, so we could move the older Cadillac into the set-apart garage to make room for Connie's car in the main garage. Thanks to my co-workers Kai and Cole for helping in that effort, everything went pretty smoothly. I have some big plans for this space that I will share more about in the future. For now, consider these some of the "before" pictures!
-We had a larger than usual get-together of family for Thanksgiving, and I prepared the turkey and helped clean-up afterwards.
-After Thanksgiving, I traveled back to Dalton one more time, to finish moving the rest of Mom's stuff from the apartment and to thoroughly clean everything and make repairs as necessary (mostly tracking down a replacement globe for her light fixture in the kitchen). Granted, that included "Black Friday" and it was dreary and rainy, and I didn't know my way around Dalton too well, but I managed to get everything wrapped up by Saturday evening, November 30th. (Thanks to Carolyn for helping me with a hotel room for Friday night.) I started driving home around 8:30 pm on Saturday night and drove in rain and sometimes fog that lasted the whole trip. Definitely one of the times when I came to appreciate the significance of the reflective bumps as lane markers!
-So that left me only a few non-workdays in December to finish four months' worth of basket liners and painted cord-locks (i.e., 28 liners and 91 painted mini-cord locks)! Somehow I managed to do all that before Christmas!
-And then...I was off to DC via Boone, NC to see Jocko Willink Live at the Warner Theater! I passed through Boone to visit with my friends Laurie and Don and stayed with my friend Ilona in Bethesda. I also visited with my old boss at NIH, Dr. Swaroop, and checked-in with a few of my previous co-workers who were still there.
At this point I feel a little elaboration is in order...
I have written about Jocko Willink before, especially with respect to his co-authorship of the book, Extreme Ownership. (See my post: "On Parenting and Leadership"). I give credit to that book for helping guide me in my leadership of the 50th Anniversary Event this past summer.
Every morning, Jocko takes a picture of his watch, usually a few minutes after 4:30 AM, and posts it on Twitter. In turn, followers will "Like" his post and/or post pictures of their watches and the time, etc., as a reply. It's almost like a morning "muster" or "roll call."
Now I know Jocko is a true-blue "Warrior", archetypally, and, as an archetypal "Medium," (on the opposite side of that polarity) I have had some resistance to "externalizing my locus of control," or seeking external validation or motivation from Jocko or anyone else for that matter. Besides, Jocko lives on the West Coast, so when he tweets, it is actually 7:30 AM here in the Eastern Time Zone and I'm already at work!
However, just prior to focusing on this upcoming event in DC, I had an epiphany:
- First: I really did want to be getting up early and getting through an exercise routine before going to work every day, for myself. Up to that moment, though, I had not found enough motivation on my own to do it consistently. Granted, working all kinds of crazy hours and shifts and days at Lowe's did not help, but with the new job, that was no longer an issue, so also not a reason, nor an "excuse"...!
- Second: Given I already had this intrinsic motivation, it wasn't really an "externalizing of my locus of control" issue, it was more taking advantage of a little extra (albeit, external) motivation from Jocko & Company.
- Third: Rather than "following" Jocko's lead, I realized I could become a leader myself, i.e. I could be the one to tweet first for the "#EasternTimeZoneCheckIn."
In addition, a few weeks earlier, I took the opportunity to listen to the audio version of James Clear's Atomic Habits... It really impressed upon me the power of making very small but consistent changes that could add up over time. Furthermore, I have always identified with the "slow and steady" progress of turtles, so Clear's message really rang true for me.
Consequently, with more than enough time to establish a habit (i.e., around 21 days or repetitions), on Monday, December 9th, I started getting myself out of bed every morning around 4:30 AM (or earlier, as necessary). I used a roughly drawn calendar on my whiteboard to track my progress and included the images of the calendar and my watch in each post along with the hashtags "CountDown2JockoInDC," and "EasternTimeZoneCheckIn", etc.
My workout included time on an older style stationary bike, generously given to me by my new boss (whose name also happens to be Lori). Then I used handweights for a series of upper body exercises, followed by yoga (one of the three Daily Exercise Routines from Richard Hittleman's Yoga: 28 Day Exercise Plan), followed by meditation.
This is what the board looked like after I'd completed five weeks, including the week of the Jocko Live event in Washington, DC:
Since starting that regimen, with some increases to intensity and/or time, weight and/or repetitions, along the way, I've only missed ONE DAY so far out of 45 days! And the day I missed was the day after waiting in line until 11:30 PM at the Warner Theater, to meet Jocko and get his autograph on my books! (And yes, I had TWO books for him to sign, since I ended up with an extra ticket - and, therefore, and extra book.)
I will admit, there have been some mornings since I started when I did not want to get up at 4:30 AM! Mostly because there have been some nights when I got to watching T.V. (or more recently, working on a 1000-piece puzzle "just for fun"), and I got into bed later than I should have. However, I have gained some Twitter Followers/Accountability Partners and when I have trouble getting up just for myself, I'm also getting up with and for them. We're all helping each other Stay On the Path!
Furthermore, I think it is important to understand that I am not trying to "prove" anything by this. Instead, I am letting it be a "demonstration" of what a woman, of my age, and abilities can do, when she puts her heart to it. Also, my focus has not been on an end result, i.e., losing a certain amount of weight, or whatever. Instead, the focus has been on building the habit itself. As I learned from James Clear, it doesn't matter how small the effort; as long as it is consistent, changes will happen naturally over time. And once you have established a foundation, you can start tacking on more and more desirable habits over time.
Once again, it is all about "Turtle Power" - slow and steady wins the race!
We'll see what lies ahead in 2020!
Update: June 21, 2023
Well, we all know now what was "ahead in 2020"! The COVID-19 pandemic! In addition, my dad started needing 24-hour care which, for me, became cleaning, dressing, and getting him settled in his lift chair each morning before work, and sitting with him for an additional eight hours on Saturday and Sunday. I won't go into details of how that particular arrangement came about, between me, my sister, and the overnight caretaker(s), but it was pretty much the same for the next two-and-a-half years until I got COVID myself at the end of April 2022. That laid me up for a long stretch, through which I eventually had to go back to work, and still tried to help out with dad as much as I could until he passed at the end of August that same year. We are still working to finalize the material and some financial matters of his estate. I also had to help my mother get moved again when the nursing home she was in closed, shortly after Dad died.
As for work...I am still with the Corps of Engineers, however, at the end of 2020, the Office Administrator decided she liked being home all the time and chose to retire. Another employee from the maintenance side of the project, who had lots of admin experience from his work for the National Guard, and had also worked as a ranger, was hired as the new Office Administrator. I was not interested in applying because I was still figuring out my own position, having yet to go through a "normal" fiscal year or recreation season at that point.
The transition for the new Office Admin was not an easy one though, and he was just starting to get things figure out when, lo and behold, he gets deployed to Texas with his guard unit...for a year, which is now going on more like 20 months, and will probably be getting closer to two years before he gets back! We had a couple of people fill the admin role as a 90-day temporary assignment, but that didn't work out as well as we'd hoped. I still carried the load of a significant part of both jobs even while they were with us. After the second temp left, it fell to me to continue, doing most of the work of both jobs until we were able to get another temporary employee in the clerk position, with limited responsibilities.
(With regards to that garage space that I mentioned above...I'm pretty much living down here now. But I will save the renovation story for a separate blog post.😉)
With regards to exercise, etc.: I became a new follower of Andrew Huberman's podcasts, and I learned about the health benefits of cold exposure. I started swimming in Green River Lake in June 2022 one to three times a week. It had the triple benefit of cold-water exposure, low-impact, high cardio exercise, and early morning light exposure. I continued with that into October or November? I know I posted photos of my thermometer and my watch time regularly in response to Jocko's regular Twitter posts (mentioned above). And I definitely took the plunge on New Year's Day 2023! However, I later learned I could get a good response at least with the cold exposure, just by taking a one-minute cold shower, which I generally do almost every day now. In addition, I continue to follow the practice of getting early morning and dusk sunlight to help synchronize my sleep/wake cycle (circadian rhythm).
While we were on Eastern Standard Time, I also managed to stay on a decent morning work-out routine, but once we lost that hour, with the shift to Daylight Savings time, I have not been able to make the adjustment, and because my sleep cycle is so critical to my overall mood (i.e. to avoid depression!), I've just allowed my body to stay on Standard time as much as it needs to, and I try to get some active outside work or exercise in the evenings instead.
Most importantly, though, I'm trying to get back into researching and writing more. Opening up this un-published blog from over three years ago and finishing it, is a start! Turtle Powering On!
Now we'll see what the rest of 2023 has in store!
Peace Always, my Friends, whoever, and wherever you are!
