Saturday, October 21, 2017

An overdue update

The daily routine is falling into its easy autumnal groove.

Sleep has been great so far this week. I am more on track with consistent bedtime, and I think the shortening day is really helping by sending the real-life cue of darkness. Harvey gets up for work before 4 a.m., so we both are benefiting from the old bedtime routine. Just for the record, he's the one more likely to stay up than I am, though how he pulls himself out of bed a 3:45 with only five hours' sleep is beyond me. We have turned the lights out no later than 9 each night. This makes a huge difference.

Sauna on Friday and Saturday last week were amazing, and the hot bath helped on other days.

I wrote a few pages yesterday, and then another few today. I've been better at this recently as a habit, after having fallen out of good practice. I'm looking forward to re-establishing the connection with writing. The submission for November 1st is awaiting edits, and the work for December 1 is in a rough draft stage. All to the good. Also, there is a bit to do yet with the online site for the literary magazine. It's good to have creative work to do.


Speaking of creative work, knitting continues to soothe me. It's a bonus that Vivian has started knitting with me and we are enjoying planning a blanket for her bed. She's the absolute best, and I am completely blessed to have her in my life. I started a sweater for myself, and am continuing to work on the blanket for her. She picked out some amazingly bright yarn at the yarn shop when we were there; this stuff doesn't just hurt my  eyes; it made my teeth ache. Well, as anyone who has known me for more than five minutes knew, I had one thought when I finished that test square: This is going to need some black.

And sure enough, it was fantastic when the negative space let the beauty of the yarn stand out:

There were two co-mediations last week, and both went really well. One was a two hour drive away, and it wiped me out by the time I was home that evening, but I was able to do the one in town the next day. I was pretty much done out after the morning, though, and that's good to know. I'm looking forward to the train service from Roanoke at the end of this month (as if I needed another thing to love about October!), since that will make a world of difference in my energy level going forward.

I found out that the conflict resolution center in town doesn't do fee splitting with the mediators, and that really got under my skin. I will of course continue to work with the center for co-mediation, but it's not sitting well with me that the only mediation foundation we have is volunteer only. There is much to think on concerning this.

Vivian is a delight. We had a ball at the Fall Festival on Tuesday evening, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves for the Thursday visit as well. I'm looking forward to a long weekend coming up, since she doesn't have school on Friday.