Author: Christine

Christine http://www.mombie.com I'm a writer/storyteller/director/creativity & lifestory coach with a black belt in ITF Taekwon-do. I read voraciously and I write like my fingers are on fire. I'm the founder and Co-Chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl and I'm the current president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.

I’m backdating this

This evening, I ended up on a roll and I got a backlog of things done.

That felt great and I was very excited about that until I realized I had forgotten to post here before midnight.

But that highlights a fundamental disagreement I have tracking daily challenges on a device.

To me, I have done something on a given day if I do it between when I get up and when I go to bed.

Using my phone to track the fact that I did something leads to being tied to chronological time so if I do something after midnight it’s actually the next day.

Now, I get that and I understand that it is literally the next day.

However, when it comes to things I want to do daily, I am way more interested in my experience of time than in doing something on a specific date.

I haven’t gone to bed on my Friday so…

like the title says, I’m backdating this.

Writing is a challenge

So, I had planned to get some work done on my novel this week.

Spoiler: I have not.

There are very real reasons for this – it has been a jumbled week, I had a lot of other tasks on my list, I was sick…

But I did have time and energy to write.

What I didn’t do was the very thing I advise all my clients to do.

I did not get specific about my writing plans.

‘Work on my novel’ is not a specific plan, it’s a very general one. And besides, how will I know when I’m done?

‘Write an argument between Mike and Bug about the missing key chain’ – that’s specific.

I need to get that kind of specific about my next set of writing plans.

Unfortunately, that takes some forethought and planning and my brain is not cooperating on that sort of thing at the moment.

Brains can be such jerks.

A photo from a recent walk

I have always love Dogberry trees and when I found out that they are actually Rowan trees – the same Rowan trees mentioned in all kinds of magic fiction – I liked them even more.

A cluster of red berries in front of small green leaves
Image description: a close-up photo of part of a dogberry tree – a cluster of orange-red berries in front of leaves.

I keep forgetting that colds are a thing

My husband had Covid last week but none of the rest of us got it.

Meanwhile, today, I have a cold – gravelly throat, an out-of-it feeling, and chills.

He didn’t have those symptoms and I have tested 4 times in the last week (including earlier this evening) and given how his timeline worked, I would have been testing positive by now.

I was feeling a bit puzzled

“I’m sick but it’s *not* Covid?”

“And it’s not a migraine?“

“What is this?“

Oh RIGHT!

Colds are a thing.

In all these years of wearing masks, I had kind of taken colds off the list of things that happen to me.

And now I am wearing a mask around my house, something it never occurred to me to do before Covid.

Now it is so normalized and so civilized.

I guess before we just treated viruses as inevitable?

Weird, hey?

Starting off calm

I am starting this week with a feeling of calm.

I have made some lists, I have clarified my tasks, I have included rest and relaxation.

I am hoping that this conscious preparation can really help.

A photo of tiny, purple, daisy-like flowers among some grass
Image description: a photo of clusters of tiny, purple, daisy-like flowers amongst some grass. I took this photo on my walk yesterday.