From our walk yesterday.
Thank you for all your kind comments and words. They mean more to me than you will ever know. My grandmother’s funeral is tomorrow and I am heartbroken that I can’t be there with my family. I ache to see them right now.
It’s been a mellow day here today. A small plane crashed into Palo Alto today and knocked out electricity for hours. So David went to school in the dark (with emergency lights on actually.) It was odd to drive down the street while none of the traffic lights worked.
For the rest of the day, I attempted to work a little, rest a little and play with the kids a lot. Nathaniel finally decided his walking toy is actually fun and played with it quite a bit today.
I have several things I was supposed to do last night that are looming over me so I am off to get them done.
Oh, and, I’ve been thinking of teaching a class at A Million Memories. A lot of people tell me they struggle with journaling and figuring out what to write. What if we made a book on gathering your stories? A minibook that you could have on your desk full of your story ideas so that next time you’re sitting down to make a layout, you can use your book to give you ideas on what to journal. It would include tips on what photos to match it with, how to remember older events, organized by person, time etc. Is that the kind of class you’d be interested in taking? Let me know your thoughts. And any other classes you might be interested in. (I do have a journaling+photo one I am supposed to work on for BPS but I’ve been putting it off for a while. I have to buckle down and work on it.)
Note to Self:
I’ve noticed that it’s hard for me to come down from a week of high stress and a lot of work. I’m still not very productive at work this week and the longer I go without getting through my todo list, the more items pile on and grow. It’s all sort of depressing. I need to find a system that allows me to accomplish a whole lot early in the day so I can ride the energy that provides me with and get more done. I know that getting things done always leads to getting more done so I need to find a way to leverage that more.
Three Things I’m Grateful For:
1. All your comments and kindness. Thank you. They lifted me up all day long.
2. The laughter of my kids. Today even more so. David was entertaining Nathaniel during dinner and hearing him laugh made us both so happy. And seeing them play together makes me so thankful.
3. I am grateful for distractions today. Usually I’d try to avoid them but today they came in handy as I tried to not sit and think too much.
I have just spent ages browsing your site and feel very inspired. Lovin your work! Thank you for sharing your stories, thoughts and art.
Hi Karen,
Please just cut yourself some slack for now.
Be kind to yourself.
You need and deserve to take time to process your loss.
My condolences.
As far as work productivity goes, i use the 2 minute rule – I look at my list and do something that will take 2 minutes. Then another, etc. Eventually you run out of short tasks but you are feeling so good about crossing off so many things that you keep going.
My other approach is to picksomething I hate to do or have procrastinated a long time. It usually isn’t as bad as I built it up to be so i get a rush from finishing it and move on to others.