Bookbub and Bullet Journals

Gae - I thought it might have been you but wasn't sure! I'm forcing myself to ignore their daily emails of freebies and bargains unless they offer something I had already wanted to read, because I now have a stockpile of e-books that will last me well into next year! Thanks!! (I don't really want to strangle you.)

Caroline - I have been wrestling with the "Pinterest version" of bullet journals, and decided that the one I launched in September is my test drive model. I'm already deciding that mine will never be artsy. Oh, I fell for the Pinterest images and of course loved the idea of stencils and colors and cuteness, but all that is optional and I must accept that I have the artistic talent of a loaf of bread. Seriously, I even find stencils challenging. But I do like having an index so I can find important things again without flipping pages, and a daily to-do and notes, and every day my ideas for my test drive journal get simpler. I did create pages to track yoga (because I'm trying to get my practice back in gear), steps (because I'm doing a Couch to 5k, so Steps will morph into actually training), books to read (see, ahem, Bookbub), and realized while I was doing it I needed a Sophie page, which is a very simple "date of last nail trim/anal gland squeeze" and date of last heartworm dosage. I struggle to track those. I really don't need any flash, and I don't need to track my hydration, my moods, or much of anything else.

I think eventually, and certainly by January, this will distill itself into a few indexed pages and a lot of daily to-dos and reminders and lots of notes, and I do like the flexibility of writing a half page of notes or three pages, as the spirit moves me. I have indexed my Irma pages, for instance, and an overall index for pages covering September. I know it has already made me more focused on things that otherwise went neglected/undone. Of all the blogs, pins, You Tube videos, you name it on the topic, the book that actually gave me comfort and direction was Dot Journaling. I understand the original creator of the bullet journal's very streamlined, terse, "bullet" system, but if you're fond of using more words and not particularly interested in getting artsy with it, or even if you are, this book has some good ideas about how to combine a more traditional journal with the bullet journal concept and emphasizes doing it your way. I think eventually I'll end up with various to-do lists, trackers, and reminders, interspersed with rambling notes. The thing that ties it all together is really the index. You can use a few symbols, or make up your own. (I still find the X in front of a finished task less satisfying than crossing it off, and seriously, you can still read it when you draw a line through it, and for me that X is bullshit.) I do find the idea of "migrating" tasks both annoying to do and helpful to do, because I don't lose track of things. And I do like the flexibility vs. a pre-printed planner. Very few pre-printed planners include a page for tracking last date of the dog's anal gland cleaning. Otherwise, I'm very not fancy with mine. I did start grabbing a red pen to note things that I NEED TO DO NOW!! And so far I've used it once, when I had to get my real estate license continuing ed finished and filed in a post-hurricane rush, but that's as far as I've taken it. We'll see if I expand to other colors for other purposes. :-) Basically, you can go as crazy as you want to with this concept, but you don't HAVE to. You can keep it as basic as the original version, or go Full Pinterest and track your every passing thought with pastel butterflies and clouds, and draw water bottles to track hydration, and, no, just no. I don't think in terse bullet points OR pastel butterflies, so I'm doing a practical, messy ME version.

I stayed home sick today. Last week, on Thursday to be precise, Delaney was dropped off at o-dark-thirty as usual, and was much more tired than usual. Didn't eat, sipped some milk. We took Sophie out for a last pee, and Delaney complained she was cold. This is FLORIDA, it was 78 degrees and humid, and I was already sweating, so I assumed she was being imaginative, and the tiniest bit of cooler air was "cold". Then, as we were leaving for school, she erupted with a cough. I asked if she felt okay and she said her throat hurt. Oh, great. I did the tried-and-true hand to forehead temperature test, she felt totally normal, so I texted her mother to stand by for a call from the school if she gets worse, her mother replied with the standard working mom's combination of expletives and concern, and we carried on. She got through the day just fine, but was home sick on Friday, but still not that bad. She just needed a day.

Which leads us to today. I slept like SHIT last night, tossed and turned and couldn't get comfortable, and woke up with a headache, sore throat, and yes, a cough. And I suddenly realized what Delaney had been describing, because I was cold, then hot, then chilled again, and my head hurt and I was coughing every time I moved. So I stayed home, and tonight I feel somewhat better. I made the right choice staying home, because around 1 I felt guilty for "wasting the day" and decided to make a quick run to the credit union, and came home in dire need of the couch. I'll be going to bed early tonight, because I have too much going on to spare a second day and MUST be at work tomorrow.

And damn, I am just too exhausted to say anything about the state of our country right now. It's all so awful. I wish I could say I see hope that the Las Vegas massacre will finally make a difference and make us rethink letting civilians buy as many high-powered weapons that have no other purpose than to kill as many humans as possible very fast as their little hearts desire, because the 2nd Amendment means more than Jesus to them, but come on, we all know it won't. If the mass murder of kindergarteners at Sandy Hook didn't do it, if the slaughter of innocent young people at Pulse didn't do it, this won't do it either. I find this really hard to talk about at this point. I'm exhausted, and angry, and disgusted.