My elderly mother is moving in with us next week. We’re having to rearrange the entire house to accommodate her. Our home is fifty years old and needs lots of work. I’ve spent the last week rewiring our bedroom after the old aluminum wiring melted, causing a short that killed the entire bedroom circuit. Not that that is finished, my wife and I have decided that instead of giving mom one of the spare bedrooms that we use as an office, we’ll give her the master bedroom.
The Master has a bathroom of its own along with a dressing area and a door that opens into the kitchen that I added for us years ago. The room we were going to give her is at the other end of the house bookended by another bedroom with a bathroom sandwiched between. That old bathroom needs a lot of work. I removed the tub several years ago because tree roots had entered from under the foundation, most likely due to the leak in the drain, and they had traveled up into the wall causing wood rot in the studs. Now that space is empty and there is no bath or shower.
The next week entails me moving everything out of our front office and into my studio that will become my studio and our office. I will follow that up with moving our bedroom furniture into what is now the office. Then I will start on the bathroom renovation, building a new wall with an access panel and installing a new shower and plumbing.
My diet is coming along slowly, but it’s progress.
(Stream of consciousness..) Writing is not happening as it should be. All of this, mom moving in, is impeding my already challenged focal abilities. Every day I think of writing and every time I do think of it, something jumps up and says no, you have to do this thing to get ready for mom to move in. Or, something else that is critical to someone else will come up. Sometimes, I’m my own worst interference. While I’ve heard people say if you are a writer you write. If it’s what you truly want, you write. I do write. I just can’t get focused and left alone and away from distractions long enough in a stretch to build momentum. When I do get close to that momentum, when I feel it start rolling out of my mind onto the screen, something inevitably interrupts me. The people in my life don’t believe I can do it. When I’ve laid out rules to leave me alone so I can write, they don’t honor them. I think I don’t honor them either because I don’t think I can do it, even when I know I can. (…end of the stream.)
I’ve decided to run two marathons next year. I’ve never run more than a 100-yard dash when I was a kid playing football. It’s a goal. The two marathons are a week apart February 18th, the Austin Marathon and then on February 25th in Fort Worth, in the Cowtown Marathon. It’s a hardy goal and maybe too big, but if I’m at 180 pounds or less by January 3rd, I’ll have six weeks to train hard. Until then I’m going to build a stepper to climb and descend for limited exercise and to limit the impact on my joints. I’m 266 pounds on a 5’10’ frame and I can tell you my knees aren’t in the best shape. I’m hoping that within a few weeks I can use the stepper to start building some endurance in my muscles. In the past, walking around the block would lead to severe cramping and tightness even if I stretched before and after. At that time, I was insured, and my doctor prescribes 4, 250-milligram tablets of Ibuprofen 10 minutes before I started my walks.
This week has been devoted to preparing for my mother’s move into our home. This next week will be more of the same, but I’m taking today off. I’m going to find the time today, to write more than a blog entry or tweets. I’m outlining a new story now that I’m very enthused about. A story in which I’ve created my first truly rich character. I’ll blog about that later.
In the mean time, have a great day and go out there and create something you love!
TommyB
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