Big Difference

I managed to clean up my home work space over the weekend. Not just my desk but the entire worktable behind me. I had it piled so high with papers, notes, and binders I didn't know what was which or the other way around. I took some time and organized it so I could actually put the filled binders in the bookshelf and not have them stacked high all over my tables. It made a difference. I know which is what now and I eliminated many stacks of papers that didn't have any purpose. All gone.
TT

Afternoons

Back again.

I am determined to switch my early morning runs into after work runs. I waited yesterday until almost 3:00 to go out and do my Sunday 5K. It worked out and I will be making it a point to make this change over. These early morning runs have me beat by the end of the week or maybe it was just last week that did it. I can try to figure it out but it's time for me to stop figuring again. Time to do so I've made up my mind, I will put in my plan, and start the action. I got my head start yesterday by going out at three. Now to take the next step by doing it again this afternoon.
TT

Then repeat

OMGosh!

I'm looking over my shoulder trying to figure out what happened to this past week. I had some time off, there was a holiday in there, and now it's Saturday morning and I'm not sure what happened to all that time. Am I really so busy I can't keep up with it all or is it just that I am getting so tired that one day blurs into the next. It might be a combination. Busy, rush, routine, tired, and then repeat.

The good news is I have my full weekend left! The rush of the holiday is winding down along with the leftovers. I got a couple of loads of laundry already out of the way. There isn't much cleaning up to do since it's been done. It's a good time to spend with cultivating a few words of fiction. And a run.

It hasn't all completely gotten away from me.
TT

Keep stepping

Start.

Two consecutive days with runs is a beginning. A 5K Sunday and 4 miles Monday is just the tip of what may be. It could turn either way but the only way to stop moaning about how badly it's all been is to start now, don't look back and move forward. Keep moving forward. It may be a small amount of kms, miles, time but it all counts as long as it's a forward motion and not whimpering over how it's not being done.

The smallest steps have immeasurable amounts of positive rewards hidden inside.
TT

Do it

What happened?

I've been missing many runs lately. When I say lately I mean all this month. I can't seem to get into the swing of things the way I managed the past two months. I know my self-prescribed training plan ended right after my half-marathon on October 22 but even so, I haven't been able to figure out what happened to stall and stop almost all my regular runs. I have been a total no-show, no-miles, poor attendance for the entire month of November.

I went out this morning before I could figure out a way to stop. I did a simple 3 mile run. I'm hoping the fact that it was simple, easy, and so doable I will continue and start to build up again. It won't help to spend time trying to figure out what happened when I need to just fix it from here and now and go forward. Keep moving. Keep it simple. Let's do this.
TT

Gratitude

Ahhh.

And today is Friday. The end of the work week. The beginning of the weekend. Let's all get through today and be set free for multiple hours without harness. To be able to roam and create freely without timetables. It all sounds good until I realize in the middle of the weekend I am watching the clock and fretting over not having enough time or where did the time I had go so quickly? Round and round.

I'm glad it's Friday. I'm glad to have the weekend. But without the week would I appreciate the next few days as much?
TT

So it goes

Excuses.

It's amazing the amount of motivational tricks I keep up my own sleeve. I have so many positive talks, lines and phrases, rationalizations, that I spew all over myself. It usually starts early in the morning. I will make plans on something I want to do but I need to get to work first and I can't actually start on anything until afterward. So I will plot in the morning...after work I will. I figure out all the details. I make it fairly simple. I convince myself it's easy and quick. I want to do it.

The day goes by. Work at work gets done. It seems like a lifetime I've spent in those eight hours. Time to leave. Now I can put my plan into action. I have all the easy, simple steps to follow. Then I get home.

The motivational ideas that were so perfectly planned dissipate. They vanish as mist into thin air. The time it took in the morning to configure my plan is left to wither and die in less than a third of the time. I give myself a last ditch effort to restore what was so well thought out only to succumb to another day of not getting it done. And so it goes.

The next morning another plan is set. Another day of work goes by. Another set of plans are abandoned for another time.
TT

Can't always undo

Music.

I've been playing around with appls to figure out how to make it easier to transfer music from my itunes account to my phone. I think I found one that worked. At least I invested a lot of time and tried really hard to figure out their very simple instructions to find I got a few songs moved and then since I'm not good at recognizing what exactly it has done, I delete one. I'm not one to hesitate too much when it comes to pushing this and pressing that. Most of the time there is an undo button to restore whatever mistake I just made.

Not always.
TT

Plans change

Ooops.

I took one day off from work and was totally distracted. I managed to keep myself so busy I didn't think of sitting and writing or to get out and run. Actually, those things did pass through my mind but I did other things and not those.

I have decided its times to turn my running schedule around again. Since the time change and the cooler temperatures I am thinking to get my runs done after work instead of waking before the dead and going to the gym. Since I've only gotten a few sporadic runs this entire month it's time to change things up again. I am hoping to get myself out there again and if it doesn't work I'll think up another plan that might.

Times are a changing. Again.
TT

My Day, My Way

My day.

Ahhhh. Can I say that again? So nice to have this day to myself. So nice to wake when I want, do what I do, and stop when I can. This end of the week starting with a day off is the best way to begin a weekend. It's been a rush and tumble few weeks and I am so glad this random day was selected, unknowing at the time, that I would be so ready to take it today. And it's all mine for the taking.

My way.
TT

Fake Friday

Today isn't Friday.

It's Thursday morning but it's my Friday since I had pre-planned to take a vacation day tomorrow which is the real Friday of this week. I will have a three day weekend and to say I couldn't have planned it at a better time would be an understatment. I will be lucky to get back home before 5:30 pm. That makes for a long day when you are up at 4:30 and at your desk at 6:00 am. But! It's my Friday whether or not the calendar says so. I will be able to make my own schedule after I get through my long day today. I won't have to 'punch' anyone else's clock at any time tomorrow. Today isn't really Friday.

But for me, it might as well be.
TT

Middle (finger)?

Hump Day.

It's the start of the middle day of the work-week and called hump day because, I'm assuming, it's pictured as going up an incline the first few days and then zooming down the remaining few days. That picture doesn't help me much since it means today is the toughest part of the incline. Again, I am guessing it can serve as motivation that when I get through this spot I will be at the top of that tough incline and it will be easier to glide down the remaining portion or rather, the rest of the week. I'm thinking too hard. I'm trying to distract myself from thinking about all that I might think of this morning as our country takes a turn. 

Talk about getting humped.

TT

Perfect reasons

Thunder and Lightning

The rain finally poured down. There was a lot of it. My guess it waited and waited until it was bulging and bursting at the seams. It couldn't wait another day or moment and spilled out while we slept. All of it rushing down from the sky with angry, rolling blasts of growling clouds and flashes of light. It sounded great to me as I knew I still had time before getting out of bed. Then I fell asleep for a second and there it was. The sound of some weird light-hearted, tinny melody coming from my nightstand. The alarm. I was supposed to get up and run. I had every excuse not to get up. Tired, raining, storm - perfectly good reasons.

I didn't use any of them. Got up and ran 4 miles.(gym, yeah, but ran)
TT

Procrastinated

New week.

Monday morning and I got up an finally got my first run for November. Talk about being lazy! I put off a run an entire six days and then on the seventh I managed to get my duff out of bed in time to run a short 5K before work. I have now officially started the month of November, on a Monday, on the 7th, and put myself into a good frame of mind for a new week.

Why did I put if off for this long.
TT

And then it rained

Rains came.

Finally, this morning, just before I thought I might head out for a run it started pouring down rain. It's about time! A few days ago the clouds tried to turn dark and pretend to be bad but they proved to be fluffy dark clouds and nothing more. We might have gotten a few drops of moisture but nothing until the real rain showed up this morning. I didn't go run. I listened to the rain instead. It was what I had been waiting for most of the week and it finally arrived on a day I could sit and enjoy it. It was my extra day that I so greedily wanted yesterday and I got exactly what I wanted.

Except a run, but that will happen soon enough.
TT

Too quick

I sped through my Saturday.

I got a lot of things done the first few hours of my morning. Then it settled into a not so productive day. I say that as if nothing else was finished, like the laundry, ironing that I normally do on Sunday afternoons, and cleaning kitchens and making dinner. But for the most part the day, as I sit here watching the sun disappear, it feels like the day is over and I want it back. I want another day. But I'm greedy that way at times like these when it feels that no matter how much I manage to do, I want more. To do more, to have more time, to get around to those things that float through my mind about doing when there isn't time left in the day. But I have another day that comes with an additional hour tomorrow.

But still. Today sure went fast.
TT

Back up

Pitch dark.

It's late but seems earlier this morning. I had to check the clock to see what the actual time might be since I couldn't tell. If that is happening now what will be the case when we move our clocks back that hour this weekend. Fall back...an hour. So it will be darker still. It will be earlier than now at this same time which might account for the how it's still so dark. Because it will be an hour earlier.

Why don't they leave the back and forth of these clocks alone?
TT

Got rain?

I don't know what happened to the rain.

For some reason I expected to have some showers yesterday that might cool things down a bit. I was encouraged when I walked through the courtyard at work early morning and the patio was wet and a few sprinkles settled on my shoulders. I thought there it is, the rain. It's coming now as predicted.

It cleared up fairly quickly and I sat outside during lunch with no further moisture interruptions. The skies had cleared from the gray overcast it had been to a cloudy blue. It was nice during lunch. I was able to sit the entire break and enjoy the outdoors.

I don't know about today. Maybe the rain stalled and will be coming in later than predicted. It isn't even supposed to cool down by much and why I have the cooler air attached to the incoming rain, I'm not sure. I hope it does come  through.
TT

Why the alarm?

Alarms keep going off.

I switch them off and go back to sleep. It isn't even a screeching siren sound but some kind of jaunty melody that I must have picked after listening to twelve dozen other tones. I use my phone alarm and it gives me options of various metallic, tin sounding supposed sunrises, morning birds. and ocean waves. At least I think that is what they are from the one-word titles listed. They are good enough to wake me up but then I slide my finger across the face of the phone to turn it off so my alarm hasn't been working lately.

I need to go back and reset the time, the tone, my purpose for having it ring so early. That last thing is probably what I need to reset - the purpose. Until then my alarm keeps going off for no reason.

TT

Watchout for Snowballs

Welcome to Tuesday.

Now that Halloween is past, we are delving into the time of year where the time passes far quicker than we thought it might. We say it all the time. Once you get to Halloween it's one holiday after another until the year is gone. It turns into a ever rolling snowball down a steep incline, building itself as it barrels its way down. Faster, and bigger, and with ever mounting anticipation. We are already looking to the next and the next, until we are caught up in and become part of the entire swirling mass rushing down a hill.

But today is Tuesday. I have some things to get done. I have some responsibilities to take care of and hopefully find time to do a few things I'd rather afterward. I'll work on today instead of projecting any thoughts of the months to come. I'll stay on the sidelines as I lookout for any sign of snow.
I'm not giving up my Tuesday.
TT