“The Dog” Journal
Welcome to the Dog Journal, a blog where I periodically share my best finds for taming those puppies that gnaw at your planner.
Could be a quick time management tip, a smell-the-flowers moment, a comment overheard on the elevator. Whatever the inspiration, I hope you’ll blog right along with me by commenting and sharing your tips and stories for taming an overbooked life.
Autumn and Grief
Edging up on the one-year anniversary of my mom’s death, I had an uneasy feeling. There’s something about autumn and grief: too closely aligned for a smooth sail through. The first turning leaves and yesterday’s rain proved me right. With every gust and falling leaf, I wanted to say, “Don’t go. Too soon.”
Leo Buscaglia makes me feel a little better about fall and grief. In his children’s book for all ages, “The Fall of Freddie the Leaf,” he sees death through the eyes of Freddie, a leaf who sees his friends fall from the tree daily, and his wise friend Daniel, who assures him that the “season of death” is just as natural as Spring and Summer.
Still, I wish my mom had chosen a different time. Spring maybe when bulbs were just popping up or a sweltering summer day when kids were whooping and running through sprinklers. Winter might have worked. “Hang in,” she would have been saying. “Spring’s just around the corner.”
Reluctantly, though, I get it. A gardener, in tune with the seasons, she probably preferred fall. “Death is a part of life,” she used to say. What better time to let go than with the leaves?
Dog Ate My Blog?
Hmmm. The dog ate my planner. Two Sundays without blog posts. I feel like the kid who said the dog ate his homework. Well, the first Sunday was the book launch party. In lieu of a post, we will go with the great pictures my friend Lynn McNish took of that event for The Dog fan page. How could I have possibly blogged on launch day?
And yesterday-Sunday? Had to walk around Antrim Lake a couple of times before the rains settled in for the week. Had to bake some cookies. Decided to visit a neighbor.
Ah-ha moment. Blogging is like exercise. Easy to put off. Enjoyable when done. See ya next week.
Life In A Pie Chart
I’ve heard of putting time in a bottle but never life in a pie chart. That’s because I hadn’t bumped into CNN’s work/life balance calculator. Until now, that is. Pretty cool way to track the 168 hours we’re each given on an equal opportunity basis each week. So I plugged in my hours.
Revelation: Working at home is a huge savings in commuter time and leads to more unplanned time. But I’m using too much of that otherwise unplanned time on chores, which I take to include errand-running. Need to stay out of that traffic! How about you? Any revelations from the pie chart?
Vacations and Life
Every once in a while, I have an Aha! Moment and get as excited as my daughter was years ago when she was little and noticed that the words “U Haul It” on the back of a truck meant –“You Haul It.”
So it is with this revelation I had the other day about vacations and life. Here goes. You arrive at your destination. Day One, you scour the local calendars for things to do, It seems as though there are a million opportunities. You veg out. After all, it is vacation, right?
In a few days you pick up the calendar. Suddenly, you notice the museum you wanted to visit is closed on Mondays and you have only Monday left. The events they’re announcing are all coming up after you’re gone. There’s a cool pioneer community to visit, but it doesn’t open till 10 and you’re supposed to allow 3-4 hours, Your flight leaves at 2 and it’s an hour away.
Life is like that sometimes. Shorter than we think. Worth frontloading the schedule with things we really want to do. Aha!
