Links:

Link to Day 1, Link to Last Post, To the Explanation at the Beginning, Christian Influence Peddling.

Welcome Back/ Update

Welcome to Wednesday, Woke at 7:25 late but better rested. Got up at 7:35 AM weighed in at 296.2 lbs. Tried to go to bed early because I’ve been so physically exhausted–In bed by 8 PM. Slept horribly last night–woke up every 45 minutes until midnight. Lay in bed until 1 am and got up. Wrote a LinkedIn profile I’ve been needing to do for a client. Kristin got up and we talked until 2:30 trying to get back to sleep. Ended up getting few decent hours after that.

Also welcome to Thursday. Woke at 5:38 slept a little better, only woke up 3 times in the night. I think it’s leg pain when I roll over in my sleep that’s waking me up. Finally got up at 6 AM weighed in at 295.4 lbs.

Friday, Woke at 5:40, Rose at 6 am, Weighed 295.2 lbs. Only woke a couple times last night. Another switch place morning with Kristin, so I get Olivia ready for school and take her. I love getting to take Olivia to school but it’s hard to get her ready and fit in the other things I try to do each morning to de-frag my brain and get ready for the day.

Yesterday I hit my wall. The main reason I’m blogging this season/remodel is so that the remodel portion of it doesn’t take over my life. I have other things in life that are important to me and can’t fall off my plate. Well, last night I wanted to leave the project by 5 PM so I could build my daughter a blanket fort (something I promised her when we needed to barrow her bed for reasons I won’t get into right now). Well I stayed late to get an estimate from a sub I’d like to higher and pay another sub for work he’d done. I ended up coming home after 6 PM again and exhausted.

Kristin made a great dinner and then went to do our daughters bath, I decided to watch Jeopardy, my one guilty pleasure that I have about 150 unwatched episodes on DVR (which should tell you how often I get to watch TV by myself). It takes 18 minutes if I fast forward commercials. Well Kristin decided to make the fort during Olivia’s bath which needed my help for a few things–roughly every time I sat down to unpause Jeopardy. Then we ran into a box of cleaning supplies I’d knocked over on the garage couch. There was a small soap spot on the couch and Kristin got really upset with me about it. Then I let her barrow a box of my books to hold down a blanket on the fort and she spilled them over the banister to the bottom of the stairwell.

So I went to clean up the books, fuming because it was the 6th time I’d paused Jeopardy and gotten up to help with something I didn’t want to take on at that moment. It was not my finest hour. I had to say sorry and it was still frosty for the rest of the night.

My point in relaying that story is that I’m not holding it all together the way I wanted to. I’m fried out, and need to take some remedial actions. Tomorrow I’m taking off the project and all other work. I usually try to take Saturdays off no matter what, but I really need it tomorrow. I get to eat brunch with family and dinner with friends. I look forward to recharging.

Step 2 will be that this phase is winding down today. More on that below, but essentially for the next two weeks I anticipate a slower pace.

Step 3 is that I don’t think I can hold myself accountable for blogging everyday. I think I will try to shift to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday AM blog with Tuesday’s and Thursdays doing something else. That’s a better pace for me and it shouldn’t impact the blog much.

Reno project Update is …

Phase 1 is complete. Walls upstairs are moved, furnace moved to new mechanical room and tankless H2O heater is replaced. Door to garage is moved plumbing is installed for ADU prep. So much drywall and dust…insanity.

Our helper is flying back south and Kristin and I are left to clean up, dump runs, more painting, hang doors, and get the texture and flooring into the upstairs. That’s phase 2. Phase 3 finishing the ADU begins April 1st. Sometime around the 2nd week of April we hope to begin moving into the main space. Then we’ll finish Phase 3 in week 3 and move mom into the ADU by end of April.

Quick Recap of this Blog Series

I’m a writer (fiction/non-fiction/copy) who’s turning 50 in June. When I have a season of big changes to adapt to and big projects to take on, I like to combine it all into a plan I call a journey. I’m calling this journey Spring 2021: Cleric Journey – (It includes such things as turning 50, remodeling a house, expanding my writing business to include entrepreneur & life purpose coaching). I typically journal me progress, big wins/big flops, but this time I’m blogging it so I can…

• Inspire or help some folks facing similar life situations.
• Share tips I’ve learned or that people suggest to me that I decided to try out.
• Stay committed to progress by stating to all my readers what I’m doing and if it’s working or not.
• Eventually turn it into a written resource for the Creative Christian Entrepreneurs I coach.

Note: The thinking behind journeys is this. When facing busy seasons in life, we need to impose some routine on life, and be flexible other places. We need to decide what our life is about, that authentic to us, and not lose site of that while taking on those big projects of crazy seasons that happen to all of us in life.

Goal Recap

My goals/priorities this season–addressed in one project (One Big Thing), include
– Losing weight & getting younger, (soon auditioning new diet/exercise plans).
– Bed by 9:30 PM & getting up at 5 AM every weekday and spending time with God (which includes writing this blog).
– Launching the coaching arm of my writing/coaching business, and faithfully stewarding opportunities with my church.
– Remodeling a new home so that we can start living multi-generational with my mom.