That time I realized I am… kind of boring — I mean, that I love routine

To remind myself about what I did earlier this year, so that I can blog about it, I’m going through my pictures. I use my camera a lot – for pictures of my pets, for pictures of products or works-in-progress for HaldeCraft, for pictures of whatever color I’ve recently put in my hair.

Seriously, this pandemic has been really good for me having an excuse to not go anywhere, and it means I’m getting a lot of work done. It does mean that all I ever do, pretty much, and most of the only things I think about, are my pets, my plants, my people, and my work.

Being that I post about work on social media like five times a day, six days a week… well, that means I don’t want to write too many blog posts about “hey look at all this work I did this week”… I mean, way to recap Instagram and Facebook, right?

But a few blog posts like the one I did a couple of weeks ago, sort of a “here’s five or six months of this project” might actually be kind of fun. Some days I’m so close to the work, it’s hard for me to pull back and see the larger picture. So writing a couple of recap, birth-to-launch posts about a few things, might be fun. I feel like I’m always working but never finishing anything, and a few posts like that might be good for me.

And enough people have asked me how I like the Overtone stuff, that maybe I should flat out do a blog post about it. How long I leave it in, how it smells, was I happy with that color, yadda yadda.

And everyone loves pictures of pets, but with Wilder having died a few weeks ago and me having so many pictures of him over the pandemic summer, I’m thinking I’ll bow out of doing a pet blog post any time soon.

Here’s a weird thing, though… how can I have been doing pretty much the same thing for four months (seriously, my June-September photos all look the same) and yet feel like I’ve lost my sense of scheduling and routine? Because let me tell you, I love me some routine. How was I raised by hippies, I know, right????

I love knowing what day of the week it is (I almost never do). I would love to work out at the same time every day (I fell off this wagon in around May, but lately have been getting back on the treadmill more regularly – more on that in a future blog post).

This week I got an email about the planner I’ve been using for the last year and a half… the 2021 version is available. HAHAHAHAHAHAH that’s some money I’ll save. Maybe two months ago I went back to bullet journaling, because… partly because I just wasn’t using the pre-printed planner (it was lovely but a few of the layout things bothered me, and had been bothering me long enough that I figured I wasn’t going to get over it) and partly because hahahahahaha who has been lucky enough to plan a single thing this year?!? And we think, the way things are looking, that for some reason next year might be better? Hah. Haha. Hah. Ell oh ell.

This is also about the time of year I usually start thinking about what to do with HaldeCraft next year. I usually start with a large wall calendar, draw out where I want time-sensitive projects to go, and then plan smaller things after that. Then I leave room for buffer time.

This whole year has felt like buffer time.

I went ahead and ordered a wall calendar late last week, and it was delivered today. I didn’t see it until closer to the end of my work day though, so I haven’t unpacked it yet. It’s an undated calendar this time, a wipe-off one that comes with pens and eraser/cleaner stuff. If 2021 can be planned, awesome! If not, I won’t have to spend any more money on a 2022 calendar. Sweet Zombie Jesus, can you imagine this hellscape dragging out until 2022???

So then. What did I do before all of this * waves arms around to indicate everything * ….? Sometimes I met friends for lunches and drinks. Went to see a friend in a care facility once a week or so. Then of course worked and worked and worked.

What do I do now? Work and work. Occasionally meet friends online, on Zoom or Google Hangout. And I have family, well, friends who are like family, whom I’ve been going down to Orlando every few weeks to be with. They are my QuaranTeam. The rest of the time, I isolate, so that I can go be with them, because some things are important. Like being there for the people you love.

We (Jenn and I) did just find out this week that the care center our friend Bill is in, is letting people in to visit now. Carefully, though. One of the rooms (maybe the PT room? I’ll know when I go there) has been divided in half, and there’s a six foot table in each side (plastic sheeting between the two halves of the room). There might be sheeting halfway across the table, too. You come into the care center, masked (and gloved if you want), at the time for which you’ve previously called and made an appointment. They take your temperature. If approved, you go into one of the two halves of the room, and they bring the person you came to visit, to the other end of the table. You are not allowed physical contact. You are not allowed to bring homemade food (although you can bring restaurant food, which, whatever, I’m too tired to argue). Jenn has some questions for the staff, before we make an appointment, but I’m sure I’ll need to post about the experience if we go. And if it doesn’t feel safe, we won’t go in, and will instead talk to Bill through his window. Neither of these situations is ideal, but I am thrilled for the residents because many of them are confined to beds and wheelchairs, and to be in that, in a pandemic, and nobody can come to see you….? I can’t imagine how hellish that has been. Well, no, I can, because I have a good imagination. And it makes me want to cry, thinking about it.

OK, got off on a tangent there for a second. What was I talking about? Routine. In the Keystone Cops Shitshow of 2020, routine makes me comfortable. Knowing when and where you’re supposed to be somewhere or something is due is a comfort in these crazy times. I used to think getting stuck in a routine was boring. What I wouldn’t give this year for a solid month of routine, a month without playing 2020 Apocalypse Bingo. Sigh. You too, right?

Anyway, my days are finally starting to feel routine. When I’m home, wake up, Stargate SG1 with friends online (depending on the day of the week), work on HaldeCraft, work on writing, close the studio and come back to the house and get on the treadmill for an hour, make dinner, watch TV. I used to knit while watching TV but have drifted away from it at home in favor of Best Fiends and Hay Day on my phone. At the start of the pandemic I was also scanning photos and slides, as part of a year-long project, but then there were computer issues and I never quite got back to it. I’ve finished the slides, and have started the negatives, but they get stuck in the feeder really easily and I find that I get too frustrated and set it aside for a month or three.

When I’m with family in Orlando, it’s a different routine. Sleeping in kid’s rooms (with total flashbacks of adults coming to visit as I was growing up, and having to give my room over to them), sleeping a couple hours later than I do at home, but also staying up a good three hours later than I normally do. Errands, shopping and doctor’s appointments. I can get writing done there, and planning for HaldeCraft. I still get to tell a dog that she’s the Best Dog Ever, but she’s not too sure about me, still. She’ll hear me coming downstairs in the morning and wag her tail until I come around the curve in the staircase and she can see it’s not one of her human sisters. Then she jumps up and runs to the other end of the house, haha. It’s OK. She’s still the Goodest Girl.

How is this post almost 1500 words already? I should wind this up. So tell me about you. Do you have a routine? Miss one? Have a boring one that consists of binging Netflix all day? Let’s compare notes!