A look at the past week: experiences and feelings
I forget where I found this format. It seems like something from Mel Robbins.
I forget where I found this format. It seems like something from Mel Robbins.
- This week of: 6-23-2019 to 6-30-2019
- Day by day happiness or gratitude:
- Sunday: I enjoyed my goodbye time with Caitlin, Dean, Connor, and Cassidy and felt grateful for their hospitality and friendliness during my 7 days, 6 nights, visit while I was attending the 2019 Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly in Spokane. I was grateful for the Greyhound service and comfort and for the magnificent Cascade Mountains scenery on my trip home.
- Monday: I was glad and felt grateful when I was finally able, late in the afternoon and into the evening, to get my laundry washed and dried. Marcus and Dusty were preparing for a trip and used the washer and dryer ahead of me. In the morning, I enjoyed participating in the group viewing of the "What Is This Thing Called Race" episode of the documentary public television limited series RACE: THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION at the Bainbridge Island Senior Center. I was grateful for that opportunity to advance my intention to fairly frequently participate in Senior Center activities, events, and classes and to perhaps on occasion volunteer there. That is one of my opportunities to socialize and, I hope and expect, to begin and grow friendships here on Bainbridge Island.
- Tuesday: I've forgotten Tuesday. I had something noted in my Google Calendar that reminded me of Sunday and Monday. I imagine that Tuesday was another mellow day in which I was mostly writing, editing, and doing routine tasks in my outbuilding guestroom, in between making my meals in Lura's house and having naps. I am happy with such days and grateful for the experience of frequently looking out the window behind my computer monitor screen at Bainbridge Island woods. I think maybe—but don't remember for sure—that this was the week that I worked on drafting an email to close family about what my recent dental exam found. I hope and expect to send that email today, if I have not sent it already. I'm grateful these days that I still have enough memory that I can more or less function without being institutionalized yet.
- Wednesday: Ditto. I see by my Google Gmail drafts folder that during the week I worked on an email to Caitlin recommending short story authors and collections. She is into reading short stories this summer. I both enjoyed doing that online research and felt dismayed in the back of my mind that my putting so much time into it was sidetracking me from my main writing projects and from getting bills paid and emails answered. (I feel the same about doing this journaling today.)
- It just popped into my mind that Wednesday—or maybe Tuesday—was when I took local buses and the ferry to the Seattle Greyhound station to pick up the extra wallet, full of store cards, that I absentmindedly left there on my trip to General Assembly and that the supervisor has in her safe. My going to the bus station was a wild goose chase. The supervisor was not there. The clerk behind the counter explained that she owns the place and comes and goes as she likes. I felt grateful that the clerk gave me the phone number specifically for that particular bus station. (The supervisor had given it to me in a voicemail while I was at General Assembly, but I had absentmindedly deleted that voicemail.) I felt grateful for the opportunity to learn by experience how to get myself via public transportation to the Greyhound station and to the nearby Salvation Army store, which I visited briefly before taking a city bus back to the ferry terminal.
- Thursday: Ditto re blank memory.
- Friday: In the morning, I bought the Amazon Kindle e-book edition of THERE THERE by Tommy Orange and was pleased to get 17% of it read by the start of the 1 PM bimonthly meeting of the Cross-Cultural Book Group at Cedars Unitarian Universalist Church's Cedars Center in Winslow. Lura had been off the island since Sunday morning, and I was glad and grateful that she got back Friday morning and I could borrow her car to go to the meeting. Since I hadn't gotten much of the book read, I didn't say much during the meeting. I look forward to finishing the book. The August CCBG meeting will complete our discussion of it. The novel is about urban Indians in Oakland, California.
- Saturday: My big excitement yesterday was going in the morning to Bainbridge Island Farmers' Market in Winslow and then grocery shopping at Safeway with Lura. I enjoyed and was grateful for her company. With the thought in mind of advancing my self-reliance in feeding myself a leaning towards keto diet by buying and learning to cook relatively healthy yet relatively inexpensive meats, I found a good deal on and bought a beef tongue and a picnic pork shoulder roast. I felt grateful for the opportunity to enjoy strolling past the booths of produce and crafts while the live singing and music of a local band played in the background.
- Earlier Saturday morning, I felt pleased with myself and grateful that I got up the nerve to call the Seattle Greyhound station. (I have phone phobia, a variation, according to Wikipedia, of stage fright and fear of public speaking.) The person who answered said that the supervisor would not be in that day. I hope and expect to try again Monday (tomorrow).
- Sunday: I enjoyed my goodbye time with Caitlin, Dean, Connor, and Cassidy and felt grateful for their hospitality and friendliness during my 7 days, 6 nights, visit while I was attending the 2019 Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly in Spokane. I was grateful for the Greyhound service and comfort and for the magnificent Cascade Mountains scenery on my trip home.
- The weather was: Beautiful and wonderful, as usual in June. Of late it has been unseasonably warm, but this past week it was closer to normal—a sweater needed outside early in the morning and in the evening but not during most of the daylight hours.
- Over the last week I enjoyed most: Going to the farmers market was Lura.
- My best creative moment was: When at the farmers market I chose to buy the beef tongue. That created a new to me future potential cooking experience.
- My best moment for others was: When I accepted some dollars less than the change due to me when in Seattle I bought the current issue of "Real Change" from a street vendor. He expressed his appreciation by also giving me a back issue.
- Over the past week I learned to: Find my way via public transportation (with the assistance of Google Maps on my smart phone) to the Seattle Greyhound station and the Seattle Salvation Army store.
- Next week I want to: Get back to and make significant progress on one or more of my main writing projects. And also to get my extra wallet from the Greyhound station.
- Over the last week I did well in: Finally making a phone call to the Greyhound bus station in spite of my nervousness and in spite of an experience earlier in the week of trying to call the bus station using a number I found online and getting a typically nightmarish experience of a corporation phone system runaround, with a woman somewhere (not Seattle) with a thick accent and, it seemed, her whole lunch in her mouth trying to help me by telling me to call the number I had just called and via which I had reached her. I ended both phone calls by thanking the person at the other end of the phone connection doing his or her best to help me.
- When did I feel most alive? All of the time except when getting sleepy just before having a nap or going to bed for the night—but, as usual, most of all during the early morning hours after waking and getting up.
- Other thoughts? No. That is enough thinking about and writing about the past week. I need to rush to get dressed and have breakfast and get to church.
- Day by day happiness or gratitude: