Tag: plans

Busy

Bit of a mentally challenging day today. Nothing major, just lots of administrative stuff at work. Meetings and meetings and meetings. There is hardly anyone here in the office today but weirdly all of the conference rooms are booked. What’s going on with that?

I have a doctors appointment tomorrow morning so I am only working a half day. Next week I have another half day on Friday. That one is so Jen and I can jump in the car and get an early start on our drive to Florida. Yeah, we’re driving again. Road trip, babie! Seven business days left before vacation, and two of those are half days. It’s too far away to start suffering from vacation-itis, but we’re getting there.

I tried to take a photo a day picture this morning while I was jogging (pronounced yogging, with a soft j) in place and they came out blurry. Duh. Of course they did, you putz. I took another one after I finished. It’s meant to guilt me into playing the damn guitar this weekend. Come on, Robert. You’re about to go on a trip. You need to play the guitar a ton before you go. Get on with it, Red Head!

258/365
258/365

Cheer Me Up, Cat

I’m in the office today and I am struggling a little. It’s my stomach again, but this time I don’t think it has anything to do with gastric bypass. Not directly. When things went bad last week I changed my diet out of fear of a relapse. That has lead to a lingering issue that I would explain further, but we’re already deep, deep into TMI territory so I will shut up.

Suffice to say, am I feeling things because of these lingering issues, or because I need to eat something soon, or is there some other reason I haven’t considered yet? The analysis nerd that lives in my head is fascinated by all of this. The rest of me just feels uncomfortable. I really am weird, aren’t I?

Anyhoo, as is usually the case when I work from the office I managed to snag a quick photo for today’s photo a day challenge entry before I left the house. This one is a classic. Robin was on the living room bay window. The curtains were closed, but I saw her jump up there and I pulled the curtain open just enough to slip my iPhone inside and snap one.

250/365
250/365

Look at that mug, would ya? Just look at it! Think she noticed me? Good kitty was totally busted. HA!

Changing the subject, tomorrow is my birthday and I took a vacation day because hells yes I did. I need to go back to Lens Crafters to see if they can adjust my new glasses. They are really tight along the side of my head and they hurt. I like them tight, just not that tight. I also plan to play my guitar at an absurd volume. It’s a celebration day after all, or something like that. I’m going to turn 53. That’s too old to still be celebrating birthdays, but I need an excuse to crank my amp and this is as good as any. I’m hoping the questions my non-human digestive system are asking will be answered by then. If they are… then I could be visiting that sugar free bakery again.

Those are questions for tomorrow though. For today we just need to decide if we want to do a normal lunch or a meal replacement/protein bar work around. I’m leaning toward a real lunch, but that back fired on me four days ago. I’m sure I’ll let you know, what with me being the King of TMI Posts and all.

Plans for Tomorrow

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday. We have one plan for the day but I have a few additional things I want to get to.

  1. Wake up and do my daily exercise
  2. Eat breakfast
  3. Grab my laptop, a microphone, a USB audio interface, and a pair of headphones and jump into the car, drive someplace quiet, and record vocals for my two songs for this month’s Record Every Month Challenge
  4. Come home and take a shower and shave
  5. Put lead guitars onto the same two songs
  6. Make lunch for me and my beloved wife
  7. Mix one of those two songs
  8. Go to my father’s for Easter Dinner. Maybe watch a couple of innings of the Red Sox game
  9. Go home, spend some quality time hanging out with my beloved wife
  10. Mix the other song
  11. Sleep

I think I can manage that.

Until then, I am worried about one of the cats. Lilly. About half an hour ago she made a ton of noise. She was running around like crazy, crashing into things and skidding all over the tiled floor. She somehow got wrapped up in a plastic bag and was absolutely freaking out trying to get untangled. She ran into the bed room where I was sitting up in bed and watching something on my laptop. She then dashed out again and went into hiding. I can’t find her anywhere. I’m worried that she might have hurt herself in her struggles. I’m worried that she might have wrapped the plastic bag around her neck. She hid herself so well though that I can’t seem to find her anywhere. I’m sure she’s okay, but I would like to find her to know for sure.

Poor kitty.

We Need a Plan

I need to fix what’s left of my band. I don’t know how. I think we need to come up with a plan. Something we can work through that will result in getting everything moving again.

We need a singer. I tried craigslist and got a surprising number of responses, but we weren’t organized enough to act on any of it. Here’s what I am going to suggest to the other two guys…

  • The three of us pick a handful of songs. Maybe 5-10. They will be our singer-audition songs.
  • The three of us start practicing again. Once a week. We rehearse the holy hell out of those 5-10 songs for a month or so, maybe a little longer. We get them to where we can play them in our sleep.
  • We put up another craigslist add. This one will have the responses forwarded to all three of us. If anyone answers the add we immediately schedule an audition. We give them the list of songs and give them a week, two weeks tops, to work on them and then we all get together.
  • Eventually we offer the job to one of two people and then we’re off and running.

I am going to send this list to Mike the Bass Player and Kevin the Drummer, probably tomorrow at some point. Hopefully they’ll be up for it and we can get things moving in the right direction again.

Schedule Shuffle

I woke up this morning with every intention of working in the office. Now it’s 9:07am though and I am sitting at my desk at home.

I woke up a touch later than I wanted to, and that was the first issue. By the time I finished my morning exercise (jogging [pronounced yogging] in place for 45 minutes) I just couldn’t bring myself to drive into the office. Instead of packing up my stuff I just ate breakfast and finished the episode of The X-Files that I was watching (the one where the baseball player in the ’40’s is an alien in disguise… not the best episode).

I am still planning on making tomorrow (Saturday) a major musical day. Jen is going to be at a conference all day so I am on my own. The to-do list includes getting a haircut (which I desperately need) and an oil change for one of the cars. Other than that, it’s music. The Record Every Month Challenge and Quarantine Tunes Volume Seven… and maybe a start on Volume Eight too.

I promise you, owe internets, that there will be guitar playing, song writing, and recording done on Saturday. Unless I change my mind and just sleep and watch TV all day, of course.

Anyway, here’s today’s photo a day challenge masterpiece.

204/365
204/365

What a Day

This morning has been the toughest month in years.

Tomorrow is going to be worse. A lot worse. Wednesday will be tough, though mostly after work. Same with Thursday. Friday and Saturday? Nuckin’ Futs!

I need a nap. I need to go to bed early tonight but we all know that won’t happen. I will get up ridiculously early tomorrow too. Same with the next day and the next day and the next day.

As crazy as it has been, and as crazy as it will continue to be in the near future, I am good with it. I am ready for all of it. It’s going to be rough, but it’s also going to be worth it.

Bring it on, babie! Bring it on!

Okay, Robert. Back to work with your bad self. You have stuff to do before the day ends!

To Do List

It’s Saturday. Jen is going to be working today so I will be fending for myself. I’m going to Vermont tomorrow to take my step son to a UMass Lowell vs Vermont NCAA Hockey game so I have to get all of the stuff I need to do this weekend done today.

It’s time for a to do list, babie! Yes!

  • Do my 40 minutes of exercise and eat breakfast. Gotta start the day off on the right foot.
  • Our bathroom tub is a disaster of mildew and soap scum and a partially clogged drain. Clean it!
  • Put together a desk for the new home office work space.
  • Go to BestBuy and curbside pickup two orders of stuff for the new home office work space.
  • Go grocery shopping.
  • Clean the cats’ litter boxes.
  • PLAY YOUR FRIGGIN’ GUITAR!
  • CALL YOUR FATHER!

There. That’s a good list of things that need to be accomplished today. Let’s see how many we can get to before bed time tonight.

How Are We Doing?

Hey folks. How is it going? Are we all doing all right tonight? It’s Friday the 13th, has the universe thrown you any curve balls?

Today has gone okay for me. I found out my nephew has Covid. Sigh in frustration. I hope he’s okay, and I hope he kicks it way faster than I did. I don’t want him to be sick for three weeks the way I was. I have a whole new perspective on this particular plague and somehow it makes everything worse.

I had another one of those empty stomach things that I wrote about last night. Usually it hits about three hours after eating. Today it hit two hours after I finished lunch. I had a snack and thought I would be okay until dinner, but an hour later it came back. Weird. That’s the first time this issue was not predictable. I didn’t eat dinner until 7:00, which was about an hour after the stomach ache came back. We’re going to have to keep an eye on this tonight. I don’t want any weirdness. Unpredictable weirdness is not as fun as you’d think.

Jen and I just watched this week’s episode of Loki. Season two episode two. At lunch today I was poking around news.google.com and I was almost spoiled about seven times. I am going to have to be more careful on Fridays for the next four weeks.

I just checked the weather for the weekend. It is going to be clear at sunrise tomorrow and clear just after sunrise on Sunday. There must be photos this weekend. It’s a necessity. I have a lot of stuff on my agenda and I’m booked pretty solid. Still, from a mental health standpoint a photowalk somewhere must happen. The mornings are getting cold and there are only so many more opportunities left before the winter ruins everything. I have to take advantage of this. Ocean sunrise and maybe some Merrimack River stuff tomorrow and then either around town on Sunday or maybe finally spend an hour or two walking around the city? Boston at sunrise on a Sunday should be easy to social distance, shouldn’t it?

Like I said, there is a lot on my plate this weekend. I need to make time for some creative stuff. I’m still feeling a little shell shocked from the covid journey so my brain needs to stretch its figurative legs a little.

Here’s hoping we can make something happen this weekend. Assuming Friday the 13th lets us through the day, right?

What Comes Next

I was really hoping that Covid would be behind me by today. Nope. I’m still dealing with it. I do feel a lot better though. I feel well enough that I can start thinking of what comes next.

I haven’t exercised in over a week. I haven’t closed my calorie ring on the activity app once in over a week. Do I start tomorrow? I am planning to work a full day so maybe I should skip the exercising in the morning for a few more days. I don’t want to wear myself out before the work day even starts. That’s not ideal, but it is safe.

What about music? There are six days left in the 50 songs in 90 days challenge. There is no way I will finish 50 songs, but I could get myself a whole lot closer than I am. I was looking at my Trello board and I think I could get into the low 40s without killing myself. Do I want to record some guitar parts in the morning? I could probably manage that. I don’t want to do a car vocals until I test negative. I know I wouldn’t run into any human creatures, but why risk it? I will stay home until I test negative and then after that I will mask up if I do anything out of the house. That also means no photography fun outside of the house for at least a few more days.

As for tonight, my water goal is done, my vitamins are done, my protein goal is… almost done. Five grams or so still to go. I can get that easily. I am a bit full now but in 30 minutes or so I’ll be ready to finish that off. I am hoping I will catch the new episode of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon tonight before I go to sleep. If I can sneak in a little more Doctor Who before I sleep that would be nice too. I think I’ve blown through more than three seasons (or was it four?) during my quarantine. So very much Who.

Next weekend the plan is to clean the house from top to bottom. I want the house to be covid-residue free before we invite anyone over. Safety first, right? After that I want to push to travel again. Maybe just a road trip, or possibly an overnight somewhere. I don’t want us to lose our covid nerve. We’ve fallen off the horse and I want to make sure we get back on as soon as possible. Does that make sense? We locked down so hard that feeling up to leaving the house took a lot of effort. Then to have us catch the plague for the first time during a vacation? I don’t want us to be afraid to travel again. I want us to go somewhere as soon as possible. It’s Fall now, so maybe in a few weeks it will be time for leaf peeping. Maybe an overnight to Manhattan would be a good destination too. I also want us to rebook our long weekend in Disney World. The trip that went bust on us was an experiment to see if it was worth it to fly all the way there for a 3-4 day visit. The answer to that question is still up in the air and we definitely have to do the research. The question is, when? Maybe around Christmas? We’ll have to look into the options.

So there are a few things I am thinking about for the near future. The real question is, do I set my alarm clock for 5:00am tomorrow, or 6:00am. I won’t have an answer until I actually lay down to sleep. Until then…

36 Minutes Left

It is 4:54pm. I get off work at 5:30. 36 minutes to go until the long weekend.

Do I have any plans yet? I want to do some cleaning. Jen and I might take a lunch time drive tomorrow. I want to go grocery shopping in the morning.

Anything else?

The weather is supposed to be clear all three days. There has to be some photography fun. I might get up for some ocean sunrise tomorrow. The sunrise is after 6:00am now. I can handle that. I might shoot some film at the ocean, including some black and white film. How would a sunrise look on black and white? Dreamy and cool or blah? We might find out.

I need to book a Genius Bar appointment. My iPhone’s lightning connection is failing. I need to get that fixed. They probably just need to clean it, but we’ll see. I might wait until next week for that one though.

As previously stated, there is a Disney World trip this month. It’s a short one, but it’s coming up quickly. Is it too early to write up a packing list and start planning that? Do I need to buy a bathing suit? What are the chances of Jen and me hitting the hotel pool? I don’t know. I’ve lost over 200 pounds since the last time I owned a bathing suit or a pair of shorts that could pass for a bathing suit.

In other words… I have no idea what we’re going to end up doing over this upcoming holiday weekend. All I know for sure is that it is now 4:59pm and the weekend is 31 minutes away.