“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.
Balancing Act Reaches Out
It became apparent to me as I wrote the “Balancing Act” column that one reason my life went out of whack was that I bought into the superwoman myth. Over the years, and now with this collection, I’ve been cheered on by women whose sometimes comic missteps are also caused by a culture that still expects women to do it all and often for less pay than their male counterparts.
For that reason, I’m pleased to announce that I’m contributing some of the proceeds of Best of Balancing Act to the Women’s Fund of Central Ohio, which is committed to gender equity and supports a variety of grant partners.
So if you purchase a book, you may be doing more than lightening your own mood. You may be lightening someone else’s load as well.
Right There With Colleen Hoover
I never expected to be featured alongside Colleen Hoover, but sure enough, it has happened.
The organizer of our neighborhood book group, reading Hoover’s It Ends With Us, also waved around a copy of Best of Balancing Act at our monthly conflab this week.
Maybe that will start the magic, and voila! Some literary giant poking around Amazon will discover my book of local newspaper columns and before long, I’ll be right there with Colleen Hoover on the book table at Target or Costco.
Meanwhile, our Beechwold book group this week pondered what has catapulted this originally self-published author to the New York Times best seller list, where she has held 6 of the 10 top spots, and why she sold more books last year than Dr. Seuss.
Having read only this one selection, I can say two things. First, she knows how to tell a story. And when all is said and done, most of us love a good story, especially when following it does not require us to sketch out a timeline or family tree as we go. Life is already complicated enough without that.
The other thing I can say is that Colleen Hoover apparently never test-drove the recipe for the chocolate chip cookies that Lily, the narrator, said were the best in the world. Her teen-age boyfriend Atlas made them extra crunchy by flipping them over in the oven after the first five minutes.
Hoping to bring a book-authentic treat to the meeting, I tried the Atlas method, which has taken the Internet by a storm. I can report first-hand that it is completely impossible to flip a gooey cookie after five minutes and completely impossible to do it without burning yourself even after eight.
I will not go so far as to say you’ll get more balance in your life by reading my book than Colleen Hoover’s. But you will definitely get more balance if you don’t try the cookies. I didn’t take a survey, but I suspect at this meeting another bottle of wine or dish of mixed nuts would have done just as well.
For me, it was another reminder – and I seem to need a lot – that a reliable ingredient for life balance is keeping it simple.
Book Is Balancing Act
How long could it take, putting together a collection of columns? After all, they’re already written. At least, that’s what I told myself in late February, when I started down the road of self-publishing a book.
Apparently, the phrase “24 to 72 hours” stuck in my mind as the time it would take to have a book up on Amazon via Kindle Direct Press (KDP). I hadn’t focused on the first three words “when the book is done.” Done turns out to happen after all the columns have been located, after someone else has proofread it and someone else has designed a cover and formatted the interior in book-like fashion.
This is not to say that DIY efforts are out the window – only that I’ve never found a typo or grammatical error of my own that I could catch (and there may still be some – sorry) and that I have absolutely no graphic arts talents. For these tasks, a friend suggested Reedsy and Fiverr, budget-friendly online marketplaces of eager freelancers around the world.
After keeping them all straight on a chart, I found a proofreader in NYC, a cover designer in Austria, and a formatter in South Africa. It is now an international project! Happily Austria and South Africa are in the same time zone. Happily, KDP has a phone and chatroom, and these freelancers are very patient. On the verge of being ready – I think – to start the 24 to 72 hour clock, I keep remembering my tech-y friend who said, “It’s not brain surgery. Everyone is doing it.”
Too bad. I was planning to feel absolutely brilliant at the moment of publication.
The Pandemic Ate My Planner – And Now What?
Today is my Two Plus Two: – two COVID shots + two weeks – and voila! The CDC, with whom I play Mother, May I, has decided that now fully vaccinated, I can be a freer woman.
I am grateful and thrilled. I can hug my grandchildren! We can play games and cook and do craft projects in person and mask-less.
I can gather with a few also fully vaccinated friends in my new (to me) home. We can eat dinner together.
And with a mask, I can get my hair cut in a salon or buy groceries in person – something I chose not to do even when Mother CDC said I could.
So I am thrilled and grateful. But also unsettled.
Deprived of schlepping – to the store, to in-person gatherings – I’ve developed my own structure, my own rhythm for what a day looks like. It sounds pretty boring, but the predictability is comforting, the priorities clear.
Coffee, journaling, oatmeal, the Reuters podcast, the daily paper – all at leisure before dressing, making the bed, writing, And then at some point at least 30 minutes of exercise and 30 minutes of reading, usually in preparation for some online workshop I’m taking, and a romp through my daily to-do list of business and personal calls. Around 4:30 I call or hear from my church pandemic conversation partner, then on to dinner, the NewsHour, and often another Zoom call.
I hesitate to say I feel like a prisoner on the eve of release. I am, after all, moving back toward an old life that is safe and welcoming. And yet, the adjustment feels huge. I wonder whether the grocery store will feel overwhelming and how well – with so many choices – I’ll keep my priorities straight.
Already, trying to fit in 1:1 coffee next week with a fully vaccinated friend, I struggle to find a slot. I’ve waited till I’m fully vaccinated to schedule a plumbing inspection, to have my carpet cleaned and stain-proofed, to have my hair cut.
I cancel an acupuncture appointment because the acupuncturist will not allow me to be maskless with any outsider – CDC guidelines notwithstanding – for a week before the appointment.
Can I trust myself to book sensibly? To hang on to the forced pleasure of undistracted reading and leisurely neighborhood walks? Will I still exercise each day come hell or high water?
What have I learned from all this?
