Sherri Cornelius

I feel like organizing today, but I can’t seem to find a place to start. I finally figured out that when I get to this state, it’s because I need to declutter before I can organize what is left. So instead of staring at the mess or moving it from one table to another, I’ll think about what I really need and put the rest in a donation box.

I feel pretty proud of myself for taking what I learned and applying it to change an old habit. For a long time I felt like such a slave to my unconscious (and detrimental) thinking patterns, so it’s nice to have gotten to the point where I can bring them out one at a time and deal with them. I guess this is what they mean when they say you become more of yourself in middle age. You start questioning the things others have drilled into you as fact, and you decide what you believe to be true.

And then, I suppose, most start drilling their own true facts into others, perpetuating the cycle. Is this something we are meant to do? I guess we’re not drilling so much as stating the truth as we know it. Maybe it’s human nature that the first 40 years or so we absorb our truths from other people, because we’re not experienced enough to trust our own truths.

I’ve reached a place where even though I might not be able to state my truth clearly, I recognize it when I see it. I recently saw the truth in a book about creativity called The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. It is a small volume which tells me things I already knew but did not trust. I appreciate its compactness. Not a lot of jibber-jabber to fluff it up to an impressive size to the detriment of the message. I borrowed this from the library, but this one deserves a permanent place on my shelf. I’ll be putting it on my Amazon wish list.

So now I’m thinking a lot about what it means to be a creative person, how to not only accept that about myself but also how to celebrate it, and how to combine my creativity with my accumulated knowledge to let it manifest in my life.

You might remember the Thoughts from the Treadmill posts here on the blog. Well, the old, sticky treadmill I was using went the way of Freecycle, after gathering dust in the shed for many months. Apparently just having it in the shed helped keep the weight off, because, no lie, I’ve gained five pounds since giving it away a couple of weeks ago after being the same weight for a couple of years.

Of course that’s not true, but I wish having a treadmill in the shed and not under my feet could help keep the weight down. Instead, I guess I have to admit my knitting has played a part. Rather than taking the place of another sedentary activity (can you say Facebook?), knitting has taken the place of other activities I might have to actually, you know, get up to do. Not that I had that many active habits in the first place, because everything I do is on my laptop, from writing to bill paying to photos to social connections.

So now, after much pondering over which laptop-centered activity has to go and what the hell would replace it, I’m thinking I need to get a decent treadmill and set up another walking desk. The only reason I stopped using the other one is that it was just too damned hard to push myself on that horrible manual treadmill and still keep my hands on the keyboard. I actually enjoyed the walking when I had something else to do, and it felt like the creativity flowed more evenly as well.

Another factor in my weight gain is my crappy eating. I cook more than I used to, but I don’t think my improvement is keeping up with my metabolism. Oh, and that reminds me, I probably need to get my thyroid medicine adjusted again. That might help. Another thing is anxiety, which I’m working on slowly to alleviate. Stress has been shown to increase belly fat, or so the diet pill commercials tell me.

I think I’ll go look around for a small electric treadmill at the pawn shops and thrift stores. If I can’t find a decent one there, I guess I’ll have to consider a new one, even though the thought of spending the money sends me into fits of anxiety.

And there goes another button.

I have a choice to make: whether to keep my domain or let it expire.

I’ve been hosting this website on GoDaddy for a couple of years now. No complaints with them, neither price nor service. I’ve had the domain for longer—I think five years, total—and I used to redirect to my old wordpress.com site.

Well, I decided it was time to empty the old blog. I kept the url in case I ever need to go back, but all the content has been deleted as of this morning. There was no tangible reason to delete it. The content moved with me to this domain, so it’s not like I was embarrassed of it. It was just sitting there unviewed. But you know, a need to start fresh has simmering below the surface, evident in the ebb and flow of my new projects. Shedding the old blog was a symbol, I guess, of releasing old and tired ideas and habits, of mental clutter.

When I checked my email this morning, I got the confirmation that Wordpress had deleted my content as requested, along with the domain expiration notification from GoDaddy. I have to make this decision every time the domain expires, but this time it is really tempting to let it go and just not have a blog or a website at all. The social networking sites have the capability to add any content I wish, free of charge and light on maintenance. I haven’t been posting here much, anyway, because all my ramblings have occurred on Facebook or Google+.

I don’t know. I have a lot to think about. I daydream about deleting my entire internet presence (as much as I can) and starting over.

So tired, body and soul. I watched two of my little grandboys yesterday while their mother (my step daughter) was at work, and we had a wondermous bonding day.

I am ever so grateful my kids are older. A bit bewildered, also, to realize that I used to do that baby stuff with its constant attention every day for, like, 8 years or so. Obviously it's different with someone else’s children, who are missing their mother and in a strange place with strange toys and strange napping places. And also there’s a rhythm to taking care of babies, a pattern of attention that a mom’s brain attains over time, which I have since lost.

But dang, no wonder I felt so frazzled all the time back then. And at the time, I didn’t appreciate just how much work it was. I should have made the husband do more. Oh, but I’m remembering now I tried and it didn’t work.

So anyway, take the constant need for attention of a 2-year-old and an almost-one-year-old, multiply that by 9 hours, add in the smelly detergent on their clothes, and that’s a recipe for a hangover.

But the bonus daughter agreed to start using the free and clear detergent again, so I’ll be able to have them to visit again, hopefully on a more regular basis. My kids love having their nephews around, and so do I.