And, it finishes up with an early Thinking Group
Good morning. This is me. We’re looking toward the day, but it’s taken until now 8:40 am to get this far. We were up just for a short time before we needed to get going this morning. We only talked to Rich for about 10-15. I’m not sure what we were doing online, but something … maybe something to do with tracking down self-regulations. We added something to FB and something to our blog. I tracked it back and found I’d put together these notes already 4 years ago. Wow … it still seems like it’s brand new.I skimmed backward to see where we’d left off yesterday. I’m not familiar with the place, but it does seem to be before we went through our things with Rich. That was a pretty big deal. I don’t think I will go into much of it for now because it was too emotionally involving. We had another shut-down. Seems now when we have them they are specially around Rich. Usually it means he’s coming in real strong and he’s got his foot down and tapping.
I think the biggest part of it was that I realized that nothing whatever it was that I wanted was going to happen. I think it was toward the two of us planning the future. What was the worst part is getting another grip on how against marriage he is. Later during the night we came to a point that was near satisfactory at least with the change of parts. He said we were about as near marriage as we could get without the paper.
I don’t know if he meant it in one way or another, but we had to take it with a sense of hope. Maybe now if someone were to ask I’d say we were in “a state of being near-married.” There that sounds better than being just a regular girlfriend right? I would then be like a “near-wife.” Sigh … ok girls let’s not get too carried away.
The conversation that we had turned into him mostly getting down on us for one thing or another – I don’t think he would think of it the same way. I think he was trying to hit me with reality and we weren’t able to really go there at that moment. We remember the part about staring into space as he was saying one more thing or another. Our ears had been overwhelmed to the point we weren’t able to register it anymore. There was something though. What was it?
Thinking, thinking … Oh, I know he had said something at the worst end of not being able to finish anything. That’s the thought we had while we were coming out of things. For a long period we were lying on our desk with our head resting on arms.
We couldn’t process thoughts past listening for the door in case he moved or someone came in and even at that it was a real low level processing point.
We were at different parts coming out then what we had been going in. We thought just before it all happened that we were going to need doing something that would most likely go along with a new application for the iPod. I know some women shop, some go to the beauty parlor, but we shop for new apps.
Hmm, it’s thundering out there and looks like its been raining. Wow … loud thunder!
One way or another we were doing something on Rhapsody and then we turned to iTunes. We always look at what the up and coming apps are, but found ourselves almost immediately at the productivity ones. We weren’t sure when we started the direction, but after we found it it was like … oh yeah.
The first one discovered pleased us to punch! It is called “Home Routine.” And the most amazing thing? It’s really without mentioning it a take-off of the Flylady.
There is a 15 minute timer and then routines like morning, afternoon and evening.
And, then we added weekly tasks and monthly. There’s a note to add per day and things to be doing special today. And when you check off accomplishments you get them listed on the smiley board. It also includes the work she’d done on focusing in zones.
Rich helped me with goals when we came out of another breaking point – this time more minor than the last. Some of the things I set up for my morning routine was to empty the dishwasher and cat litter, feed the cats, start coffee, wipe-down the counters and tie-up the garbage. We just added make the bed. Hmm, better add swish the toilet too. We didn’t do the one where we focused 15 minutes in our zone.
This week the zone is the kitchen and dining room. I think for the first time we’ll focus on sweeping. We might ask Rich for a new Swiffer too. Ours doesn’t seem to be working. Maybe it’s a matter of getting a new battery?
We don’t have afternoon tasks with the exception of clearing off the desk before we leave work.
So far our evening tasks are. To check the dishwasher, wipe kitchen surfaces, collect dirty laundry, de-clutter and fold blankets.
Weekly tasks so far include sweeping, cleaning the bathroom, dusting, folding darks and lights and helping Rich to unload groceries. Rich asked on a monthly basis if we’d clean glass. Yesterday for a to do goal we met Rich for dinner out on the balcony. Then both of us were real conscientious about watching TV. When I started to do my pick-up tasks, Rich read his book and then I took a shower after folding clothes. Hmm, another 7.2 quake reported in Chile during the Presidents inauguration ceremony. That’s tough … they are really getting hit badly.
I added for today’s note to remember that Dr. Marvin would be gone for the day and that I should remember to do the 15 minute zone work in the evening. I also added her 5 minute hot spot. That’s where you look around and do something that will improve overall in a manner of a few minutes and then I added the 27 item fling where you are supposed to be getting rid of something. I left a special note to check in closets.
The next of the programs that I got – all three totaled $25 – was the Eternity program. This is to help me be accountable to time. I’d tried other things like it in the past. This one is set up into different activities. It started with play, work and sleep. By now I’ve added relaxation, helping Rich, household, organizing time, being emotional time, eating, and traveling. Many of those break down into smaller areas too, but the main thing is to click on one of them when you change tasks. Like right now I’m under the play area of blogging – and the devise says I’ve been doing it for 44 minutes and 11 seconds. Previous to that I’d been checking email and FB.
I haven’t listed any activities as favorites so I’m not sure of that function, but they have then logs which show what you were doing in each of the time periods. As soon as you start a new time period the last one stops so that I know from 7:54 am to 8:34 am I was checking the email and FB. And before that I spent from 7:08 – 7:54 am traveling.
The next part is the reports. They have a reports stating that so far today I’ve spent 5% on household, 7% on organizing, 8% on traveling, 15% on playing, and 64% on sleeping. Pretty good hmm? It allows me to then look at that daily, weekly and monthly. And, it gives me pie charts so that I can see things visually. That’s about that for this application, but it’s a nice one. Just have to remember to push the button when I go to a new area so that I’m not spending all my time adjusting hours and minutes.
The third and last program is called “Outliner.” This is where we went when Rich and us were setting goals. This program is as much toward the program of “my Brain” as anything I’ve seen so far. It allows you to put in outline form about anything you can imagine. When Rich and us put goals in it looked something like …
1. Savings goal
1.1. List things we spent extra and discuss with Rich
1.2. Emergency money
2. Make Joe’s quilt by June 24th
3. Finish Rich and Bob’s quilt by May 1rst
4. Weight goal
4.1. Weigh in – goal to lose 2 pounds a month
4.1.1. Three times a week
4.2. Gym goal
4.2.1. Other activities – using physical fitness may be substituted
4.2.2. Buddy goal – 4 two hour periods a week
4.3. Drink 3-4 bottles of water a day
5. Work with colors
6. Housekeeping goals
7. Mailing labels
8. Blogging
9. Listening to Rich organize
So you can see how that one is panning out.
Now the thing is to figure out what kinds of other things I would like to outline.
Anything that needs steps seems a good candidate for this program. I should have done this whole section under 1 for goals. Maybe I better see what I can do to fix that now.
There that is done. We put everything under the first screen so that all the above comes out only when I press the “goal” link. I also put in a blogging link to cover what I’m doing right now. So far we’re only thing of past, present and future.
There will be other categories we do where we can list things out. I think it will help us to think more roundly. Last night when Rich helped us with our goals, I had no idea of the kinds of things that we do in our everyday life.
It became very freeing after we started. We had as mentioned previously had a minor crash. We laid there pretty stunned for about 10-15 minutes. It was just after dinner. Dinner went just ok not better. We had a good dinner in that Rich had stopped by for sandwich at the grocery deli and we ate out on the balcony. But as soon as we walked in the good space we were in left and we were back to dealing with the parts upset about not getting married. In our more practical minds we know that it isn’t time yet and that Rich hasn’t even been divorced for a year. We’re coming up on 3 years separation, but everything takes time.
Again the point that helped there was for him to say “near-marriage.” And, in that he meant that we do everything together and love each other enough to take us to time and eternity. I need to be settled with that is enough. I don’t know what needs though individual parts have and why sometimes this becomes a big issue before settling down again. Maybe some internal clock or feeling of panic? I do know that we were feeling pretty worthless in a societal realm. Doesn’t everyone get married and have a home?
Ok, you shhh … we’re in a near-home in a near-marriage. *giggling* yes, he will probably doubt the day he went that far.
So, as to last night … we felt pretty accomplished. We helped Rich with his nails and then we got up to do the things we were remembering. It really doesn’t take too long. The longest part was in folding a couple of loads of clothing. Rich let us push his stuff off the coffee table so we had room to maneuver after we wiped it down. Everything else got put into good order and I felt good about going to bed, waking, and possibly setting up the house in case Rich wanted to invite over Bob. I think he’d taken that out of the contingency, but we always encourage him to put that part back in. It’s a good social priority.
We were looking at our place differently last night in that we were seeing it from the eyes of someone younger. Not as young as the Casies, but perhaps as young as Annemarie or Sarah. It’s been a while since we thought of what we were doing by exact parts. Really it usually serves to only frustrate us. The thing is that the counter looked so big and dishwasher so important as we were taking care of them.
The bathroom was too overwhelming. Just to move the blow-dryer and its cord took about all of our sensibility. But, we kept chugging along to get to the other end.
I know that if we focus on the weight part all of that will become easier. It seems as if we’ve been hiding out from that for a long time.
Now I’m wondering how much this all has to do with our Annemarie. For those unknowing – Annemarie is considered to be our core person the only one that isn’t a part, but has parts. It seems that we’ve been depressed – she has now for quite a bit of time. I don’t know what got her started again. I know there was a big change after the furniture came by December, Jillian and Jon were here; we had Christmas with the boys, and then fell in the need for a house. It seems we came out of the stupor with Jinny Beyer and that we are making some new progress with goals and ideas of self-regulation.
We still had to go through Rich upset about more money because we spent for the Spring Fling, and we spent for the new iPod applications. It doesn’t seem we can hold a serious note as to not having money in the account. That reminded me that Rich called to remind me to ask sister to hold the check for the Spring Fling. I don’t know if she hasn’t already deposited it. Maybe she’s waiting to do all the checks for the event at the same time. Not sure. I did just call and I found out or remembered that she wasn’t going to be around much today, which is why she has me doing the Thinking Group this afternoon instead of her doing staff training on the second Tuesday, the trainers will have free time to be working on their plans.
Hmm, just got into email for a while … there was another one of those “free jobs” then they wanted to sell you their program for $197 and $35 handling. Ok, there’s just so much wrong with that! That’s the problem with trying to get work from that spot I paid for before they all are making money on signing you up. That IS the program. It’s really hard because you look so optimistically and being able to be doing or paid for something and then it’s all over again and they are asking for your credit card. BLAH!
Ok, better be moving on. It’s now 10:40 am. I think I’m still in the blogging situation. I’m not sure where I was a paragraph before, I’m going to need read and refresh my memory.
Maybe we can do some work with the self-regulation? I’m thinking that we’re going to need struggle to get ourselves through it, but that we might need some bigger aim in mind. Maybe what we could do is get it transferred over to our Outliner. Maybe that would help with something? We need to put it into place and use it … hmm, haven’t we been saying this for like 4 years? I don’t know … I don’t remember enough to figure out why or why not it wasn’t useful though still holds a predominant place in our minds.
Hmm, we’re back – it’s now about 12:30 pm. We did work on the regulative outline and we had lunch and we watched the clients during their lunch. Rich seems to have come in since we were gone. He’s watching a session on his sports over the Internet. Someone on a video is giving him the newest rules. That’s the kind of stuff honeybunch does
While I was typing out the outline in the iPod, I could only remember the 3-4 words at a time that I was typing. Let me see if there was generally an understanding, I would think there was a pre-stage where you are putting together what you will do and your resources for the goal, and then there is the monitoring stages while doing the goal, and then there is a section where you are checking over your goal processes and then last there is an evaluation of the whole goal. I will have to go back and do it again, but seems pretty steady as of now.
Hmm, we’re into dialogue with CS … she pretty much is writing Mark off – oh, I’m sure he’ll be busy. Sort of seems to me she wants us to drive then. I asked her if she would be bringing anything extra other than suitcase, if there are any special travel times especially with her nap schedule, if there are special requests for lunch or dinner, anything she would need help bringing up the stairs, if she was going to be ok with her medicine, or if there was anything else special we should know.
I hope she thinks carefully before answering back. Things like getting an arsenal up those stairs are going to be difficult and I don’t want them t fall heavily onto Rich. We have enough difficulty getting our things upstairs. Last time we went to retreat … she had so much “stuff” we were packing and unpacking the car for long periods of hard time. I need her to think before she needs to have too much carried for her. This isn’t a hotel. I don’t want to hear oh nothing special and then find out I have to cater to a whole bunch of things.
Ok, ok … I was being grumpy. But we resolved some stuff by now. It’s now just after 3 pm. We did some good work. We had the Thinking Group a day earlier because Sr. was going to be out. So we again went over relationships and we wound up talking seriously about the past, present and future. They were working hard today to understand it. I felt pretty proud of them. I would say something like ok let’s say we have Joel and he goes on a date with Marquitta and everyone goes oooh and ahhh. So, then lets say that Joel gets fresh with Marquitta and he tries to steal a kiss from her … oooh ahhh . Ok, now it’s today … and Joel wants to go out on a date tomorrow – another Friday night. Do you think Marquitta is going to go out with him?
Well, lets look at that … in the past … he messed up. And, now we are trying to predict in the future what might happen. It seems here that we might need some kind of intervention so that the same thing from the past, doesn’t affect the future.
Let’s say then that Joel talks to Marquitta today and he says I promise I will not kiss you. So, Ok, then we have in the past he stole a kiss, but now in the present he says he won’t in the future, so what do you think will Marquitta get kissed by Joel tomorrow ? Will it be safe? Pretty much they guessed that Joel was a man of his word and that it would be ok.
So, then we played another scenario except Joel doesn’t agree in the present to not kiss her. So, in the past she kissed her, he doesn’t change his mind about kissing in the present, so now … do you think Marquitta is going to get kissed tomorrow – ooooh ahhhh. Right. So by changing things in the present right now, we can affect or predict the future. And, then we went on with a dozen scenarios. A lot of them we’re trying to affect what exactly the past, present and future were. So like right now in the present … Jessica is leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving … as she walked past the group and toward the open doorway so we were saying she’s in the present, present, present, and after we couldn’t see her … she was no longer in our present, so she was in the past. Hehehe it was a lot of fun.
Noemi seemed to want to interject herself because she and Rosetta are the biggest proponents of girlfriend/boyfriend. So in her example, she stole the kiss from Victor, and then we let the boys decide whether or not Victor wanted the kiss. They decided against it. So we walked it through several ways like do you think Victor will go on another date? No, and then what happens if Victor didn’t want the kiss in the future, what would he have to say to Noemi in the present. They were coming in and out of it – knowledge wise – at least the regular group that likes to answer and think about stuff. There will always be the ones who just enjoy oohing and ahhing. That’s just the way … They feel good together.
They were also very good receptively toward introducing themselves to an apparently nice girl Leona. Leona was 25 and able to speak for herself and she liked speaking out loud with everyone. She talked about her boyfriend and between her and Rosetta and Rosetta’s boyfriend about getting things from a male friend who was different then your boyfriend. Apparently Leona had gone with the mothers to a situation with a second friend other than the boyfriend, and just that day, Rosetta had gotten a ring from Jimmy who was only a friend because Rosetta went with Chris. So then Chris wanted to talk about going out with another girl in his past. Rosetta wanted to reassert herself as a girl friend experienced, so she brought up a subject of another friend she liked but was not her boyfriend as coming over and proposing to her and then pushing her against the bedroom wall and having sex with her.
Lordy! We hadn’t gotten to that extreme. Pretty much on that one we just shut it down. I said, I don’t believe this story, because it would have never happened with the two mothers present. She felt a bit defensive and tried telling one of her female peers it was true, but the room decided as well that it was just a story.
The chances of her being here for 10 years and just coming up now that she wants her boyfriend to be jealous is pretty suspicious, but it will add to the fodder of what we talk about next week when it comes to peer pressure, exaggeration and jealousy.
Sure, sure … lots of things to talk about. We might have to go around it more subtly to avoid pressuring Rosetta. She’s one if not the lead person who wants everyone’s attention. She had someone new … a nice young equally black woman who was very pretty and likeable and telling about her multiple boyfriends and so likely Rosetta would really want to impress her authority. *sigh* We could definitely use her to talk over the harder feelings she was going through in her boyfriend showing displeasure for accepting the ring which she found to be flattering. We’ll see.
posted by Ann Marie @ 3/11/2010 03:26:00 PM
Comments: 0
