Have been kind of puny since my lingering illness got markedly worse around the end of 2016. The last year or so it’s slightly better. I hope to be able to earn something online soon since Dad started radiation treatments. My parents were kind enough to take me in when my government apartment became uninhabitable.
Even with the three of us living together money is pretty short. I have a plan of earning extra income in 10-15 hours a week. (Maybe $400 a week if it works.) Will be linking the new site to this. And I’ll pay so I can get the wordpress deleted from my handle.
I’ll be writing quotes and designing social media posts for a couple popular sites. Just Twitter and Instagram for starters. Got to keep it simple with limited energy reserves.
I’m feeling well enough to read again. I exercise at least 20 minutes a day. Roughly the required 150 per week. And I’m taking probiotics.
My laptop broke and I haven’t replaced it. The keys were too small for comfortable or efficient writing.
Online too much. Confining myself to a desktop keeps me from goofing off watching silly YouTube videos and avoiding the idle gossip fest that passes for “news” in our era.
Abby is learning to play with a catnip mouse. She had a hard life as the barn cat her litter mates rejected and never learned to play till recently at age 8. (Close to forty in human years.) Maybe there’s hope for her mother too.
Regular sleep. At least 8 hours in bed out of 24. No more than 9. I average 7 a night.
Limit caffeine, sugar, gluten, and dairy. Especially the first two.
I just finished Little Women. At one point I had to quit because I grew very miserable thinking of happier times of my life when I first read it.
Re-reading 101 Best-Loved Poems. Dad gave it to me. Actually it contains 110 poems and half a dozen inspirational prose quotes including “The Ten Commandments” and “The Gettysburg Address.” Writing poems of my own now.
I’m also re-reading the collection of short fictions written by that great Argentinian surrealist Jorges Luis Borges. One of my posts here used a technique I learned from him: reviewing an imaginary book instead of writing a lengthier work. Discount Discipleship: the Life of Wolf Weiner
Reading Sandaled Stories by Jim Nichols. My dad has been writing quite a bit in retirement. It all started after he broke his leg two years ago and got bored. In depth reviews of the parables Jesus told. Great for a study on Wednesday nights or Sunday mornings. Great for personal studies too.
Letters to a Church. Such a deep and meaningful book. Far superior to The Purpose Driven Life. Not trying to insult Warren’s book–it’s pretty uplifting and tells the reader only Christ offers salvation–but it’s really not the masterpiece Francis Chan’s book is. Chan relies on Bible study and constant prayers rather than gimmicks for how we may grow the church amidst the darkness surrounding us. Christ built the church; not a marketing team. God is the One who adds to our number according to accounts in Acts. Not slick marketing techniques or better salesmanship.
Will soon re-read Watership Down by Richard Adams. A lot of people got upset by the cartoon. It really should have been classified as a film for adults and teens. *See rant below.
*Some books can be enjoyed by children of ten or twelve briefly telling things that a movie would show. Body mutilation, infanticide, cannibalism, tragic endings…all are in the old fairy tales Disney tried to do plastic surgery on till they realized plastic dolls sell more merch and threw out the old. Movies are intrinsically graphic. So they not only kill kids’ imaginations but traumatize or–worse–desensitize to violence.
lookingupliving 