ABSILVER's World

It is Monday, 142 days into the pandemic, and counting. I am usually a happy and optimistic person.   We are luckier than many as we have a nice home, low debt, are well fed and our families are healthy and safe.   I have Frank's love and yet I still get down just thinking about how this is day 142 and not knowing when this situation will end.   I also thought, I am not alone, and it might help others to know how I deal with these down moody times.   Exercise for the body: The mornings I go for my power walk sets up a much happier day then when I don't.  I walk with weights and do stretches along the way and is some good me time in the morning.  I am mentally productive in the morning but not the social being that many of you are and it helps my thoughts get organized for the day. Exercise for the Mind: I am taking online classes to focus on skills to sharpen my mind and resume. Some classes are technology-based like IBM'

I sit here. I sit in a home, a castle. There is a virus, my safe place. No mote, no drawbridge, but can't leave. I sit here. Not, always by choice. A dog to my right, snoring at peace. I am jealous. I sit here. Wondering about the future. Yoga, in the other room. Lucky the cat, resting on the bed.. I sit here. Debating mental vs. physical well-being. The size and beauty of the ocean brings me peace The distant horizon reminds me of my small part. I sit here. An optimist, in a world of chaos. Wondering how I fit. Dog moves closer to touch. I sit here. Faith, not sure. Jealous, of those that turn to God God, need not to worry about me, there is so much more. I sit here. Blame needs a target In times of crisis, hate rises. Hopeful that love will win again. I sit here. With wonder and hope. Sun shining and flowers blooming. The dog snores, the

Patience is my mantra for the Pandemic! My cousin, Sherri Bassner, wrote in her blog  about letting go and the challenges we all face when we are sitting at home and have limited outlets to be energized and activities to distract us.  She writes much more clearly than I about the challenges of a brain that is always on and looking at issues and subjects and generating new ideas where the major objective right now is to have the patience to make it through the summer. I share her challenge of a brain that doesn't want to slow down and keeps throwing out ideas.  Would anyone really stop at a bakery to take cookies conveniently packaged to take home and bake so they have the best cookies hot out of their own oven?  Yes, I know you can buy cookie dough in the grocery store.  Frank and I spent the month of April and May perfecting cookie recipes including chocolate chip, oatmeal, sugar, and molasses cookies.  There must be something more valuable to come from this other

I don't know how to explain it, and maybe won't post it anyway.  But, I hit a wall this morning.. don't think it is a major one but maybe a few feet high. Maybe, of value is to say I need to explore my mind more than anything at these times.  It comes in waves, and this morning one wave is that I have had a terrible runny nose.  My first inclination, in normal times, would be this is allergy season and this is normal for me.  Go find a Claritin and just move past it.  But, these aren't normal times so first I worry as yesterday was the first outing in a while and hope that I didn't pick "anything" up even though everything I have read runny nose is not normally a Coronavirus symptom.  Fast forward, I took a Claritin and in minutes the drip seemed to slow and so assume good sign it is an allergy.  When I think of the virus, and getting really sick.  My fear is being alone in a hospital.  I have spent enough time in a hospital in the last few months

So, I sit here in the middle of another rainy morning in east Texas.   This week we went from sunny warm days to cooler evenings to now another storm of heavy rain and thunder. The last few days have been challenging even though the weather was lovely.  I sat here perplexed and honestly not in a very good mood.  Work was ok.  We had a nice dinner of chicken thighs, potatoes, and veggies.  I even made Weight Watcher oatmeal cookies and used butterscotch chips instead of chocolate chips and was quite pleased with the results.  But, I couldn't shake this feeling of uncertainty and stress of life as we know it.  It is day 53 of being sheltered in place, and I am having a harder time as of late.   I think it is a combination of challenges, but at the heart of my angst is I feel a bit out of control of my life.  OK, I feel a great deal of lack of control as decisions are being made for me that I have little input on.  Want to go out to eat?  can't safely.

So, I sit here this morning. It is Friday. Normal Fridays come with excitement as the work week ends and you wonder what the weekend holds. Will we do something adventurous like go visit Tyler? We haven’t explored Shreveport, so maybe that would be an adventure or cook and have the family over for dinner. But, this is not a normal Friday, and this week has been anything but normal for me. It seems the days start ok, I go for my “power” walk and seem to have a clear handle on the day ahead. Then I sneak off to my office and try to focus and some of the days seem to wander back into a funk. I have social media content to write for the iSOA team, with some exciting opportunities in the API Management and Gateway arena. There is a Twitter marketing class I started but for the life of me have not re-engaged and really need to. The next class in the series is LinkedIn and I really want to take that class, but I think there is room to learn on Twitter so I need to back to it. This mo