Musings & Thoughts for Tuesday, January 9, 2024: Filling Out Forms, Doing Chores, and Rejiggering Schedules to Write a ‘First Novel’

Late Morning/Midday, Tuesday, January 9, 2024, Madison, New Hampshire

Hi, there.

Well, as I begin my 1,392^nd blog post on WordPress, the temperature in Madison is 24°F/-4°C, with a feels-like factor of 34°F/1°C, under cloudy conditions. After a perfect – if frigid – Monday, it looks like another winter storm is going to affect Carroll County today. The skies above are gray, which makes the snowdrifts outside look super-white…a white quilt that covers the ground. It’s pretty, but if you go out and touch it with your bare hands, it feels like you’re handling flavor-free Slushees.

But I digress. The forecast for today calls for light snow showers to pass through the area throughout the day, and the high for this second Tuesday of 2024 is expected to be 29°F/-2. Tonight? We will be getting a slushy mix of rain and snow. The low will be 24°F/-4°C.

Life Update

This morning I filed a Change of Address request with the U.S. Postal Service electronically. It didn’t take long to fill out the form, but I did feel a pang of melancholy when I had to choose between PERMANENT or TEMPORARY, but the Sunshine State, warm and familiar to me as it is, has changed so much since I left Miami in 2016 – and not for the better. The process took about 10 minutes, approximately, and cost $1.10, which was charged to my Amazon Visa card.

I still have a few things to do to become a New Hampshire resident and transfer the disability benefits I had in Florida here, but those require in-person visits to various offices in Conway. So, for now, I’m still a Florida resident and can’t, say, register to vote in the New Hampshire primary.

On Writing & Storytelling

Yesterday was less productive than I would have liked. I had hoped to start work on the manuscript for Reunion: Coda around 1:30 PM, but then I remembered that I had a load of laundry to do. So, for the first time since the first week in April of 2016, I took my dirty clothes – it was a relatively light load considering that I’ve been here nearly a month – to the laundry room and…well, washed and dried my clothes. It took about 90 minutes, more or less, and even though it felt strange after almost eight years of not doing my own laundry, I still got that chore done.

Of course, loading the washer, choosing the cycle, and all that laundry stuff took time from my schedule, so by the time I sat down at my desk to work on Reunion: Coda, it was almost 2:45 PM. That was still within my window for working on the novel, but it was late in the day regardless, and because the sun still sets before 4:30 PM (sunset today is at 4:25 PM Eastern), the early darkness robs me of whatever enthusiasm I might otherwise have for writing, so my thinking process slows to a snail’s pace.

I did eventually get some work done, but it was confined to the realm of editing and revising existing material, not the writing of “fresh copy.”

If I manage my time wisely, I think I can do better today. I just need to watch the clock more closely during my rest break – and do time-consuming chores, such as doing the laundry, on weekends.

Thank You for Your Kindness

 

Before I go on that break, I’d like to thank the following for their kindness during this somewhat…challenging…time of transition:

• Marc and Patti Aliventi
• Juan Carlos and Adria Hernandez
• Peggy Jensen Cai
• Jacki Cser
• Julissa Rosen
• Denise Longrie
• Amy Goldberg
• Jenny Crossen

Okay. I’ve lingered here long enough, so ciao for now. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, stay warm, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.