MJ Monday-Meals: Lunch Hour

Warning: Self-serving 1st World Whining Ahead!

Pre COVID, I had a whole hour for lunch breaking up my work day. I didn’t have to think about lunch, because I could run out and grab something. I could run home and grab something. I had 60 minutes to deal with food.

When COVID hit, my employer changed our hours. We now begin our day a half hour earlier. Lunch breaks are now 30 minutes. And we get to leave an hour earlier than we use to. And that leaving an hour earlier is really nice.

My issue is the abbreviated lunch break. Even after eight months, I still haven’t gotten the knack of planning my lunches for the week. My choices are now to pack a lunch (something I really really hate, childhood “trauma” and all that) or order in. And ordering in gets expensive. Yes, GrubHub is wonderful, but expensive.

So I need to think about lunches. I try to plan meals where there will be leftovers for me to carry to work. How many days a week can I eat leftover pasta? I do try to remember to purchase things for sandwiches, but I really hate sandwiches. Unless they’re hot. (Thirteen years of tuna salad or baloney and cheese did a number on me.) A weight loss program I was on further traumatized me, although I have discovered good deli sliced turkey in no way resembles the sliced fat-free slime I once consumed in an effort to be svelte.

I warned you I would be whining. I know I’m lucky to have a job, lucky that I work in an “essential” business; lucky I have money to purchase food. I’m blessed in so many ways.

I just wish I could find a workable lunch break solution.

Thursday Though-Self Help: The Organized Mind

The Organized Mind is another book that came highly recommended  but I could not finish. I may have read it years ago. Everything I read as I delved into it sounded familiar. On the other hand, so many of these books aimed at executives rehash the same processes, the same systems, and the same theories. I don’t know if I was bored or disgusted.

News flash: not everyone’s mind works like the author’s.

More breaking news: crap rolls downhill. What about the person to whom all your crap gets delegated?

Unless a full time homemaker  blogs about it, no one ever talks about who does the grocery shopping or scrubs the toilets.

Life is full of more details than your in box.

 

 

 

 

MJ Monday-Motivation: Solitaire as a Plotting Device

I know I’ve written about my habit of playing solitaire while thinking about my books, but I’ve recently learned this practice is instinctive use of how my brain is wired.

This year I was unable to participate in writing retreats due to COVID-19. I found another way to work on my professional development. Now some people consider my involvement in this group a cult, and maybe it is. I do pay to take classes and have individual coaching. But I’m learning so much about myself as a person, and that also means me as a writer. I’m starting to understand the whys of the way I am and why I do things the way I do. Why I react a certain way in specific situations.

The person who runs these classes also has a series of FREE You Tube videos. Here’s the link to the one that explains my need to play solitaire while I’m plotting. It’s short–20 minutes or so–but revealing.

Playing solitaire (or hand-held Yahtzee, another favorite of mine) is a legitimate writing strategy. Who knew?

 

Thursday Thought: Dishware

I periodically browse on line looking for new dishes: plates, cereal bowls, small plates. I don’t particularly like the ones we use. My husband is very fond of them. I want something bright and pretty. I live in a city where there isn’t much sunshine, so my soul craves something other than mud brown and navy blue.

Here is a question: why do sets of dinnerware still include cups and saucers? My family can’t be the only one in the USA who doesn’t use these things that take up say too much cupboard space.

Granted, TV Stevie has a thing about coffee mugs–he uses maybe two of the ones he owns, and is always bringing home more, but we rarely weed out the mug cupboard. I have my favorite tea mugs.

Instead of matching cups and saucers, I’d like to see  lunch plates or soup bowls.

What do you think?

MJ Monday-Manuscript: Finding Nuggets

As I type this, I’m “between” projects. I’ve turned in the last book I have contracted with my publisher and have gone through a couple of rounds of revisions. All good. My editor makes my book better.

I’ve been noodling around with an idea I first had back in 2010. I have the notes to prove it. Periodically I would think of something and add a note.

This past spring, ideas started coming fast and furious. New twists on the original idea.

I picked up a book belonging to my husband that I thought might be helpful. Reading it turned out to be a “gold” mine of ideas. So many nuggets! A basic plot started coming together in my head. A little more research revealed I had a “six degrees” relationship to the idea. Actually a second six-degrees relationship.

All I’m going to say right now is that I’m deep into research on something I think is going to be wonderful. I’m fairly certain it’s not a romance.

Here’s another confession: the nuggets I found weren’t gold–they were silver.