August Sweeps - Day 201

Well, August is almost done.  I really ought to look at goals for the month and see if I am anywhere on track.  Despite saying I was just going to go ahead and publish it with a temporary cover, I still haven't put "Three-Time Visitor" out there.  And now that I'm thinking about it, I can't do it.

See, I was told yesterday (Tuesday) that my Uncle Len is coming back from Vegas on Thursday, and is moving out of his apartment on Friday.  We just moved him in at the end of last year, but he's almost never there, and he (understandably) feels it's a waste of money to have this place he only uses ten or so days a month (I guess I'm that same way with the family cabin, spending six to eight days a month there, frantically typing and/or exercising because there's so little time to spend there).  So, the only days I'd have to go to the cabin this week would be Wednesday after my work was done and Thursday.

I loaded up my car as fast as I could, but didn't manage to get going until around two o'clock (which is still fine), and drove up the canyon with lofty goals in mind (I was going to try to get a thousand sit-ups in in two days, was going to record a podcast, maybe record a story, sing a song, watch a DVD or two, read, write a couple thousand words, and dance about like a howler monkey with a shock collar on).  But I've told you about Tuesdays and how I get up earlier on that day and am always falling asleep when I get to my cousin's house, so we've started this tradition where I drink an energy drink at the start of the evening, and it keeps me going . . . but also keeps me awake until three or so (I think it was 3:45 or so last night).  

So, as I was driving toward the cabin this afternoon, I started to get sleepy, and after unpacking my stuff (just the food, pillow, suitcase, backpack, laptop, and whatever else I decided to bring--my mom gave me a box to take up the next time, and I completely forgot it today), I laid down on the couch "just for a minute" . . . and well, there went ninety minutes.  Heck, it might have been closer to two hours, now that I look at the clock again (there are five clocks on display in the main floor of the cabin, and only one of them works).  Sad.

But life is like that.  Nobody can get everything done on their list, and if you focus on jus--well, that's probably incorrect.  There are people who do.  There are people would wouldn't have let themselves go to sleep, or even sit down on the couch, not until they got everything done.  And I suppose I need to be more like those folks.  I need to be more of a lot of things.

So, I did get a hundred sit-ups in, but I don't really feel like trying for a thousand anymore.  Not when I still have trouble going down stairs from my over-exertion over the weekend.  And now the sun is going down--way earlier than it ever has before (except for that day I walked out to the other side of the lake and it promptly started to rain on me once I was too far to make it back unsoaked), and I'm tempted not to honor my tradition of driving over there right before sunset, because I haven't accomplished anything else.

But I did.

To my surprise/horror, the sun went down a full hour before it went down when I first came out here at the beginning of the summer.  I suppose that's how life is going to be from now on, isn't it?  It's a wonder people have the strength to continue.

The trick may be that they have things they need to do, things they're working on, projects, and those keep them going, like the folks you hear about that have a job they work all their lives, and the moment they retire--WHAM!--wake me up before you go-go.

Sit-ups Today: 430
Sit-ups In August: 3609

Something I had wanted to do this past month was try to do sit-ups every single hour while I'm at the cabin, but when I tried to set my phone to go off each hour, it said it couldn't do it without an internet signal.  Well done, phone.  So I tried to do sit-ups in between each activity throughout the afternoon/evening.  

I mentioned the last time I was here how little water was left in the lake, and of course, there was even less this time.  When I went down by the water's edge there was a fairly foul smell now from the water, since the lake has become two parts water/one part dead fish at this point.  There's something so wasteful and sad about seeing this many dead trout . . . this many dead anything, really.

Words Today: 1242
Words In August: 19,586