I enjoyed my time during the "on duty" days but I looked forward to the off duty days as well. Bike rides and beach walks quickly became my exercise of choice
rather than driving to the public pool to swim
(since I did not see the need to drive away from the beach and pay for exercise
when the options were so great right at home).
The campground is 1.5 miles from end to end, and all that distance
plus another 1/2 mile to the south and 4 miles to the north ( at low tide)
is accessible at beach level. I designed several routes to walk the beach
depending on the time of day, the time I had available and the tide situation.
Most often during these beach walk:
- my thoughts turned first to all that occurred during my life with Mike
- before migrating to what I should be doing now and what will I be doing in the future - my Plan B.
Here is an outline of my Walk, Remember, Plan, Take Action process...
Household Organization: I got the kitchen up and running, made some housekeeping adjustments to the storage areas ( I am still purging unnecessary items and rearranging others to make efficient use of my space) and got caught up with personal bookkeeping.
Taking note of what I am doing now: I created a time tracking file in EXCEL and began recording the time I spent in each 24 hour period time. I set a time goal by day but did not look at the over/under budget totals until the end of each week. I was particularly interested in keeping track of the activities I did not want to eliminated from my life:
- Sleeping - a goal of 8 hours per day was rarely achieved but I'm getting better
- Eating - this includes menu planning, cooking and cleaning. The primary goal is to cook regularly to have healthy food to eat now and also provide leftovers so there is always SOMETHING good to reheat in the refrigerator. The secondary goal is to shop wisely so as to
- not waste any food. I rarely went out to eat unless it was for social reasons.
- Knitting - I usually saved this for the evening hours while watching TV or movies, but in February I recorded the Winter Olympics prime time tv programing, and watched almost the entire event in date order - I fast forwarded through commercials, but there was so much programming it still took me an extra five days to get to the closing ceremonies. .
- Exercise - It is a fun 4 mile walk south to Encinitas or north to Carlsbad along the beach at low tide resulting in a tour through town for rest and refreshment then a city bus ride back home. I also enjoyed bike riding. It is 14 miles round trip to San Elijo state park where I would go to visit with other camp host friends working there in our sister campground. It is a short 5 minute bike ride to the shopping center where I go for groceries and mail. I like the bike ride experience for these routine errands much better than taking the car. Added bonus - I cannot carry too many groceries on the bike, thus satisfying my goal of not buying more food than I need at any one time.
- Spanish - I think I have about an early elementary proficiency level now. A little bit of study and practice every day is the goal.
- Recreation - different than exercise, this category includes relaxation ( naps, reading doing nothing) and socialization with others
- Home chores - cleaning, improvements, utilities, etc. This category is not my favorite, and not my strong suit, but it definitely deserves a (small) place in the weekly budget.
- Camp hosting - this is my "work" now, and I am considering whether this time can or should be replaced by work that pays.
- "other" - the category I rejected as an expense account when in the accounting business, but necessary when documenting my personal time because I wanted the act of recording my time to be a successful project, and when thinking of 24 hours a day in 15 minute increments it is nearly impossible to identify every 15 minute period. (note as of this writing in May: I am still maintaining this time sheet file, and I really like the information it gives me).
Looking forward to the future:
In March I started planning what I would do when my time in Carlsbad ended this year because when I arrived here I had no specific plans beyond April. It is important for me to plan ahead, since I need to know where I am going to sleep each night.
Camp hosting is a good option because in addition to the social community it provides, it allows me to stay put in one spot for at least a month. Host volunteer coordinators plan months into the future to cover their work needs, so planning ahead is important - a host cannot just "show up". I was able to get an August and September assignment at a new-to-me state park near Salem Oregon.
I did not want to fill my summer with camp host assignments is because I was waiting to see what my two sons and their wives were going to do.
When I learned that a baby Brynne sighting (along with Curt and Sarah, of course) in the US was not in the cards this summer, I thought maybe I could make plans to visit Mexico again to give my Spanish speaking muscle some exercise. When I learned that grandbaby number two is expected from Eric and Claudia this coming October, the date planning came in to focus and I could see my schedule all the way through to the bend of 2019. Here the outline. lets see how it actually unfolds.....
May 2018. Home base
June-July 2018. Mexico
Aug-Sept 2018. Camp Hosting in Oregon
Sept-Jan 2019 being Grandma in Oregon
Feb -April 2019 camp hosting in Carlsbad
May 2019. Home base
June-July 2019 Being Grandma in England
Aug-Nov camp hosting in Oregon
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