Last week I laid out three things to spend about 50 minutes a week doing. I did spend time on all of them but not quite the 50 minutes. In terms of reading the Bible, I suspect 50 minutes a week may be too much for me. I read a couple of pages a day (typically 2-3 chapters) and that takes me about 10 minutes. If I did that every day, I'd make the 50 minutes, but there are inevitably days when I am too tired. Trying to catch up doesn't work because I can't really absorb more than that. This week, I was still too worn out to do anything but sleep in my spare time. My total Bible reading time, therefore, came to maybe 35 minutes. Still, I didn't entirely blow this off, so I'll give myself partial credit.
I did listen to a tape that I don't think I'd listened to in over a decade. Namely, Jean-Claude Malgoire's "Dances of the Court and Villages from the Sixteenth Century." It was only about 31 minutes, however. It did remind me of how much I like early music. I'll note that the Library of Congress is having a lecture series on "Music and the Brain" this fall and some of the lectures touch on music history.
Finally, I am reasonably sure I spent more than 50 minutes on decluttering the study nook. However, a lot of that time involves finishing up dealing with the mail from the month I was gone. I still have one magazine to read, but I am, essentially, caught up on that chore. However, I have no shortage of older odds and ends to deal with.
I also did some other decluttering, in the form of listing several items on freecycle. Half of them went right off. Another one had some interest, but two people did not respond to my email. That doesn't count as a no-show, but it also diminishes the chances that I'll be willing to offer them anything in the future. I will relist other stuff in a couple of weeks, along with other things I have dug up to get rid of.
I'm also more or less caught up at work - or, I should say, as caught up as I ever get. I thought I was even back onto the right time zone, but I totally zonked out this afternoon. The problem with taking a 2 hour or so nap is that it then screws up my sleep schedule for several days. To further complicate things, there are things I want to do almost every evening this week. Can we please slow down the rotation of the earth?
Copyright 2008 Miriam H. Nadel