5 Things that distract you from blogging (other than work, family or housework)

I’ve been blogging for more than 11-years — closing on 12 — and for most of that time, I was so absorbed in blogging, everything else was left in the dust. I didn’t read much. Although I maintained the house, cooked and paid all the bills, things like maintaining contacts with friends, even making simple phone calls got lost. It wasn’t just the writing. It was answering comments and trying to read all the other blogs. I was also 12-years younger when I started.

Don’t let anyone tell you that “age is just a number.” It’s a lot more than that. Between 65 and 76, one tends to have a variety of medical issues. With each passing year, we take longer to recover, longer to “pop back” to where we had been. Recovery doesn’t, as it turns out, much us younger. If it takes you a year to recover from something, your recovery doesn’t include getting back the missing year.

In early 2015, I had heart surgery. Two valves replaced, an implanted pacemaker, the carving out of a blocked ventricle and a bypass. Heart surgery unglued me. I’d been through other major surgeries, but I was younger. This one knocked me down for months. No writing, no photography. Garry and Rich carried the blog. I couldn’t do anything. So, I listened to Audiobooks and waited until I felt human again.

It took close to year until I felt almost okay, but I’ve never entirely come back. Among other things — like pain in places I didn’t know you could hurt — I lost a big hunk of enthusiasm. Who knew you could surgically remove enthusiasm?

Just about when I was beginning to feel like maybe I was a real person again — along came COVID and the lockdown.

The thing about aging is that there’s always something going on that you wish wasn’t, My lingering mild anemia hiked up to become bad enough to be life-threatening. The pain in my spine got worse and my ability to walk was even more compromised.

Some of these problems have been fixed. Two infusions of iron later and a lot of things that were wrong with me were righted. Who knew all that wheezing was related to a mad excess of eosinophils? Or that our family doctor would finally find a medication that could make a most of the pain in my spine disappear. Yet that intensity and energy I had for blogging has not come back. The lost years spent healing and waiting for lockdown to end are gone.

So on to the questions: What distracts me? I can’t leave out cooking because cooking takes up a huge amount of my day most of the year.

1. Shopping. Usually online and mostly for household stuff. We don’t have a lot of local shopping and never did. Moreover, I’m too tired to haul myself through malls when I can get it delivered to my door. I am not a fast shopper. I take my time, read reviews, check out multiple sources before buying.
2. Cooking. On an average day when we aren’t barbecuing, I often spend half a day on my feet in the kitchen. Since we pretty much never go out to eat, I have delved into creative cooking to keep from finding food too boring to eat. I not only cook for four people, I also cook for the Duke. It keeps him healthy. Feeding him people-grade food with additional vitamins costs less than a dozen cans of crappy dog food loaded with soy and “meat by-products,” whatever that is (better not to think about it). I make a lot food at a time and freeze it in quart containers. Each quart lasts between three and four days.
3. Games. I play bridge on the computer. I play solitaire. I play some other word games. Nothing complicated or involving 3-D equipment. It’s my “time off.” When I’m playing a game, I’m not writing, processing, editing, or cooking. I thoroughly enjoy doing nothing.
4. Birds, the Duke, photography, flowers. I feed the birds and also watch them. I love watching them “court.” Many birds are monogamous and they have wonderful courtship rituals. I spend time with the Duke and he repays me by licking my glasses. You know how hard it is to get dog saliva off your lenses? I take pictures of everything and then process them so I can post them. It all takes time.
5. TV and reading. A lot of the time I watch TV while I’m processing pictures. I can’t write and watch, but a lot of processing is just waiting for filters to do their job. But, sometimes I get hooked on a show and whatever I was planning to do doesn’t get done. I listen to audiobooks at night when I should be sleeping.

It takes time to read comments and other blogs. I can’t possibly read all the blogs I’m signed up for even though I want to read them. There isn’t enough time to even look at most of them. On top of that, I’m retired. I ought to have at least a few free hours every day. Instead, I lose half a night’s sleep so I can listen to a book.

I’ve posted 13,331 times, so it can be hard to come up with a fresh idea. I often have terrific ideas in the morning that fizzle before they get written. By the time I should be writing, I’m tired and the fizz has gone flat.

If only I could be healthy AND get back even five years. Just five teeny weeny years. Is that too much to ask?

Categories: #Blogging, #Flowers, #Photography, #Writing, Anecdote, Life, Word Prompt

Tags: #Photography, birds, Distractions, humor, Marilyn Armstrong, Salted Caramel