I’m aging…

I’ve been fighting it, but I’m realizing that I’m getting old. I’m still keeping up with the small exercise I do. I write (here and other places) occasionally. I have my fingers in some political stuff, and I’m beginning to include national, as well as regional and local activities in church. (More on that to come, maybe, as they say “if the way be clear.”)

BUT, this past week I realized that I can no longer keep all the threads in my mind all at the same time.

As of Sunday, May 13th, I had the following things to do in the next two weeks (in no particular order):

• Function as Lay Reader for Sunday morning services every Sunday in May.
• Write three haikus for the poetry class.
• Prepare to facilitate a session of Great Decisions about Social Media.
• Manage last-minute preparations for the quarterly Presbytery meeting (I’m Moderator).
• Moderate the May meeting for Olympia Presbytery.
• Keep up with exercise.
• Go to two personal trainer session per week.
• Send texts about important political meetings and initiatives for People Power (the grassroots arm of the ACLU).
• Beta test a new texting platform for People Power.
• Send reminders for and attend the neighborhood Happy Hour held every Monday evening.
• Plant new flowers in my garden.
• Attend the Spring Tea at Franke Tobey Jones.
• Send Thank You notes to people who had important roles at Presbytery.
• Saturday night, the electricity went off for 4 hours and put my electronics in a state of hysteria.

Unbeknownst to me, my house was broken into on Monday the 14th while we were at Happy Hour. We didn’t discover it until early morning on Tuesday. That took a full day of dealing with the Police. Followed by a day of cancelling the credit cards which, while not stolen, could have been copied. Followed by a full day of contacting everyone who had automatic payments on the credit card to update that information once the new cards arrived (many thanks to USAA who had the new cards in my hands on Friday by next day FedEx).

Somewhere between cancelling the credit cards and updating all the information, while worrying about the Presbytery meeting and what on earth I was going to say in Great Decisions, I decided I need to just stop thinking about “everything” and concentrate on “the next thing.”

So if I’ve seemed distracted, or frazzled, or not present with anyone, I hope you can forgive me. I can only work on and worry about the NEXT THING. You may have to get in line.

April – 2018

Persevere is my Word for this Year.

Looking at where I am in my life, I really don’t want to take on anything new, but I do need to deepen my knowledge and commitment to the things I am doing.

• Politically – I’m going to persist in the resistance.
  • People Power – I continue to serve on the Texting Team for People Power. That means most days I send between 200 and 600 texts to people who have signed up with the ACLU People Power. Some of the texts are invitations to training for organizing. Some are invitations to organizational meetings, and some are invitations to write, phone, or email political representatives. They are all sent individually and answered individually (thank goodness, I have canned answers available – but we individualize everything as much as possible.) Remember, the ACLU is political but non-partisan. I am one of the texting leads on this team. There are four of us who try to take some of the burden off of the folks to do the real work of getting everything set up. We also TRY to deal creatively and nicely with other volunteers who may not be very understanding or kind.
  • Wall of Us – I continue to try to accomplish the four actions requested by Wall of Us every week. For instance, this week we are working to take the blue tsunami to Pennsylvania on May 15, keep the pressure on for a free and open internet, demand that congress pass legislation to protect Robert Mueller, and make sure my senator stands against Trump’s transgender military ban.
  • (I know I asked you to fuss at me if I took on something new but…) I’m attending resistance training with the New Poor People’s Campaign. We’ll see where that leads.
  • I’m also collecting signatures for a ballot initiative in Washington State, to tax carbon polluters and use the extra money to build more wind and solar power farms. It’s Initiative 1631, and I encourage all the voters in Washington who read this blog to sign the petition.

• Religiously – I’m going to really work at being Moderator of Olympia Presbytery.
  • March took off with a bang and a Leadership Council meeting early in the month to plan a Presbytery Meeting and discuss other business for the presbytery.
  • As Moderator, I welcomed and installed a new pastor to one of our churches in April. Greg Ikehara-Martin was called and installed at Long Beach Presbyterian Church. That church is in one of the remote corners of the Presbytery. It is arguably farther away from the center than any other church, but they are a faithful, welcoming group of people. It was a pleasure to be with them for the installation. They are also located (as the name implies) in a beach community, so their membership shrinks in the winter and blossoms in the summer. Big Al and I took the opportunity to take a mini-vacation and went down a day early and came back a day after. Unfortunately the weather was dreadful, but we enjoyed our time in a hotel, right on the beach.

• • Bethany is reading So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. I’m in a discussion group weekly.

• • Interfaith community – I continue to meet with the Interfaith Ladies once a month. This month the larger group that contains both men and women will gather for an Iftar.
  • New Worshiping Communities – I continue to serve on the Presbytery’s New Worshipping Communities Task Force.
• Creatively – I’m going to try to get down to working on my family history/memoir.
  • Fill in gaps on Ancestry.com – Still working on my genealogy (I don’t think it’s ever finished).
  • I’ve started a poetry writing course here at Franke Tobey Jones. Hopefully, I’ll be posting some of my poems here at this blog soon.
  • Keep up with my knitting – I’m turning out a couple of pairs of socks a week. So far this year I’ve turned out 32 pairs of socks and have yarn for 16 more.
• Personally – I’m going to keep up walking, and try to add some resistance training.10,000 steps a day –
  • I’m keeping up with this, but not being obsessive about it.
  • 2-3 sessions of weight training a week – I finally made an appointment for a personal trainer here and I now have appointments to do strength and weight training as well as my Fitbit steps.
• Socially – I’m going to tend my current relationships.
  • Gazebo Group – The Gazebo Group continues to thrive (particularly with the younger (less than 80 years old) members of the community).
  • Maintain congregational ties – I attend weekly Bible study and try to attend whatever extra worship services there may be. In May I will serve as Worship Leader on Sunday mornings.

I would really appreciate it if you, gentle readers, would remind me of these intentions when you see me fluttering off after the latest cause du jour.