One Tough Cookie

Hello Baby Girl,

Right now, you are walking around the dining room with the battery-operated nail file. You love that thing. I was using it to file my nails and you started to get vocal with me because you clearly wanted the nail filer for yourself. You were rather upset that I continued to use the filer rather than giving it to you. But, I had just cut the nails on my left hand and had to file them down so that I could type you this letter. I cut my nails for you sweet dove. 

My left hand feels odd without nails, but I wasn’t able to type accurately with them, so I decided they had to go. Besides, now they’re the same length as the right hand nails, so I’m more symmetrical. 

Yesterday was your 2nd Halloween! I’ll admit, we didn’t celebrate. We didn’t dress you up. Part of me feels bad about that, like I ought to have done so for you. Another part of me thinks it doesn’t really matter. You don’t currently understand anything about the concept of Halloween, so any costume you wear would be for my sake, rather than your own. 

Besides, I’m already taking pictures of you just about every day of your life, so it isn’t as though you will have to wonder how cute you were as a baby. Why else would you care about wearing a costume for Halloween for the first few years of your life if not for the pictures you’ll get to see years down the road? 

You dropped the nail file on the tile floor, so I put it away (it was very loud when it fell). You were absolutely not happy about this move on my part. Oh, how you cried.

I know. You’re tired. The clocks were turned back today, so your body thinks it’s an hour later than the clocks say, and your demeanor shows it. 

Since you were fussy, I decided we should go brush our teeth. You enjoy brushing your teeth. It’s so adorable! As I brush mine, I give you your little toothbrush, after I run the bristles under water. You basically chew on the bristles with your front teeth for the duration, but I’m okay with that. You’re developing the habit of brushing your teeth, and that right now is more important than your form.  I’m sure your form will evolve to a more productive one as you get older and continue to practice the habit of brushing your teeth, so I’m not concerned. 

This past month we have started taking you out to the park to practice your walking.  We generally go to Memorial Park in Riverside, as it is across the street from Tutem Tea, where Papa and I really enjoy buying tea before we go for our walk. They have delicious fruit teas and boba milk teas. 

Yesterday, Halloween, was your first day ever walking on the grass! You’ve been on the grass several times, but you’ve been too afraid, it seemed, to take a step until yesterday. You started with crawling, then decided you’d had enough of getting your hands dirty, so stood up. You even gained some momentum in a half-run. 

Yesterday was also the first time you ever had a sucker. We sat you in the booster seat that clips onto the kitchen chair. Papa showed you how to eat it. You tried several times to take a bite, but it didn’t work. Then you figured out that you just need to put the sucker in your mouth and you get a good taste. We got pictures and a video (same with the walk on the grass!). 

Halloween was an eventful day for you, despite the fact that you didn’t dress up for the occasion. In addition to walking on the grass and eating your first tootsie pop, you also ran mouth first into my chair as I sat at the kitchen table working on Alison J Prince’s 0-$100K program. You hit yourself so hard that it knocked you off your feet and you hit your head on the tile floor. You started crying immediately and I picked you up, noticing your teeth were bloody. I gave you the breast to both calm you down and offer relief to your bleeding mouth. I couldn’t tell how bad the damage was, but didn’t think it was too bad. The blood stayed in your mouth, rather than being so profuse that it trickled out. 

In any case, after you calmed down with your milky treats, you refused to let me look in your mouth. I tried to open your lips to see whether you bit your lip or cut your gums, but you absolutely would not let me check. Your lips were sealed!  I saw a dark spot between your two front teeth, so think you may have cut your gum, rather than your lip. You seemed unfazed by the whole thing, rather than the immediate shock and pain of hitting both your mouth and your head within seconds of each other. 

You’re one tough cookie. 

Last week I was in a funk. It was so bad that I didn’t even fill out my calendar. I wasn’t in the mood to do anything. I felt so unproductive. I think it was due to politics. The Senate voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett as a lifetime Supreme Court Justice, just one month after Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and one week prior to the presidential election. It was a gut-wrenching decision for many reasons, but the most important being that Barrett is so conservative that most seem to project that she will overturn all the progress made for the LGBTQ+ community, as well as pro-choice legislation and several others. She’s an originalist, so thinks the country ought to be run as she personally interprets the Constitution to have meant when the founding fathers wrote it; never mind the fact that that was over 200 years ago. It’s depressing. 

So I gave up on life for a few days, or so it seemed. I was tracking how many hours I was working on productive things (Liberty Life Media, 0-$100K, etc.) and it turns out to have been my most productive week of the last five (since I started scheduling my days on weekly calendar printouts), by four times! The first two weeks I logged only seven legit hours. Last week I logged 28! I’ve been trending upwards in week 3-5, having started at seven per week for the first two. But 28?! Thank goodness I used a timer, or I would be looking back even right now thinking I did absolutely nothing all week! 

To be fair, I may have counted my time differently in week 5 than I did in weeks 1-4. In the first four weeks, I did not count any time that I had an appointment for, such as the weekly editorial meeting with Liberty Life, etc. I believe I did count those hours in week 5, since I just grouped them all together. So while 28 looks amazing in comparison, I don’t think the number tells the whole story. 

I could go back and recount the hours using the appointments as part of my productive time. Then I would have a more useful comparison to draw from. Perhaps I will. Most likely. It will bother me now, until I do it. 

In any case, I filled out this weeks calendar with my plans. I intend to dedicate a particular number of hours this week to the following activities:

Power Hour (where I just work through focused on one thing and get it done) – 1

Book Writing — 4

File Hour — 1 (already finished this…my week starts on Sunday)

Liberty Life Media — 4

Relationships — 1 (I’m counting this letter to you as fitting into this block for the week)

0-$100K — 4

Wondrous Babe — 4

Total: 19 hours 

Of the 19 hours, I will have completed two by the end of the night, so must finish 17 hours in five days. Before, I was averaging 15 hours per week. I’m trying to bump that up to 18 hours per week by changing how I approach my time. Instead of one hour blocks, I will work in two hour blocks. Also, different days will be dedicated to different projects. This way, I know what to expect in advance. Mondays, for instance, are dedicated to Liberty Life. Tuesdays are for Liberty Life and 0-$100K. This way I can get in the game and be more focused on it. 

I decided not to knock all of my hours for one item out on the same day. It doesn’t feel realistic to me, as I am energized by diving into multiple projects. But, may try that next week to see how it feels. Perhaps I’ll knock four hours of book-writing out on Wednesday, and knock four hours of 0-$100K out on Friday. There are many ways I can play with it, and I intend to continue experimenting. I’m rather enjoying the Alison J Prince Because I Can Life Journal pages. The design makes sense to me; I actually use it! Yay!

Of course, for now, I’m having to print out the pages, as I don’t actually have the journal. I’m hoping to be able to order it soon, though. 

I bought “The 4-Hour Chef” by Timothy Ferriss on Friday from Chamblin’s Bookmine on Roosevelt. I went in looking for the book “Ask” by Ryan Levesque, but they didn’t have it. When I saw that “The 4-Hour Chef” (a book I already wanted) was 671 pages and only $10, I couldn’t say no. I walked out only spending $4, since I had $6 in credit from turning in two other books the same day. I call that a success! 

I’m very excited about “The 4-Hour Chef.” I hope I am able to implement the lessons, increasing my ability to learn just about anything I want. He claims I could learn a language in three months…it sounds dreamy! I’ve been working on French for 20 years and still can’t hold a conversation…I need some of these language learning secret strategies in my life! 

I am determined to learn Spanish, though I have not begun training in earnest at this point. My focus is still making a steady income from an online business. Then I’ll move on to Spanish. 

Well, sweet Ayla, it is time for me to bid you goodnight (though as I type, you’re sleeping soundly in your room, as Papa helped you fall asleep half an hour ago).  I hope your dreams are lovely and your sleep is unbroken. 

I love you Pooh Bear!