Category: On Life

Posts about family, work, life, existential dread… the usual.

September Write Day: Return to Normalcy… I think

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On LifeLeave a comment

School has officially started, and at least one of our neighbors has already started preparing their Halloween decorations. We need to start planning ours.

We took our boys to Boston and Salem just before school started, a much-needed trip that was hectic, but enjoyable. We rode the train from Baltimore to Boston (and overall had a positive experience), toured Boston for a couple days, visited the Lego Discovery Center (our four-year-old’s favorite part of the entire trip), stayed in Salem for a few days, and had dinner with an old college friend and her family.

Now we’re figuring out our school-year routine and making plans for the autumn, primarily in our garden and cleaning out the house before we’re inundated with new toys for Christmas. I’m not ready for any holidays, but I’m glad September has arrived.

Last Month’s Goals

  1. Finish three books.
  2. Survive until the start of school.
  3. Enjoy our last big trip for the summer.
  4. Try to exercise and stretch.

Finish three books?

I finished the final book in Manda Scott’s Boudica series, Dreaming the Serpent Spear, which I obviously reviewed already, because it was fantastic. That’s it. I’ve made some good headway on another novel, which I’m excited to review, for very different reasons.

I’m doing alright on my Goodreads reading challenge: 13 of 24 books completed; less ambitious than last year, which has turned out to be a good thing. I’ll need to finish almost three books per month to hit it by the end of the year. Time to find some shorter novels on my To Be Read list.

Survive ’til school & enjoy our last trip?

Success! See above.

Try to exercise and stretch

Success! After aiming low and just trying to figure some basic stuff I could do for August, I ended up picking a couple of calisthenics type exercises to do after my main stretching routine. These I counted as 10 minutes of “stretching” in my fitness tracking app, just to make it easy to count up how many times I did it.

10 times throughout the month of August, plus one brief weight-lifting session in a hotel fitness room, and a whole lot of walking on our trip.

The brief stretching/resistance routine has definitely helped me feel like I accomplished something on those days. What’s missing is longer yoga sessions or weight-lifting sessions.

But progress is progress, and with a more normal routine at home, I feel like I can make some more happen this month.

Goals for September

  1. Finish three books.
    • Current reads: I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole; A Promised Land by Barack Obama; The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Alan Poe, by Edgar Alan Poe and Benjamin Franklin Fisher (editor)
    • Likely next reads: The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar for fiction. I’m not close enough to finishing Obama’s memoir to consider my next nonfiction read.
  2. Stretching & exercise. I’d like to continue with this basic stretching and resistance routine just as a filler for my busier or lazier days. What I need to work back in is longer yoga or weight-lifting session. I’m thinking 20 minutes at minimum, twice per week.
  3. Organize around the house. Build shelves in my shed and get shit off the floor. Get rid of old clothes and toys we’ve collected. Organize the new shelf in the basement.
  4. Community resilience. I’ve alluded to this and related themes in many of my haiku of late, but it’s been pressing on my mind all year. I need to find ways to contribute more directly and proactively in my community. I know there are lots of options out there, so I think I just need to pick one and start doing it.

Steve D

August Write Day: Nearly There

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On LifeLeave a comment

Our summer took an unexpected turn when our oldest son, through absolutely no fault of his own, was kicked out of daycare. The daycare messed up and had too many kids for the summer.

We’ve been scrambling to find things for him to do during the week for a month, and we’re now just two weeks away from the start of his schoolyear. I have never in my life been this excited for school to start.

We have one more family trip ahead of us, which is greatly needed for all of us, perhaps most of all just to break us out of our week-to-week schedules for some quality time.

Last Month’s Goals

  1. Finish three books.
  2. Small acts – Exercise.
  3. Small acts – Writing. 
  4. Continue daily meditation/affirmation.

Finish three books?

I finished two books in July. I’ve already reviewed Boudica: Dreaming the Hound by Manda Scott here, and I finished Star Wars Legends Collection: The Empire, Vol 1 what feels like ages ago. That was not my first entry into Star Wars comics, but I appreciated the deeper focus on Vader and his conflicted state of mind in the early years of the Empire.

I don’ think I’m ready to jump head-first into the vast back-catalogue of Star Wars comics and novels. It’s too much to even think about wading through, to be honest. However, I have enjoyed the smattering of stories I’ve picked up as one-offs.

Perhaps I will take a similar tack with the Warhammer 40,000 novels. I had tried to get into The Horus Heresy series some years back, and found it overwhelming in its lore depth.

Small acts – exercise, meditation, writing?

Not much to say in any of these categories. I’ve been active in different ways, but no real routine to speak of.

I think I’ve done okay with posting haiku each Sunday, mostly. I’m starting to think that until I really start writing fiction again, I will probably stick to book reviews for my Wednesday posts.

I would like to start writing regularly again. I’ve just been pre-occupied. My sons have started playing video games a couple times per week – Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Mario Kart 8, primarily. This has reignited my love for casual gaming, so that has been my hobby of late.

No regrets. It just means I’ve spent evenings doing that than almost anything else.

I will have some downtime while we’re traveling for our upcoming trip, and I’m optimistic that I can write in my journal a bit.

Goals for August

  1. Finish three books.
    • Current reads: Boudica: Dreaming the Bull by Manda Scott; A Promised Land by Barack Obama; The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Alan Poe, by Edgar Alan Poe and Benjamin Franklin Fisher (editor)
    • Likely next reads: No idea.
  2. Survive until the start of school. It will be camps for us next summer.
  3. Enjoy our last big trip for the summer. We’re taking the train to Boston. It will be the boys’ first real train ride, so we’re excited.
  4. Try to exercise and stretch. I stretch just about every day. Still looking for the right motivation to exercise consistently.

Steve D

July Write Day: Carry On

On By Steven D'AdamoIn Fantasy, On LifeLeave a comment

Only when I looked for my last goals post to prep this one did I realize I didn’t do any goals post for June. It’s been a busy few months with work (always busy), family matters, the school year ending, and our first proper vacation this year. So, apologies.

But, we’re here now.

Last Month’s (May/June) Goals

  1. Finish three books.
  2. Small acts – Exercise. Bare minimum: stretch and meditate every day, and if I do any of the following in addition, that’s ideal.
  3. Small acts – Writing. Bare minimum: get back to posting here every Wednesday and Sunday, and not just haiku. Achieving some combination of the following throughout a given week is ideal.
  4. Continue daily meditation/affirmation.

Finish three books?

Alright, I said May/June at the top, but I only finished three books total between those two months. I completed Dreaming the Eagle and Dreaming the Bull, books one and two of Manda Scott’s excellent Boudica series. I’ve already reviewed the first and have yet to post the review for the second.

I also finished We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I did not conduct a full review of this book, and will not, because it deserves every reader’s attention as one man’s (the author’s) experience and work on racial injustice in the United States during the eight years of Obama’s presidency. Even though the featured essays were originally printed in 2008-2016, and the volume was published in 2018, it is entirely relevant today and will continue to be so.

Small acts, exercise?

I exercised seven times in May and five times in June. I did not explicitly count a ton of activity during the week we spent at the beach. I made it a point to be active each day, running around with my boys, swimming in the waves or the pool, and just all around enjoying active playtime with them.

I haven’t been to the gym in a few months, and I still find it hard to find the motivation, even as I try to exercise at home a few times per week.

Small acts, writing?

As you can see, I have not been specifically active in the writing space of late. However, I had a bit of a writing revelation recently. Most of this year, I’ve been agonizing over what to do with my duology, whether it’s “ready” to pursue for publication or not.

I kept thinking that just by getting it out there, I’d figure out what comes next. But there are more stories I want to tell around these characters, and I already have a framework to do so as a third novella.

So while I don’t have a whole writing plan laid out, I have at least made the mental decision to write a third part, make this a trilogy, and round it out in a more fulfilling way. When and in what form publication comes is a question for a future day.

Goals for July

  1. Finish three books.
    • Current reads: Boudica: Dreaming the Bull by Manda Scott; A Promised Land by Barack Obama; and Star Wars Legends Collection: The Empire, Vol. 1 by John Ostrander, Randy Stradley, W. Haden Blackman, et al.;
    • Likely next reads: I’m halfway through book three of the Boudica series and will definitely pick up book four. This series is excellent.
  2. Small acts – Exercise. Bare minimum: stretch and meditate every day, and if I do any of the following in addition, that’s ideal.
  3. Small acts – Writing. Bare minimum: get back to posting here every Wednesday and Sunday, and not just haiku. Achieving some combination of the following throughout a given week is ideal.
  4. Continue daily meditation/affirmation.

Steve D