Tag: #GoodHabits

  • Halfway Through Summer

    I know for some of you out there, you are in the final stretch of Summer, and I have even seen some of my friends back in Texas talk about their kids starting school in a week or two. But for us up here, we are at the half way point; only five weeks and a handful of days left before school starts up again.

    I’m not going to get into all the craziness of schools opening up, as I feel I will be writing about that the closer we get to that date.

    What I was struck by was how fast it is going, which is good, and that I need to start thinking about the planning that comes with school on the horizon. School supplies and clothes shopping, and I think we need to get a winter coat for the kid this year.

    Today, the kid and I are going to do what my mother did for me when I was little and on summer vacation, which is go to the library and check out books. This will be the kid’s first visit to our local library, and I hope there is a way for her to get her own library card. Going to the library was always something fun I remember doing with my parents, and I hope I can pass that love of being around books to the kid.

    Five weeks to go, and lets’ see what fun we can have.

  • Reading Challenge for Fall

    The one thing that I am really sucking at right now is reading books. I mean, I do read, but with everything going on, I have not been consistent. And what I am reading right now is the news, and news related publications. I used to read before I would go to bed, but now, I’m exhausted and overwhelmed at the end of the day, and I just zone out with stupid TV, and fall asleep.

    I know that is no excuse, as reading needs to be a habit. Or at least that’s what I tell the kid. Yeah, I’ve turned into a “Do what I say, not what I do” parent.

    Then the other day, a writer friend posted that she was going to use the Fall to immerse herself in the work of a writer that she should have read, but for whatever reason never got around to. I thought that was a very intriguing challenge, being that there are so many great writers that, for whatever reason, I never get around to as well. The first name that popped into my head was John Cheever. I know a good deal about Cheever, but I have never read a word of him, not even a short story.

    I think for my mental well being, I have to have a goal attached to my actions, no matter what the action. This will be the Fall of John Cheever. I want to see how much of his work I can read. It’s like I am trying to make 2020 the year of accomplishing. It just might be the only control I can exude over my life right now.