Some Progress but Nothing to Write Home About
I went on a trip out of town to see my sister for a week. The intent was to pull an article every day there. This was my goal and it failed miserably, having put out three. That time there turned out to be the most disruptive, full of distractions and to say the least, very exhaustive.
This was no vacation!
It is a wonder I got what I did out, but none of it has had the SEO nor SM applied to them. Instead, being trapped there with no place to go without transportation, had to deal with all kinds of commotion - a teen-age niece with behavioral problems, going from one annoyance to the next, to the next, a mobile home full of fleas, hot, and worst of all - my sister and her daughter drinking every night, and the kind of stupid behaviours one would expect from drunk people! This rubbish went on every night, way past midnight, arguing, loud stupid talk. With the daily regimen of a troubled teen, two large dogs, the fleas, then winding up sleeping part of the day because of the drama and commotion, yelling, then the dogs barking at the yelling...
My last night, I got so fed up with this, I had to be held back from walking the 14 miles to the train station. I had to be at the train station by 10:30 am next morning, and once again, the wine began flowing in the late afternoon - to the same thing - up most of the night drinking. I was going to get to that station if I had to start at 2 am and get there on foot. Fortunately, I figured out the city buses and that's how I got there.
I did make some progress during the trip during the rare quiet times that I did have.
Nope! This isn't going to happen again. I love my sister, her daughter and the teen-age niece, but this was a total disaster. Oh how much of a relief it was to come home to my quiet apartment! I don't know where my head was at thinking I would be able to double my efforts by going over there for a week. Yep - the image does tell part of the story. They do have to keep buying new wine glasses! I've seen more than one drink wind up on the floor amidst broken glass!
That morning, before daylight, I went around and found all the wine in the house and dumped it all down the drain. They would not know about it until after I was long gone, mua-ha-ha! I'm sure I will hear about it but it will be through the Internet.
LOL!
I am behind on other important business and, after a day of rest, I have been getting it done. Saturday (today) will also be taken up by this, but I will be back on track, hopefully by the end of the day and go back to where I left off.
I have LOTS of articles to write, and some serious internal linking to do, not to mention a number of other things regarding the Challenge.
[LOL! Image didn't come out right. Fixing that...Fixed.]
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I guess that is why the saying always goes, "you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family". Sorry to hear it was such a rough week for you. I remember on one of my journeys across the internet, there is such a thing as silicone wine glasses. They don't have stems, but maybe that is a future gift for your sister and family, no more broken glasses. :-)
I hope they never discover silicone wine glasses. Maybe enough shards of glass in the feet will help them break the drinking habit. Such a pipe dream isn't it? LOL!
Well welcome home ! Thank goodness we can get back on the right track ! Choo Choo!
May we all prosper !
Reality is never fun, it just might be the slap on the back of the head to make you understand that you are making progress, Sometimes just putting one foot in front of another is all the progress we are capable of at the moment.
Run your race, know that sometimes I let other people's goals become mine. It has taken a while, but am finding mine. Now my goals are easier to meet because they are mine.
Blessings,
Sami
Working on government-related homework now, which is now a couple days late, but getting through that.
Yes, I find myself fortunate I was at least able to get some of my writing done. I was on the phone with my sister when on the broken train. The name of the train is "Silver Star 91" I told my sister that the Silver Star will tarnish before it begins to roll down the track. Others hear me say this and laughed.
Hi Daniel. Sorry to hear that your "vacation" was so bothersome. I hope you manage to get back on track now that things have calmed down a little! Alanna
I didn't mention that the train was an hour late, then we sat in Kissimmee, Florida for two more hours because the locomotive was broke down. The passengers took it all in stride, at least in the car I was on since there was no air conditioning and the toilets do not work without power.
As soon as the train reached Tampa and I got off, started feeling rain drops. By the time I got to the bus stop shelter just 50 yards away, I got soaked by the ensuing downpour. Once on the bus, the rain let up by the time I reached the transfer station, but by the time I got off the second bus near my home, got another soaking and wound up trapped under the eaves of a restaurant.
Yes, once inside my apartment and the door closed, I realized just how peaceful and serene it actually is here!
I don't like alcohol. It has caused a lot of problems in my family since I was very young. At 2 years old, my drunken father dropped me down a flight of stairs and I came out of that with a crushed vertebrae and broken collar bone.
LOL! It hasn't been the same since, but I'm still here 55 years later. I was disappointed with that trip. It set me back and I don't like being around drunken folks.
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Hey Daniel, good to see you here, but sorry to hear of your troubles on your vacation...yeah, it seems like the plans we make to get things done end up getting derailed at times, I know it happens to me more often than not.
Unfortunately, we can only choose our friends, and not our family...it sounds like you did them a favor though just before you left, lol. Now, I like a glass of wine now and then, but not to that point like it sounds they were...
I guess they might not be too happy with you at first once they see their wine is all gone, but someday they just might wake up and realize that you did it because you care...sometimes it takes something a bit drastic to get the point across, so who knows, maybe it'll be a start to a wake up call for them.
That kind of situation would be hard for anyone to work in...plus, for myself anyways, I'd have a hard time getting even one done while gone somewhere, I'd be so distracted just by a change in surroundings, LOL! At least you got three done, which isn't bad at all in one week, at least in my book.
Anyways, I guess I should get a few more things done here and get to bed, speaking of things to get done...got a long day and a long list of things to do both online and off tomorrow since I'm on vacation as well right now. Funny how vacation time can get so tiring at times isn't it, lol! Bah, never mind tomorrow, today has come and gone already...
Good to hear from you, and I have to agree...yeah, there's no place like home!
Keep on keeping on my friend,
Best wishes :) ~Sherry
Last year I was far more successful with getting things done there because I used my niece's desk in her bedroom where I slept in a spare bed in there.
With this in mind, I went there and immediately discovered that my niece had moved her desk to the foot of her bed, which allowed her room enough to sit at the desk, but for me, about four times her size, no way! I had all to do to pass by the desk & chair and her bed, and had to move the chair away from the desk inorderto pass by to my bed, which I could not use either because the cheap mattress on it, offered no support and made my back and shoulder sore.
Consequently all my work had to be done in the living room. No way! Couldn't be done. Not to mention, I got behind on everything else as well and am now working on that these first few days back home.
I have not heard anything about the wine yet, but I probably should not have done that since this was not my home to have done that. There were no full bottles, just glasses of undrank wine which they may or may not have dumped out themselves. Maybe they don't even know they left those. They were full, or nearly so.
This isn't going to happen next year.
In spite of what happened, I did have some good times with them, but all during the times they were not drinking.
I stay away from smoking and drinking. I don't get into the rubbish they watch on television, I hate the commercial advertising and the absolute rubbish that provides me no value whatsoever. In this regard, I like documentaries and educational television. In that case, I don't even watch television at all. I've lived here for seven months now and have not yet hooked my television up to the antennae. I listen to music (mostly classical these days) but will listen to just about any musical genre except modern dance, hip hop, rap, and that kind of junk.
I can't afford insurance nor medical treatments, and my only alibi is to stay away from the vices, which eats holes in one's body and mind.
I am distracted very easily. Thinking I would get anything done there was a pipe dream. In fact, little did I know it, I discovered to my dismay, that I wrote an article that I had already written back in March. I now have two versions of the same article! That was a total waste, and as far as getting anything done on that trip - that was it! So basically, I made no progress at all!
So good to be home!
Yeah, it can be hard to get things done especially with noise and distractions going on around you, especially when right there in the midst of it in the living room. I hear ya there!
My desk is off in the corner of our living room, and although it's a pretty large room, it doesn't help when the TV is yapping and kids are running through. At least our dogs have settled down a lot, so they don't usually bark too much anymore unless it's someone they don't know.
The TV I can tune out easily since it's behind me in the room, and I usually keep headphones on for the most part, listening to music or podcasts, as I'm working on things. There are very few shows I watch once in awhile, I just don't have the time for it, so I might watch an hour at the most just before bed time, but often end up falling asleep within 20 minutes anyways, lol.
Anyways, I'm hoping in the next 2-3 months we'll be in our new home...we'll be moving next to my dad's, and the home we're putting there will hopefully work out much better in where my "office" of sorts will be...at least that's my plan for the extra bedroom, my office! Plus, there it'll be just my dad and brother as neighbors...so no noisy neighbors to deal with either.
It'll be smaller than what we have now, but at least everything is on one floor. It's just been too hard where we are now, to keep running back and forth to my 84-year-old dad's home to check on him when my brother is gone to work. Although my dad is in pretty good shape for his age, we still worry.
At least you had some good times with them also and the trip wasn't totally bad...and, try not to beat yourself up on it Daniel, you did your best to do what you could accomplish. That's much more than many do...a lot of people think "vacation time" when they go on any kind of trip, so it's time to do nothing and not even attempt working on things.
Yeah, I agree, it's always great to get back home!