psst!

hey, you know that thing you like but you keep not doing because it seems like you just don't have time? i'm going to bet there's some other thing you're doing, probably just totally out of habit, that if you stopped doing this other thing, you'd have time to do the thing you keep not doing. and you feel bad about wasting time on the dang-nab-it habit thing and also about not getting around to the thing you like doing.

but there are two paths to contentment here!

numero uno is, duh, stop doing the habitty thing and use the time to do the thing you like. you probably already know this is an option, so why am even talking about it? the reason is ...

numero dos: maybe you're actually getting something out of the habitty thing, and you need to put some thinking time in so you can get a better handle on whether maybe it's actually okay to do the habitty thing at least some of the time. maybe you need to figure out, "do i really get some value out of doing this habitty thing? can i maybe start to think it's at least a little bit worthwhile?"

because lots of us have all kinds of slack-attack time-wasters, and we give ourselves grief over wasting all that time on them, usually because whatever we get out of them is totally momentary. 

but the big news is, it's all momentary, you know? that thing you like that you feel like is more productive or more worth doing ... it may produce some result or output that makes you think you've accomplished something, and maybe even that result is tangible -- something you can keep to remind you that, hey, you did the thing you liked, and it was productive.

but unless you keep it up, forever, sooner or later that tangible result is going to be sitting there reminding you, "nyaah, nyaah, you're not doing that thing you like these days, are you? what have you tangibled lately?"

the mindset of "this thing is not worthwhile because this other thing is more worthwhile" -- it's a trap sometimes. it keeps you from enjoying the little habitty time-wasters, and if you actually get some satisfaction out of wasting that time, sooner or later you're going to fall back into doing it, and then the cycle starts over again.

so what if instead of beating yourself up about not doing as much of the thing you like as you think you ought to, you decide, "you know what? i actually value this time-wastery maybe 10% as much as i value the other thing. i should appreciate the fact that i'm wasting time in an unproductive but low-grade satisfying way at least once in a while, because then i won't be dumping a bunch of negative energy on myself about not doing the thing i like to do."

because the dastardly part of the trap is, if you make yourself feel bad about wasting time, and you keep thinking you should be doing the thing you like, you're going to end up associating the thing you like with feeling bad!

and if you associate the thing you like with feeling bad, it's going to be harder to get yourself to put in the effort to do it.

so why not try thinking, "hey, this little time-wastery habitty thing is kinda chill and enjoyable at least in small doses, so i'm gonna go all-in on it when the time is right. and then when i've got a little more energy, i'll do the productive thing i really like. isn't that a win-win that lets me keep an even keel of the good feels more often?"

ymmv, but at least think it over instead of beating yourself up for wasting time.

xoxo,
claire

saved by crap-doodle technology!

this is a total silver-lining post, guys. i was sitting down to blog on our ancient macbook -- which is so old it constantly gets cranky and says, "yeah, you can't do that without updating the operating system. so sad for you," and then when we go to update the operating system it says, "whoa, this machine doesn't even have enough memory to hold an operating system update!" -- and it did a thing it's been doing the last few weeks, which is that blogger.com is finicky about recognizing stuff i want it to do if i'm using safari.

so i'd typed a title and a couple of lines, and then blogger gives me this message, "unable to update at this time." and then i smack a palm to my forehead and say, "dang-bob, why do i keep opening up blogger in safari now that they're not playing nice together? welp, time to switch to chrome."

and in the process of closing safari and opening chrome, i have enough time to decide, "i think i kinda hate this post i was working on. in fact, maybe i'm glad blogger and safari conspired against me to not save it." then i made up my mind i'd write this post instead, starting 2025 off with a positive tone instead of the i've-got-a-case-of-the-blahs one i was thinking about.

then i sign into blogger on chrome and find out it actually did auto-save my crud-post, but now i've made up my mind that one sucks, and this one will be a lot better. delete, delete, delete, delete! sorry, crud-post, you're outta here!

so number one, i ditched that meh blog entry, and number two, my technology wasn't actually screwing me over all that much, and number three, now we've got this post, which is much better.

(please don't leave a comment saying, "yikes, this one sucks rocks, so i'd hate to see how bad that other one was." it won't crush my spirit or anything, because i feel like i'm on a roll now and i could tough through it. but it would be pretty annoying if i got a comment like that when i hardly ever get any comments anyway.)

and look how freakin' long this post is!

i'm totally ruling over 2025. this year's going to be the best.

xoxo,
claire

uh-oh.

so i definitely feel like this bit where is spend the last half of every year posting gobs of wiffle-wafflery about "will-i-or-won't-i-beat-my-record" is getting kinda old. and i had that post about should i or shouldn't i do a new year's resolution ...

and just now i thought, you know, if i post every day of 2025, that will be it, right? i'll get right over the will-i/won't-i stuff because there won't be any room to beat that number.

of course, immediately i realized that was dumb, because duh, i could always post more than one post a day, so 365 is not in any way an airtight lid.

but it would still be a feat, right? and it would overshoot my previous records so much, the idea of breaking the record every year would seem pretty moot, right?

man, i wish i hadn't thought of that.

xoxo,
claire

should i try to come up with a new year's resolution?

i think i know an easy one, which would be making sure i remind the whole worthy yamily to get off our patooties about gaming. man, we slacked crazy-time the last part of this year, rpg-wise.

does a super-easy resolution really count, though?

i'm going to say, "you betcha!"

like, what's the point of making one, you know? to be ambitious just for its own sake? to leave you style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: -webkit-standard; text-size-adjust: auto;">i think any new year's resolution worth its weight in pixels ought to be designed to make you feel better about how you're doing. and i really mean the feeling part. it's way more about feeling than about the doing.

you shouldn't reach the end of the year and think, "yeah! i feel good about myself because i knocked it out of the park on my new year's resolution!"

you should think, "i feel good about myself because i did what i needed to do to make myself feel that way."

and honestly, doesn't an easy resolution that you mostly keep do a better job of that than a hard resolution that you're always stressing about whether you're keeping it?

anyway, we'll see if i come up with anything on top of my "more roleplaying!" one.

merry christmas!

xoxo,
claire

well, folks, we're getting really close!

this is post number 44 for the year! just two more posts and this will be the sixth year in a row i've broken my previous record for number of posts in a year.

should i be extra ambitious and see if i can post every day for the rest of the year and get to ... wow, that would be 52 posts for the year!

on the one hand, that sounds pretty awesome. or maybe just even getting to 50 posts, which is more of a milestone-y number than 52. (although i guess 52 is an average of one a week ... but, hmm, that actually sounds kind of lame, because one post a week, jeez, who thinks that's impressive? making it to 50 posts for some reason sounds more impressive to me than just scratching out a whole one post every seven days.)

on the other hand, the more posts i write this year, the harder it will be for me to break my record again next year ...

yeesh. the dilemma!

xoxo,
claire

we made ... a terrible mistake ...

everybody here at worthy acres has been riding a crazy manga wave the last month or so because msg keeps finding and buying these series. (i'm gonna say he's kinda sorta addicted, in fact. in a cute way.) mostly it has been a super-great time -- we've read a couple dozen manga volumes and only 2 of them have been lame.

but then msg found "the summer you were there."

and now we're all sobbing.

only 5 of the 6 books are out in english, but we read one a few days ago and then read the other 4 that are available today, and it's just ... well, it's so good the whole household is now emotionally crippled.

do not read this series without tissues.

and definitely don't read it before the sixth book is out and you can binge the whole thing if you end up liking it -- we're going to have to wait almost two months before it's published and we know how the story plays out.

agony.

whew.

oh, dang.

i really, really, really like to write thanksgiving posts on this blog, but somehow i end up forgetting to do it maybe more often than i remember.

this year ... totally forgot. like, even heading into thanksgiving, knowing i had decided to go for another record-breaking number-of-posts year, it didn't even tiptoe through the next room over from my brain. absolutely zero plan to write a thanksgiving post, and now here it is a couple of days later and i'm just now realizing i blew it.

but instead of beating myself up too much for it, here's my belated thanksgiving post, okay?

i am more thankful than i could possibly express for the six unbelievably wonderful people i share my life with: msg, elle, sasha, ariel, hettie, and akane. you can look in my blog link list on the left if you want a taste of what a delightful crew we've got around here ... hopefully it will inspire you to be equally wonderful for whoever is in your life, as opposed to making you writhe on hot coals of jealousy.

i'm also thankful for all kinds of great shows and anime and manga and music we've been deep-diving into lately: arcane and silo and frieren: beyond journey's end and bocchi the rock and my wife has no emotion and entirely too much yuri manga and band-maid and mutant monster and hanabie and on and on and on. (that last bit isn't the name of anything. probably there's no real worry someone's going to think "on and on and on" is the title of a show or manga or band, but i'd sure hate for someone to google search each one of the other parts of that list and recognize the total genius in every one of them, then google "on and on and on" and be super-frustrated that they can't find any shows or bands by that name. hmm. although i guess i should probably google "on and on and on" just in case it turns out there is a show or band by that name and it totally sucks. okay, going to do that now ... whew! the first few hits were just about lyrics for "we didn't start the fire" by billy joel and a wikipedia article about an abba song. not a big fan of that billy joel tune, but abba is cool, so i guess no harm no foul if someone googles it.)

i'm also thankful for ... you, whoever you are, reading this. (i mean, odds are you're just one of my yams reading this in the future, because hardly anybody else even knows about this blog, i think, but if you're not one of my yams, this paragraph is more specifically for you!) i really enjoy the idea that people might read things i have to say and find some entertainment or ideas or humor in them, so thanks gobs for stopping in and reading through this. you're the best. seriously!

lastly, i'm thankful for having a large, comfy bed, and people to share it with, because it's getting late here and i'm kinda pooped and there's nothing cozier and happier than snuggling up under the covers with someone (or several someones!) you adore.

xoxo,
claire