It obviously goes without saying that the situation Ukraine is absolutely fucking horrifying and any and all of my trivial daily concerns vanish into insignificance in comparison.

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It’s been raining absolute buckets here over the past week.

February invariably means torrential rain and the inevitable leaks in ThePalace(OfLove) from new and exciting locations – and this year is no exception. Though “leaks” does seem a rather inadequate word to describe the large volumes of water pouring in through the ceiling.

After 9 years we’re pretty fatalistic and chill about it, and fortunately we have a fairly decent supply of old towels and buckets.

I’m always thankful at these times for our dithering about replacing carpets and ceilings from previous weather-related misadventures – at least that is an expense not expended!

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This week Don and I displayed quite atypical spontaneity – deciding we’d visit Joan in July and then booking flights within less than 24 hours. Switzerland and Germany here we come! Don now is enthusiastically brushing up on his rusty university German. I fully intend to let him do the all talking 🙂

I’ve been feeling very stuck of late in all kinds of arenas and hopefully this will give me the nudge I need for other things.

I find myself subconsciously pushing back against my self-imposed daily routines. In March I’ll try to be more about “here are some options for morning activities, pick one that you’re vibing with!” instead of “it is morning, you must walk twice around the cricket oval” – after two years that is getting a bit tired.

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This year I’ve started using an elderly version of MS One Note (from an Office 2010 CD!) as a kind of commonplace book and it has been a bit of a revelation.

I started looking for some sort of solution to controlling my dozens of open browser tabs – which I could never remember what were actually open for. I also was also struggling to remember where I’d read interesting snippets and to remember useful quotes.

In my searches for solutions I kept seeing mention of One Note and wondered if maybe I had a copy on an old CD, and indeed I did! And honestly, screw the latest and greatest cloud, subscription-based offerings, I just want basic, ancient functionality – even better if it is something I’d already paid for!

I’ve begun dumping all sorts of other useful items in there too – tracking purchases, things to buy, keeping receipts for tax, links to future classes, lists (so many lists), books read, new-to-me word meanings (tenebrous, anyone?) – it is very soothing.

All this organisation empowered me to review the samples of books on my Kindle – I had well over 50 on there! I’d read all the samples, but at this point couldn’t remember which was which and if I actually wanted to read any. So there was A Reckoning – and a much reduced “to read” list captured in One Note.

In the spirit, I also returned all of my unread library books and will be confining myself to a borrowing limit of two books – maximum. I’m guessing the piles of library books fulfilled some sort of hunter-gatherer or scarcity void. No more.

In retrospect those endless browser tabs and book samples and books was placing quite a lot of pressure on my poor brain to keep mentally organised. Thing is, until recently I had a mind like the proverbial steel trap, so this sort of thing came absolutely naturally. Perhaps my older brain is too full for new information, perhaps mid-50s brains work differently, perhaps it was ever-thus and I just didn’t realise.

This way feels much calmer.

Reader, I did not buy the pictured Japanese leather glasses strap for AU$90 – but I kind of wish I had.

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I’m very envious of the most excellent ganching who retired this week. Definitely hashtag-goals!

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