It’s not the wall. I’ve hit the wall on a long bike ride in the Dandenongs. Nothing a fistful of raisins couldn’t solve.

This is just a wall. One of many walls I’ll encounter along the way. This wall was made out of house guests from Australia, a greyhound that nearly crashed after a dental, a dad whose “let’s see” surgery ended up being “let’s get this lobe out”,  and all of this with a house full of hounds (mine, two fosters, and a doggie-sit) and more coming (and going) as friends travel.

I quit being able to think. I opened up a project and just stared at it. I would have been more familiar with Russian. I do not see any reason beating myself up over this. I could stare at the screen for another hour and get nothing done, or I could acknowledge that I have enough on my mind and come back another day and make something worth committing to GitHub. I chose to wait.

It’s not that easy to return from chaos, though. The good habits I was building have crumbled. It’s as though I was on a vacation and left my work behind. A real shit vacation. Think bad cruise with salmonella and no working toilets. And pirates. And flying sharks.

I spent two days working on a new plan (revamped, not really new). This time around, I’ve budgeted time for reading, needle work (embroidery and knitting, not heroin), and exercise. I’m ahead of the game with exercise. I’m cycling and/or running every day, and if I don’t have time for a long ride, I make sure I cycle when I commute and take the long way home to make up for it if the chore is too close. Today my chores were only 1.5 miles away, so I added a 9-mile loop to make up for it.

Tomorrow I’ll see if this new plan works. No. Tomorrow I’ll just do it. If it’s not perfect, I’ll see how Wednesday is. I’ll figure this out. I’ve done harder things. I’ve had bigger walls. Assess, tweak, wake up the next day and begin again. Aways, we begin again.