elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
elainegrey ([personal profile] elainegrey) wrote2010-03-09 07:32 am

Goals Check-In: Week 1 of 9 (Spring)

This morning i dreamt about being enslaved. It's been some hours since i woke, and i wish some of the details and emotional impact had faded, but i realize they haven't. I don't want to record or connect with the dream at all, though, just as i don't want to recall or connect with a dream some days ago about torture. It's odd for me to have emotionally intense dreams. I'm not sure i want to know what my unconsciousness is doing in the playground of human cruelties.

I've called TIAA-CREF to find out whether i'm forced to "take a disbursement." The letter says, "Now that the Plan has terminated, your interest in the [group, individual] contract is deemed to be distributed to you on a tax-deferred basis." The guy said the plan doesn't force me to take a disbursement. I'm trying to figure out if i can trust the guy's reading, or if i need to hire someone else to read the plan documents. Could i use the Employee Assistance Plan legal help for this? (A free-to-me thirty minute consultation.) First, get the plan documents and see if there's anything in English.

Yesterday i made a few Oversight calls and attended the reading group where we've begun reading _Plain Living: A Quaker Path_ to Simplicity by Catherine Whitmire. She writes in her introduction about her annual attempt to simplify her life with a "management by objectives" practice. While the annual practice seems very similar, i think i might be somewhat different than her discarded complications. I was a little challenged, though.

More challenged, though, i am by what i'm sensing as a Meeting frustration with My Way not being respected and Other People going on too much about Their Way. I want to wap people with a great big compassionate listening stick. However, "Stop it, you're doing it wrong," is rarely the right message. Last one woman reacted against a strongly theistic* phrase in the book. She shared her belief, which weakly theistic bordering on deistic. Having already considered this problem of listening beyond the words to the truth, i found this a teachable moment: i shared how i recognized that there are many ways we can explain how (in this case) listening to an "inner voice" is a better way to determine our goals in life than listening to what our culture tells us our goals should be: there is the "listening for my deity's will" frame, listening to find how my individual path can be aligned to a greater universal path, or recognizing the diversity in our species and how my combination of experiences and genetic inheritance might have a particularly authentic expression in an ethical way of living. M- P- said, "Oh, so you're more about practice than belief," which isn't entirely true: however, i believe the strength of our Meeting's community is shared practice not shared belief. The woman who reacted, though, seemed to really hear what i was suggesting: that there was a way of listening past a phrase that belies a frame we don't believe in and finding the part that's common to both.

* Theism, in general, being the belief that there is at least one divine being with and active involvement in the universe and the possibility of a personal interaction with a human. Deism being a belief that there is at least one divine being which does not intervene in the natural world.

Anyhow, time to putter with goals



0. time ------------------------

* Potential things to do:
** [2→1] Visit the Prel--- library (to get rid of books, sooner?)
** [1→?] Find a time to have brunch with St-- Mig-- (March?)
** [2→?] Time from work to attend Berkeley Statute of Anne April 9-10 ?
** [3→?] time aside for taxes and possible "war tax" protest
** [3→?] meeting retreat
** [3→?] wherecamp

I've taken lots of sick and vacation time. I hate taking more off work this time period, but i will want recovery time around the retreat and wherecamp, if i go. Prel-- library may need a wed afternoon off.

This morning i find my sense of priorities all shifted around from those i made up last week. I realize the priorities are really affected by my energy sense and less what my real values are.

The Prel--- library visit really ought to be top priority for decrufting and community reasons. Also, there's a loose plan to help one friend with her project and another loose plan to have dinner with a friend from my distant past. This requires a moderate investment in planning and a day's worth of energy.

I'll make an effort towards getting a date at the library this week.


1. SELF ------------------------
* incorporate more movement into my life
* finish strategy
* sketch out goals for coming seasons?
* need some sort of to-do experiment practice (just the calendar thingie & yams?)
no particular action, although the calendar thingie and daily yams seems like a practice i should really try to commit to.
2. F&F ------------------------
* call Grandmama once a month at least
* post things to Granddad once a month
* March: thank yous & spring/easter (Apr 4) notes
Thought about the spring/easter notes and caused a spin out

3. COM ------------------------
* -.Lib continue to focus on completing the review of donations,
cataloging new books, establishing process
* -.over continue coordinate committees. Next fall shift to something else?
* [creek] news gathering every month
Continued work on creek news and oversight. A little on library.

4. WORK ------------------------
* write one story about my work history each month,
good or bad, unresolved, proud moment. 12 months, twelve years.
* [as time? 03, 07, 08?] books picked out by the reading group in the home office
** March http://brevity.org/misc/bestswi.html
** April (on hold at MVPL) Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day
* performance appraisals
** Feb H-C
** Apr B-B
** Apr S-E
No action

5. CRT ------------------------
* crochet
** mom's apron for mother's day
** Christine's gloves
* painting the 4x4 meditation painting?
* April is National Poetry month: He1icopter Stories?
No action: carried the gloves to the reading group last night but did not work on them

6. HOME ------------------------
* Meeting donation once a month
* Plan when to give to Save the Bay, Sierra Club, other orgs with Christine
* box all CDs in CD boxes from moving (organized as can be done)
** my job is to alphabetize
* craig's list the shelves
* DECK
** clean -- how? how much?
** new plants?
* Spring decor
* Beltane decor
Began alphabetization, maybe 1/5th? (less)