Several years ago, I made a 1-page printable writing plan tracker to keep up with weekly goals, to-do’s, and daily writing progress. And by daily writing progress, I mean anything that helps move your writing goals along: number of words or pages written, research done, submissions made, posts finished and uploaded, etc.
Although that blog post with the printable is still here on the blog, I’m offering the printable again. A new year can mean a recommitment to writing goals, so it seemed like a good time to revisit the planning sheet.
It’s a one-page .pdf file that’s free, there’s nothing to sign up for, and it’s yours if you feel it might be helpful to track your writing goals and progress. Just download the file for the paper size you want to use, and then print it as many times as you need. It covers one week at a time, but it’s not dated.
The first anniversary of my mother’s death and the first anniversary of our calico Chloe’s death both came recently, and I found myself looking back at the ways I’ve tried to deal with these life transitions and grief over this past year. It’s been difficult – and continues to be — so I use the various things I know to do (several of them I’ve discussed in this blog) to try to move through the days.
A month or so after Chloe died, we decided to put together a paperback book of some of our favorite pictures of her. Using the book feature offered from Google Photos, we spent time going through the many (many!) photos of her to narrow down the ones to include in the project. Once the order was placed, the book was shipped fairly quickly… and we were very pleased with how it turned out.
In addition to the book of some of Chloe’s photos, we also created a small space on the mantle where we put photos of all five cats who have shared our lives. And doing these things led us to think about getting a digital frame, something we’d never seriously considered before.
A dear friend of mine had been given a digital frame a couple of Christmases earlier, and she and her husband enjoyed it so much they decided to have more than one. The times of hearing her discuss their frames must have planted the seed in my mind. But it wasn’t until after getting Chloe’s photo book and putting together the little mantle display of all the cats, that the seed took root.
So we got a digital frame.
And we love it.
Thanks to the convenience and ease and speed of taking digital photos, we have more pictures of Chloe than the other cats, but we made sure to include plenty of photos of the other four too. (As you can see from the pictures below, Chloe wasn’t our first calico kitty.)
The frame remains heavily weighted to feline photos, but we’ve also added pictures of family members, our wedding day, other special occasions and happy memories and favorite places, some scenic pictures that we enjoy seeing again, and even a few photos of my paintings. Many, many of the originals came from pre-digital decades, so this process has meant going through our photo collection and doing quite a bit of digitizing. The results haven’t always been perfect, but that’s okay.
The result we wanted is the result the frame has brought us – smiles and memories and a help with the grief of loss.
Because there have been so many losses.
All of the cats are gone. Most of the family members in the photos are no longer with us. Some of the places in the pictures are places we’ll never see again, whether it’s because we (or our families) no longer live in those homes, or because the locations are ones we probably won’t be able to visit again.
It’s because of all of the losses that I had some concern that the digital frame might actually make things more difficult. That it would be a sharp reminder of the grief without easing it. That it might cause the pain to be even worse. And I think it’s important to keep in mind that it could turn out like that, so if having a digital frame causes you more pain than ease, it might not be the right time (or the right thing) to help your grief.
For us, though, the digital frame has been a help. We keep it on a kitchen counter where we see it often throughout the day. It’s not unusual for us to stop and spend some time looking at whatever photo has randomly appeared, and we remember the good times and the love and the cats and the people.
It has helped me feel even closer to all those who are no longer present on this earth. It has helped me handle the grief.
The frame is only a holder, of course. What helps is seeing the photos. But due to the nature of the digital frame, it keeps the photos part of our day-to-day life in a way they normally wouldn’t be.
The grief isn’t gone, and I still very much miss every cat and every person who isn’t here anymore.
As I’ve talked about in my last couple of posts (here and here), I’ve been really diving into creative activities to help me with stress and anxiety.
Something I’ve recently returned to, after many years away from it, is crochet. My mother taught me to crochet when I was in elementary school, and although I’ve never tackled anything fancy – I’ve kept to simple patterns for the scarves and throws and afghans I’ve made over the years – it was something I enjoyed.
I’d pick it up for a while, make one or a few things, then put it aside for long stretches of time. And because crocheting had started to irritate an old neck injury, when I last put it down a few years ago I wasn’t sure I would ever return to it.
But recently, after hearing a good friend discuss some crochet plans, I unexpectedly had the itch to crochet – even if all I did was make stitches without actually making a thing. It felt like it would be calming and meditative and helpful for me.
So I got out one of my crochet hooks, looked through my limited stash of old yarn, and gave it a go, simply making a long string of stitches.
Immediately, I realized my hunch had been right – it did feel calming and meditative and soothing. It gave me another distraction from worry and anxiety. It gave my hands something to do while I listened to an audio or had a show playing in the background.
Soon, I realized I wanted to do more than a long string of single stitches, and I switched tactics. Even though years had passed, it was like muscle-memory kicked in to start making a simple scarf…and I decided to start making a thing after all.
Needing to be mindful about doing my best to avoid irritating my neck, I crochet only for short bits of time and I don’t do it every day. I need to make sure crocheting doesn’t become a source of stress or tension, I need for it to remain a calming distraction, so I deliberately put absolutely no pressure on myself about how often I crochet or how it ends up.
I’m doing it for the doing of it. For the process. For the meditative and calming effect on me.
Just enjoying the feel of the yarn and the hook and the movement.
And if it actually ends up being a scarf that can be worn, that’s a bonus.
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