Sung to the tune of “He’s a lumberjack and that’s okay”, I am now a human pincushion. Or at least an occasional one.
My diabetes isn’t as under control as I would like, too much sedentary behaviour in the last two years in particular, as well as changed meds that are better for me but have some side effects. My A1C number has crept higher in recent months so time to do something “different”.
No, not insulin, I’m not at that level of difficulty, but they do want to add another medicine to my regimen. Namely one called Ozempic. I was okay with adding one, no biggie I thought as I’m already taking four pills and one of them is hard on my stomach so can’t up the dosage any higher. Except the new one? It’s an injected one.
They started off saying that I would be doing injections IN MY STOMACH, but that wasn’t likely to happen. I couldn’t see ANY way I would be up for that, at least not before I tried my first injection today. Needles in my STOMACH? Pass.
On the plus side, it’s only once a week. But it’s a layer of complication I would rather do without. I did my “training” today by video with a nurse, she walked me through my first injection.
Clean my hands, obviously;
Clean the head of the pen (it’s like an Epi pen, sort of) with an alcohol swab;
Add the needle to the pen;
Prime the needle and remove any potential air in the needle;
Clean my leg (small alcohol swab);
Set the dosage on the pen;
Insert the needle into my LEG (not my stomach) gently at 90 degrees;
Press thumb on end until it resets slowly to 0 and then hold for ten more seconds;
Remove my thumb from the end and remove pen with needle;
Put small cap back on needle, remove needle from pen, dispose of needle in a safe container (free from the pharmacy);
Store the pen + other needles, swabs back in my medicine cabinet.
Now, I generally knew the steps before I did it, and the only thing that was making me a little nervous was the actual insertion of the needle. It is incredibly small, sure, but it’s still sticking a needle in my leg.
I don’t really like needles, despite having them as a kid for years to deal with allergies. When I get one for vaccines or boosters, I try to look the other way and think of the Republic.
So I wasn’t looking forward to it today. How much would the needle hurt? And while I can’t put it in my shoulder (can’t reach around to reliably do it at 90 degrees), I figured the upper thigh would serve as my best option.
I didn’t even feel it. I probably COULD do it in the stomach if I ever need to do so. For now, I’ll just swap legs each week.
On the positive side, it helps with the diabetes, with a side benefit that it helps with weight loss too. It seems to do most of it by shrinking my stomach so I’m not hungry and don’t eat as much, so we’ll see how that goes. Doesn’t work for everyone.
In the meantime, I’m now a pincushion. And apparently, that’s okay.
I have a lot of projects on the go, reflecting a very long to-do list of sorts. As a result, I often feel like I’m not making “enough” progress on my projects because individually I’m not. But it makes me wonder if I should think of them as a “group” instead of individual projects. Here is the set of them.
A maker space theme
I want to get a 3D printer, and under that heading, I have a lot of sub-project ideas. Some are them are astro-related, some are game- related, but many of them are simply just fun ad hoc stuff to make with a 3D printer.
For the astro ones, I want to not only build a telescope (or 3) likely using a 3D printer, but also have some projects around converting old binoculars into eyepieces (a guy online has a way of doing it that looks downright fascinating). There’s also some options to create an attachment for a Maglite flashlight in a way that would replace a green laser pointer and without running afoul of Transport Canada rules. Both of them are things I would love to design and then share with the broader astro community in Canada, perhaps part of my volunteering / giving back to RASC.
I have some computer-related items, including assembling a robot that I have, building a video game console with a Raspberry Pi, and programming my own app (likely around Trivia).
I mentioned “games” above, and I want to do some board game design with Jacob. He likes it, he’s pretty creative, and together we might have some fun.
I also have some “kits” for multiple Lego projects (including several fairly large ones), some escape room puzzles, fixing some previous projects, putting together some Kiwi kits I bought for Jacob but that didn’t really appeal to him, and a variety of easy crafting projects.
An organizing theme
I have a whack of things I need to do for organizing the garage, basement, stuff around the house, some reno projects, etc. Many of them are far from urgent, of course, but we’d like to do them sometime. Preferably when COVID improves and we can have workpeople in our house more easily.
A large self-expression theme
Obviously, the biggest form of self-expression for me is writing. Within that sub-category, I have project ideas related to my blog and all the normal subtopics, my PolyWogg HR guide, a guide to managing your career in the public service, a manager’s guide to the public service, an Astro Guide (with multiple subtopics), a guide to performance measurement, a review of certain types of government programs, and performance measurement for libraries…it’s a long list of areas to write about, and I haven’t even talked about my fiction writing. Much of it will push to my retirement, but they’re on the list. In the same vein, I review books, movies, music, TV shows…I’m even reviewing Sky and Telescope magazines as part of a mini-project.
I already covered a “maker space” idea, but other areas of self-expression, perhaps a little more artistic, include origami, photography (including a photo site or scanning my mother’s photo albums), and cooking. I’d even like to learn to play the piano and fly a drone.
A social (or reading) theme
I don’t know if this is really a social theme per se, but I have a book club aka the PolyWogg Reading Challenge that I run, and it creates interaction with a number of friends and new acquaintances around books. It takes a bit to run, but people seem to enjoy it, and I like seeing people who didn’t know each other before I created it start talking and sharing books. Some have even got together to exchange books!
I also have a desire to organize all of my ebooks and to binge a large number of series. Not exactly a “project”, but it’s not not a project either.
A learning theme
Probably the biggest project under here is the idea of MOOCs and various courses that interest me. Psychology is at the top of that list, with a MOOC at Carleton, and I even have the textbook to start. But there are tons of courses on The Great Courses as well as on Coursera that I can do for free too.
I think I should lump astronomy in here too, at least for my own learning. There’s some element of it that is different from my writing / self-expression theme including just imaging and observing.
Moving forward
For those keeping score, that’s probably between 40-50 “smaller” projects that are on my list and I do a little bit on them at a time, embracing the variety. But it does mean of course that I’m not making a lot of progress on any ONE project, I don’t “tick” the box that they’re done.
I’ll have to think about this a bit more as I take stock at the end of March, June, September and December i.e., a quarterly review of how I’m doing.
I skipped my update last week, didn’t have a lot to say for the week, and decided I’d just roll it into this week.
Recurring items. I updated my to-do list to include recurring items, like my 7 Questions series which I have done for the first three weeks of the year. Questions 1-21, for reference. Each time, I find at least one that is a bit more thought-provoking than the others, so I’ll probably stick with it. I’m aiming to do those on Saturdays, generally. For my end-of-week series i.e., like this post, I’m hoping to do those on Sundays as I wrap up the previous week and plan my coming week. I was hoping to start posting quotes, doing my stretching, using the BowFlex, daily walking, movie nights, writing nights and game nights. We did half of a game night last week, a bit abbreviated, and we watched TV last week and this, but not movies, just TV binging. Jacob and I had fun playing Human Fall Flat with their new downloadable content, so that was good.
I have, however, completed a few more cooking items…we did awesome dumplings at the end of the first week plus a so-so roast of pork in the InstaPot. The roast was good, but not a homerun on flavour and more work than I think it was worth. It wasn’t bad, just needed a bit more “oomph”. Might come back to that one for a better rub, alter the steps a bit, speed things up. This week, we did a roast of beef, a very simple InstaPot recipe focusing mainly on onions and garlic with some Epicure rub, but again, not a homerun. Perfectly edible, but nothing to say, “Wow, let’s keep THAT recipe.” I was hoping to come up with something that we could build on, but I think we need the trivet to make the meat stay together a bit more rather than turning into a stew.
3D printing. No, I haven’t bought a printer yet. But I had five questions that were sitting on my to-do list for learning, and they’re not the sort of thing to just Google. They were a bit more nuanced than that, and I felt they would benefit from mentors in the local 3D Facebook group being able to answer and expand. I had a worrying concern that the filament would smell (some are even toxic), but the type I’m looking at are relatively minor for odours. People rarely can smell it outside of the room it is, not even as bad as a meal being cooked in the kitchen. So that was reassuring. I also asked about consumables and accessories, finishing the prints, how it hooks up (or not) to a PC, and whether you can make tools for cooking prep (like cookie cutters, for instance).
Reorg continued. I mentioned earlier that Andrea and Jacob assembled the last of the bookcases, and I moved another from the bedroom down. I’ve also moved a lot of other stuff downstairs and this coming week I need to dust off my big boy britches and get my ass in gear. There are 3 small “collections” of stuff to sort still, and then I can finish off the set-up in the basement. But I really need to blast through some of it this week, even if I do 30 minutes at a time. One thing I’m happy about in the re-org, and it is really minor, is that I’ve sorted through a bunch of trivia games. When I was trying to run trivia last year, I was annoyed because a bunch of my game cards were buried in bins. I have a bunch of them set out on my one shelf, ready for some “fixing” and sorting more once I get the other junk figured out.
Health stuff. As part of my health stuff, I need to take a new injectable medicine. It’s kind of like a precursor to insulin injections, hoping I can use this to get some stuff under control. But I need to have a bit of “training” on it, seems relatively straightforward, but I might as well have the nurse show me. Which was supposed to happen this past week but the clinic had not faxed the Rx to the pharmacy…all my normal meds, but not the new one. Oops. Kind of hard to do the injection if I don’t have it yet. Anyway, I followed up, shifted the training to next week, and got the Rx filled. Now I just have to do my training this week and I’ll be good to turn myself into a pin cushion once a week. We also did a meet-and-greet with a new doctor, so we have a new family doctor for Jacob and Andrea, rather than the continued Appletree system. I have a family doctor already, and well, we’re not a good fit generally. I love her interns, her not so much. But I’ll finish up some stuff with her over the next few weeks and then transfer everything to the new doctor. I also took Andrea for bloodwork and Jacob for massage, plus a chiro appointment in there for me somewhere.
Finances. I also managed to knock off a small item for a donation to Soroptimist in Peterborough. I have three other donations that I need to do too, all of which require actual physical paper cheques, envelopes, etc. I’m much better at online stuff than doing labels and stuff. But I’ll try to make some progress this coming week. Oh, and as a bit of a throw-away, I had some gift cards from a restaurant that changed their online setup to require a PIN code, and I didn’t have any. So I followed up, got the PINs, and used them this week. It doesn’t seem like much, but I have a habit of getting gift cards and saving them for something special, and then not using them.
New job. Of course, the REAL accomplishment of the past two weeks is this past week I completed my first week as an Acting Director. I feel like I did well on managing my managers overall, a solid “double” if you like baseball metaphors. For the staff beyond them, I feel like I managed a walk, after a few foul balls, didn’t handle one thing particularly well while the rest was fine. For my “upward” management, I did okay at the start of the week, but I feel like I missed an opportunity for something, going to call it a strike. But I did well on two other aspects of collegial management, building networks and supporting others, while maintaining good work/life balance and helping Jacob with transport issues. So kind of like going 2 for 4 at the plate with a forced error and an unforced error in the field. The stadium lights are on, the players are playing well, but it was only the first inning and no scoring for either side. I’ll take it as a promising start and I’m still in the game.
Other. I also helped my niece set up her website this past week, although we’re not done yet. Just getting it going. I will likely need to spend some more time in the coming weeks, but it’s a start anyway. Not sure what category that falls under.
Conclusion. Not as much as I had hoped. I’m feeling a bit unmotivated on some bigger items so I’m going to review my “projects” list to see if grouping them together makes me feel like I’m making progress in a “category” (like projects) even if several sub-items do not see progress very much in the year. It’s a thought, we’ll see how it goes this week.
I’m asking myself seven questions a week, and here are this week’s questions.
015. In what area of your life are you struggling the most and why?
I think my biggest challenge is one-half focus and one-half procrastination/laziness. I have a lot of interests, and as the isolation factor is pressing my depression and despair buttons, I am feeling very unmotivated on a lot of the options. I have what I would call “projects” although it is more like “groups of projects” that range from a writing project to doing movie reviews. For the Movie Reviews, as an example, I have organized my movie collection of DVDs, and there are thousands more on Netflix or Prime or Disney that I could watch. When I was younger, I could watch a movie and if I wanted to review it, I could probably do so up to 1-2 years later and still recall enough to go into detail. Now? I pretty much have a week and then it’s gone for anything other than generalities. But I also want to watch a number of movies with the family, yet with our schedules, we have trouble synching, and next thing you know, I’m 3 months later and haven’t watched any of them. We’re trying to do a “movie night” once a week, but even that hasn’t worked out. We also like to watch things like The Book of Boba Fett or Hawkeye, so if we finally manage to sit down together to watch, it’s easier and lighter fare to watch those than to start a movie at 8:30 at night after a busy day. Instead, I end up vegging and binging TV shows rather than movies.
I have my to-do list, and I’m making progress on stuff, but I don’t feel like I’m making huge progress on any one project area or even enough on all of them to add up. I’m going to review my list of projects this week to see if there is a way to think of them as a group, rather than individually.
016. Write down a list of small things you can do that will have a long-term positive effect.
The obvious choice are health-related, but I think there are some that serve multiple goals. Like going for a walk with Jacob around the block. It gives me progress on health, it helps Jacob with his walking/leg stretching, and we spend time together in a very light / low-intensity moment just doing something together. Games, puzzles, cooking are other options too, but they often tend to involve giving up something else to make time to do it, and we’re not always in synch for schedules.
017. A drawing, short story or poem that portrays your authentic self.
If someone asked me to represent my authentic self, I’d likely point to my blog. My frog logo means a lot to me, it represents my blog and my blog represents me. It’s not a skinny or little frog, it’s a full-sized adult frog. It has presence, substance, at least to me. Beyond that, I like the idea of Fifth Business, as suggested by the book by Robertson Davies. In it, the narrator argues that he is like “fifth business” in a classic play, after that of Hero, Heroine, Confidante, or Villain. He’s not a “main character” but contributing to the stories of others and thus important on his own. A catalyst in some ways. If I had to choose a drawing, it would likely be of a man or boy reading.
018. Which institutions and/or media outlets are you following without questioning?
That isn’t really a thing for me. Because of the way I learned to be a writer in high school, and how my grades seemed to have no correlation with my effort, I stopped caring what others thought of my writing approach. I trust my own judgement above that of others, and it trips over into everything I read or see. I can read a paper by someone I trust, and yet if they veer towards something that I don’t think is proven, my brain twigs to it pretty fast. I am, of course, still subject to confirmation bias like everyone else, but I can’t think of too many institutions nor any media outlet that I would trust. I take the parts that make sense, I tend to ignore the rest.
But that doesn’t stop me from generally trusting articles from the Wall Street Journal. I started reading it in university, and whenever I see something online that someone has linked to, I often will try to read the WSJ original article. I like their editing style, the prose resonates with me. As I said, though, not everything is worthy and I challenge their analysis and conclusions too. I think I’m just more open to considering what it says over The Economist, any Canadian news articles, etc. For TV analysis, I like a guy online nicknamed the Grim Reaper for his statistical analysis of show ratings and what it likely means for renewal / cancellation. I enjoy Ken Levine’s blog about his life as a sitcom writer, the Passive Guy’s curation of news in the publishing world, etc.
019. What would you like to experience this year? Write down three things.
A trip somewhere with Jacob and Andrea to stay at least a few days in a hotel. A public star party to share astronomy with others. And an evening out without masks for entertainment — movies, play, musical, something.
020. What would you ask your 80-year-old self?
I don’t believe in regrets in the normal fashion, so asking about it would be pointless. I doubt I’ll believe in them then anymore than I do now. It is also presumptuous to ask if they’re happy, like that would tell you something. I think I would ask them what makes them happy then, at age 80. Asking them about the past would spoil the surprise and journey. But what they enjoy at age 80? Something simple? That sounds about right.
021. The best 7-day diet that would work for you.
I don’t do diets, so that’s an easy answer. None of them. I don’t do crash-test health stuff, slow and steady is all that interests me.
Again, an interesting list of questions. Which one would challenge you the most to answer?
I’m asking myself seven questions a week, and here are this week’s questions.
008. Describe your comfort zone: The things you need in your life to feel safe.
I rearranged the question list last week to push this off a week, it seemed a bit too large for a tail-end question previously. I initially was thinking more about the second half of that question — the things I need to feel safe. In life, in a situation, in a relationship, etc. And it was an interesting set of thoughts. But it isn’t exactly that as a question, is it? It’s asking me about my “comfort zone”, and I don’t know that those two are the same. For me, comfort zone is indeed where I feel safe, but also where I feel unchallenged. Slightly outside that zone, there are areas where I would feel safe enough to take risks, so still “safe”, but not “in” the comfort zone. Areas that I might nudge myself further. So safety isn’t really the defining characteristic for me. Instead, it is more about expectations. My comfort zone is when I have a clearly defined role with clear expectations and the capacity to do what’s required of me.
Writing my blog is a perfect example. My blog is MY blog. I’m not writing for a website that has multiple authors, editors, staff, etc. It’s just me and my keyboard. My role is clear, and my expectations are set by me, so also relatively clear. And I can write. If I enlarge the analysis a bit, almost all “analytical, introverted” stuff is my comfort zone. All the blue energy, from the personality profile for “Cool Blue” introverts. It’s my happy place. If I’m stressed somewhere else, going to my analytical zone is what helps me cope. Which obviously means the opposite quadrant — intuitive extrovert or sunshine yellow — is my least comfortable zone.
Not surprisingly, my sister zones for warm yellow (intuitive introvert) or fiery red (analytical extrovert) are relatively comfortable at times … close family stuff is fine, or leading something where my role is clear. Social uncertainty is my enemy.
009. Pick a worry you have in your life right now. Now write down one or two ways to look at it with humor.
I’m always worried about not being my authentic self. That my “rules” for myself are not guiding my behaviour, that I might drift along and find myself separated from my core values after a while. Not being my true “me”. If I was to word it as humour, it would be something like an old Jewish man providing mentorship:
So, if you’re not you, who are you? (the idea that without trying, I have to always be me)
Is there anyone else who wants to be YOU? (the idea that no one is trying to take my job of being me)
010. How is the way you were raised helping you today?
I have spent a lot of time thinking about my life and any lessons learned. The answer for this one is relatively simple and derives from my dad. He preferred casual over formal, laughter over contemplating. And so do I, surprising I know. I spend a lot of time thinking, but I know that the highlights of my life are always the moments of laughter shared. Over Christmas, we were at the inlaws, and sitting around the table in a large group laughing innocently or simple wording choices, was a stress release of epic proportions. That is what is missing in my life, and I need to remember its importance.
011. How is the way you were raised holding you back today?
For my childhood, alcohol around me was a constant factor. Sometimes it led to laughter, sometimes it led to drama. And it made me socially insecure. I don’t feel comfortable in social situations that don’t have an element of control for me. With family mainly, but even some outward social stuff, I need an exit strategy to remain non-claustrophobic. That can be as simple as the fact that I drove, and can leave whenever I want. Other times it is seeing Andrea and Jacob having a good time, and if they are happy and safe, it calms me. But the “nurture” side of my personality pushed me to introversion and thinking over interaction, because it was safer. They weren’t horrible people, I wasn’t physically abused, they were functional drinkers for the most part, interspersed with drama. We are friends with a couple who are extreme extroverts, one by personality and one by conscious choice, and their kids are extreme extroverts. Over-the-top showman and showwoman. Always “on” when people are around and energized by it. While my personality might not have led me that way on a “nature” footing, my “nurture” sure didn’t either.
012. In what area(s) of your life are you more or less following the crowd, instead of listening to your own intuition?
I don’t know that I’ve ever really thought about that in a systemic fashion as my own intuition / analysis is pretty paramount to me. If I think of my goals, I would say I go my own way on self-org, learning, astronomy, computers, website, writing, photography, volunteering, and activities that interest me. For home and family, my approaches are pretty tame, nothing too exotic in how I approach things, but I don’t know that is about following the crowd, more than our approaches are more mainstream than faddish or cultish. On health and fitness, my knowledge level is low, so I tend to follow the advice of others in those area, albeit tamely to start. If I’m uncertain personally about something, I rarely jump in hard.
But I think the one area where I feel like I follow the crowd over charting my own path is finances. We have no major debts outside of our house and car payments, we have no terribly expensive tastes, we are not aggressive spenders or savers, etc. But I feel like we could have and can push more than we do. Even in planning for retirement, we need to meet with a financial planner soon, yet have been saying that for years. We do prudent safe stuff, not sure we shouldn’t have done more. Our pension plans are solid, so there’s little “risk” in our approach, but perhaps missed opportunity.
013. Write down a list of maximum seven thoughts that you frequently have that only bring you stress and unhappiness. Then rephrase these thoughts in an empowering way.
I’ve already done this in a different fashion when I created my list of “PolyWogg Rules”. They often started with my viewing something particular negatively, and hence a “rule” to help me see it differently.
There have been times in my life, as with everyone else, where I thought, “My job sucks”. Except I know, deep down, it isn’t really true. Certainly not objectively, it’s not like I’m digging ditches or picking cotton. And not subjectively either, as working for government is a really good fit for me personally and professionally. Sometimes I get bored, other times it is simply the balance of things I really enjoy to the stuff I don’t enjoy is off. Hence rule #16 on my current list — I don’t have to work any particular place, I get to do it. I’m starting a new job tomorrow, and I’m excited, but there was nothing wrong with my previous work. It was good, it was respectable, I was good at it and I take a professional approach to it. My bosses and staff were happy with me, I wasn’t stressed out of my gourd, and if a day wasn’t the most alluring thing I could be doing, that is probably more about my plans for retirement calling me than it is what’s going on today at work. I remind myself that I choose to do this for a lot of good reasons; if or when those reasons no longer hold, I can do something else. That is a very far cry from my job sucking.
Another example is rule 13. We all have conversations with various people every day. And sometimes those conversations go off the rails, the other person reacts badly to something you said even though you didn’t intend what they thought, and the natural instinct for most of us in those situations is to think, “WTF?”. Their reaction seems unreasonable, even unfair. Or maybe you accidentally stepped on someone’s toes (verbally, not physically) and you prompted a reaction. Other times, someone was having a bad day and you didn’t notice. There have been a few times in my life where I was not paying attention, or was flippant, and it hurt someone. Not mortally, but it hurt. And I have at times interpreted my bad behaviour as my being a jerk. I wasn’t, not really, but that was the impact.
Hence rule 13 — there is no such thing as a casual conversation. Every interaction of any type is a chance for connection. Maybe it’s being upbeat when dealing with a front-line worker in a restaurant, maybe it’s saying hello to someone as you open the door. Maybe it’s having a long conversation with someone over email, a person I’ve never even met but they open up to me. Each interaction, each connection is sacred in a way, and I try to remind myself that they may mean something to the other person even if it’s casual to me at the time. That doesn’t mean it becomes a millstone to engage with everyone, I don’t need to bond with the barista, but I also shouldn’t blow it off either. All of the connections deserve an appropriate level of respect.
014. Deep down, what do you know is your mission here on earth? How can you start walking towards it?
For me, partly as I’m a poly-lover of many projects, ideas, and areas of life, I think most people could have multiple “passions” in life. I don’t know that I would raise any of them to being better than another, a so-called mission in life.
One thing that does almost work for me is explaining stuff in plain language. I like taking complex ideas and stripping them down, turning them into a slightly different framework, and explaining them back to people. On HR in government, I have a framework I use that says, “Think of it THIS way as you prepare”, and it is a popular part of my website. People have read it, understood it, and are using it themselves. It works for them. I try to do the same in other areas, like astronomy. I feel it is something I do as a father more than I should, explaining my view of things to Jacob, while trying to leave room for his own take on things to define his approach in life.
Is explaining things a “mission”? That seems a bit too evangelical. I like doing it, I do it in online forums, but on a separate plane of existence, it’s just my way of helping people. Or on another plane, it’s just my way of stroking my ego when others “like” my explanation. “Mission” seems too one-dimensional to me.
Again, an interesting list of questions. Which one would challenge you the most to answer?
