I’m concentrating quite a lot on my health these days. I used to use most of my noon hour to write. Now, as soon as I finish eating, I go outside and walk, either a half-mile or mile depending on weather. Once it cools down some I may punch that up to a mile and a half.

Once I get in from my walk, I may have fifteen minutes left in my lunch hour, a perfect amount of time to get most of a blog post written, or edit part of most of a chapter either of my own work or someone’s in my writers group. Alas, I find I have no concentration for either.

In the evenings, after supper, Lynda and I go for a walk, usually between one and two miles. It’s in the upper 80s at this time, so when we get home I go down to The Dungeon, where it’s cooler and I can cool down faster. And write, perhaps a blog post, or get going on a chapter in a new book or short story. Or prepare two other books for their print versions. Except the last few nights I haven’t been able to concentrate. I end up playing mindless computer games for an hour, cool down fine, but am unproductive.

It’s as if the quest for weight loss and better health have taken over my mind, my being, and I have no ability to concentrate on anything else. I suppose that’s the way it’s been a good amount of the last ten years with my writing. And for the five years before that for genealogy. But it’s worse now. Now the health quest is consuming me, and I have no ability to multi-task my brain and do some activities in the other things.

Unfortunately, I estimate it’s going to take me another year or even a year and a half to get to the weight range I should be in. If I keep up the walking and occasional flexibility exercise, maybe add a little strength training, I’ll be in good shape to match my proper weight. Can I go that long with single tasking?

I don’t think so. Somehow I have to come to a point where I can do all the things that interest me, all the things that I need to do, and do them simultaneously.

I think that will be my goal for the rest of this year: balance competing, good activities. I’ll report back later with the results.

I was sick last week. It started Monday evening, when I felt a tickle in my throat. I thought nothing of it, though it did seem unusual. On Tuesday the tickle persisted, and I had to cough to relieve it. I told several people at work that it was just a tickle, and to not worry about my coughing.

Then, Wednesday morning I could feel the head cold starting. This is opposite of how my colds usually come. Usually I feel tiredness in the eyes a couple of days before the sinuses start working overtime. Sometimes those colds go to my chest after another couple of days, sometimes not. The last cold I had, back in October, I think, was mild and I didn’t miss any work.

This one came on strong Wednesday, mainly coughing but with some sinus drainage. Since some muscle pains later developed, I’ve concluded that I had a mild case of the flu. I left work early and mainly rested. Thursday and Friday I slept lots and lots. When I  wasn’t sleeping I was resting in my chair, reading in War Letters. I finished that, by the way, on Sunday, and wrote a review at my other blog. By Saturday I felt a little better, and was able to leave the house for a short while to pick up a computer from the techno doc. But I still took it easy for the most part. Stayed home Sunday, and left my Life Group without a teacher (since my co-teacher was out of town). I did arrange for someone from the class to lead the discussion in my absence. Now, on Monday, I’m at work, and running on 7 cylinders.

But throughout this period of sickness, I did get some writing work done.

• Completed my writing business tax calculations for 2011 tax year, and filled out the forms. I made a little over $1,500.oo dollars, but after subtracting my expenses, which were inflated by the trip to Chicago in June (half of which was writing related), and after subtracting my home office deduction (allowable since The Dungeon is a dedicated writing space), I made a profit of $1.36. Or, stated otherwise, my writing income paid fully for my writing habit and contributed about $530 to household expenses. Not bad.
• Added about 1,600 words to The Candy Store Generation, completing Chapter 3 and working on Chapter 4. The book now stands at around 16,000 words, or a few hundred less, on its way to 40,000 or so. I’m not sure that the words I wrote in the flu-induced stupor are any good. The editing process will determine that.
• Wrote a construction administration column due for Buildipedia.com. I wrote that yesterday evening, and typed and submitted it this morning. It was due last Friday, but I figure at the start of work Monday morning is about the same as midnight at the end of Friday, so I’m declaring it “on-time”. Not sure how the editor will see it.
• Uploaded my second short story, “Too Old To Play,” to Smashwords. It’s available for purchase there. Now waiting for the Smashword Meatgrinder to tell me if it qualifies for the Premium Catalogue, or if changes will be needed.
• Cleaned up a couple of piles of writing papers. These were mostly extra copies from critique group. I discovered two that had critical comments on In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, and made those edits. This wasn’t hard work, and the living room is two piles cleaner.

I also balanced the checkbook, though that’s not writing related. Also washed some dishes.

So, despite the cold (or the flu), I made a little progress. Let’s see what a week of reasonably good health will bring.

I’m along this weekend, batching it while the wife is in Oklahoma City helping with grandkids as first one, then the other, parent has been off for conferences. So I should be living it up, right? Getting done all those things I never seem to do when Lynda is here. Writing up a storm.

Instead, I’m basically immobile. I sat through three days of corporate meetings this week, and the inactivity left me exhausted. I’ve come home and had no energy. My blood sugar has been pretty good, so that’s not the problem. My right knee is killing me, and my left knee is not back to 100 percent, residuals of the tick disease of the summer. So I come home from work and crash. I slept well last night, then napped some this morning and even an hour this afternoon. So I’m in good shape for sleep.

I’ve done some work on writing. I received the cover for the print version of Documenting America on Friday, and uploaded it to CreateSpace. Today I received the email saying it was all accepted. All that’s left now is ordering the proof copy, and deciding on price and payment methods. I’ve also been proof-reading Doctor Luke’s Assistant in preparation for publishing it electronically. I haven’t had the energy to get back to writing for content sites.

So, I’m going to muddle through for a while, and hope my body, aided here and there by medicines, is able to fight off this rheumatoid arthritis attack spawned by the tick-borne bacteria. Now to leave the comfort of my chair in The Dungeon, limp upstairs, and head to Wal-Mart.

The problem with dieting is how all-consuming it is. Or maybe it’s not dieting as much as it is weight loss. I’m on a losing streak right now. That’s good. I was at a weight set point for the better part of a year and a half. It seemed that no matter what I did I couldn’t get below 254 pounds. I inched a pound or two below it, then bounced back to 258; back to 254 then to 260; to 254 then to 263. I’ve read about these weight set points, that somehow the body gets comfortable at that weight and breaking through it is difficult.

I finally did that in March, however, even before I began a healthier diet on April 1. Whatever I was doing in February-March—probably just eating less and exercising a bit more—was working, for I slowly dropped below 254, ending March about 251-252. On April 1 I began a rigorous eating program to control my Type 2 diabetes, and the weight had dropped almost as fast as my blood sugar. I’m down to the 241-242 range right now, with no lower set point in sight. I was last at 240 in 2001, losing 30 pounds for my daughter’s wedding. Can I break through that this time? I believe I can. I suspect the next set point is somewhere around 230.

But the problem is, this concentration on weight loss and blood sugar control is all consuming. It seems that every waking thought, and probably the dreams I don’t remember, is on this. I talk about it, think about it, write about it, obsess about it. Even yard work isn’t yard work: it’s multi-tasking exercise. It’s the same as with genealogy, same as with writing. I have had to put genealogy aside for a while, for my writing life is consuming whatever part of me is not being consumed by weight loss and establishing healthy eating habits.

The new writers critique group is consuming me. I’m thinking about it all the time, trying to figure out what I can do to put it on a footing that will be sustainable and valuable to all who attend and for our church that is sponsoring it. How to increase sales of my e-books is consuming me. The John Wesley small group study is consuming me.

Hopefully you get the picture. I need to just turn off for a while, think about civil engineering. No, that tends to consume me as well, whenever writing and critique group and health and genealogy aren’t consuming me. I don’t feel like I’m at an equilibrium. It’s kind of like a short, light verse poem I wrote a few years ago.

The Desperate Prayer of a Man Without Enough Hours in the Day

Again
I offer You
this simple fix:
increase
the daily hours
to twenty-six.

Of course, that wouldn’t really work, for then I’d be wanting twenty-eight or thirty. So I really need to reach an equilibrium. I’ll put that on my to-do list.