Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog

I was talking to a new friend yesterday who wondered if maybe I wasn’t being a little unnecessarily hard on myself with all this talk of laziness and lack of motivation and sitting on my bum like some big old theater that’s been languishing without renovation for the last 10 years. So tonight I thought that, instead of regretting that I hadn’t written a proper entry last Friday when the topic was “Take something apart” and I had planned on that something being myself, I would try to look at myself a little objectively in the other direction and maybe see what he does.

[As a completely unrelated aside, those were two pretty long sentences. One of my current work projects is writing about science for six- or seven-year-olds. We must keep word count per sentence as small as possible, and vocabulary as simple. I feel very decadent with those two opening sentences written for adults!]

It’s human nature to be hard on yourself and to have difficulty believing that you measure up to anyone else. In the end, you are your own worst critic. So what have I done for myself lately?

As detailed in “Work out, work hard,” I have managed to keep up a workout regimen for eight months now. That’s pretty amazing. How many people do you know who buy the gym membership, go for a couple of weeks, and then just throw away the auto-payment every month? Maybe you’re one of them. GO TO THE GYM!

Another unexpected achievement is how I’ve kept up with writing this blog for the last few weeks. Granted, I missed a few days last week, but that’s because my work schedule has gone into warp drive until the end of December. I try to do a little overtime on the evenings I’m home, and last week I had just gotten so tired that I had to mind my health and go to bed rather than stay up for another hour working on this. It’s been very exhilarating writing again. Part of the reason why I’m anxious to keep up with the daily entries is because I see it as practice for my second career as some sort of writer. And I see my second career as some sort of writer as part of what will facilitate my move to London. I may be deluded on that point but I don’t care. I’m having fun! HAVE FUN!

I guess to an outsider, all the kids’ books that I’ve written for work might seem a little noteworthy. To me, it’s just what I’ve been doing every day for 12 years. I am completely blasé about it. But when I look at this photo of all of the books that I’ve authored together on my bookshelf, even I smile, cross my arms, and nod to myself. GIVE YOURSELF CREDIT!

Maybe even my avid participation on the TweakToday.com website could be viewed as achievement but I think that’s stretching it. Still, DO SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY!

Okay, that’s all I’ve got.

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The inspiration for tonight’s entry was the assignment of photographing a local public sculpture. I chose the bronze Mary Tyler Moore on Nicollet Mall, which is near where I work. The title comes from the lyrics of the theme song for the tv show, which I wanted to include in the vein of positive self-affirmation; I found a couple of videos of an early version (note that Mary’s driving a 1970 Ford Mustang—I wasn’t the only girl who liked them!) and a later version of the opening montage instead. In the Wikipedia entry about the show, I learned things about Mary that are now kind of interesting since I’ve lived in the Twin Cities for a long time, including that the deluxe apartment that she moved on up to was in the complex of now-not-glamorous high rises in my current home neighborhood.