I tried to attend a community vaccination event today to get a new COVID-19 vaccine for me and my mom. Unfortunately, when I signed up for both of us, I forgot that I had a mentoring circle meeting at work at 12-30, while the event was planned from 10 AM to 2 PM. Overall, that was the day when I was trying to do too many things. I stayed home for a seasonal furnace tune-up, which was supposed to happen between 8 and 12. I hoped the technician would come earlier and I would have time to take my mom to the vaccination before this 12-30 meeting. But obviously, when I need it most, it does not happen. Not only did the technician come in after 11, but he also stayed for an hour and a half – I do not know what he was doing for so long! When he left, I was already in the mentoring circle meeting, and after we were done, I decided to go to the vaccination site and see what the situation was – it was only 2-30 PM.
When I arrived, they told me it would be a 45-minute wait. I decided to stay. They would close the sign-up at two but then serve all the people who came by that time.
I had two people at work waiting for me to get back online, and I had grocery delivery between 3 PM and 4 PM, and when I realized that it was still at least another 15 min at 3-05, I left.
A lot of time was wasted. To be honest, when I was leaving the house at 1-30, I heard this sneaking voice in my head: just let it go, it didn’t work! But then I decided to give it a try… Once again – listen to the universe, and don’t try to bend it.
We will find another appointment 🙂
Month: October 2023
The Best Big US City!
Listen here – and you know that that’s about Chicago 🙂
Just an opening quote:
If you ask a Chicagoan what they love about their city, they’ll get poetic. They’ll gesture with their hands and grasp for words to describe what makes this “big-hearted and cold-blooded” metropolis so incredible.
But listen to the whole thing!
Summer Is Turning Into Fall
And as usual, it takes just one day in Chicago!
I hope that I will have a chance to see fall foliage. I know that there was no way for me to go to Helsinki this fall, but I am still remorseful. Boris is telling me how the leaves are turning red and yellow and how the stores started to sell Christmas chocolate, and I am trying to give him instructions on which chocolate to buy, but I am sad I won’t be the one choosing Christmas chocolate this season. Next year, we will plan better! I know; I say it every year :).
Historic House Walk
I only briefly mentioned the Historic House Walk in which I participated on Sunday, and I wanted to show more pictures and tell more about it.
When I moved to Rogers Park, I saw that the Historical Society was just across the street from my house, but at that time, it seemed to be still “closed for the pandemic.” Then, there were so many things going on in my life that although I was still curious about the Rogers Park history, it was just “yet another thing” that I would get to “at some point.”
Then I visited the Historical Society website and realized that they are already doing many interesting things, and I am missing out. I subscribed to their newsletter and finally started to learn about tours and presentations. Most times, it would turn out that the timing does not work for me, but for the Historic House Walk, it worked! I joined the society and paid the fee for the Walk, and on Sunday at noon, I was there!
This year’s House Walk featured several houses in the Peterson Woods (I forgot to mention that the Historical Society covers both Rogers Park and West Ridge).
All the houses were very interesting and worth seeing, but I liked less the houses where the new owners made a lot of renovations, no matter how awesome these renovations looked. I liked it way more when the owners preserved the old windows and trim, opened the covered stained glass, and restored the original tiles.
What People Do When They Retire
While waiting for a morning train, I overheard the conversation on the platform. The conversation was about when each person planned to retire, whether they wanted to retire at all, and what they would do when they retired. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Still, I was surprised that people who participated in the conversation talked only about leisure, whether they will do cruises, golfing, or something else, and how the years of retirement should be the years of having fun.
Then, one of them commented on someone he knew who “didn’t want to retire because he would have to spend all the time with his wife at home.”
I can relate to that:). With all my love and everything, you need to be out of the house doing something else for a good part of the day. And you need to do something. I am sure I will have lots of fun traveling, doing cultural things, and such, but I am also anticipating all the possibilities of doing more volunteering, such as escorting on the weekdays and going to ODS at least once a week. Too often, I feel like I can’t drop any activity I am participating in (or want to participate in), and then I am not doing any of them well enough. So, I often think that I should limit the things I do even more and then return to them when I retire.
Possibly the reason others don’t believe me when I say that I will retire at 67 is that they can’t imagine me not doing something. But I have plans!
Other Weekend Activities
The problem with the past weekend was that it was soooo good! This was a God-given September, and the last weekend was the biggest gift, with the sunny sky, almost no wind, and the upper 70s.
I could not have it waster! Besides, I had some activities planned a while ago, and I didn’t want to skip them. And I am very happy with how it went:).
A long bike ride:
There was also clinic escorting, and Georgia Apple Cake, and visiting with mom, and lots of other things, and talking with people, and many things which I wanted to do and didn’t have time to, but I still think I had my priorities straight.
The Book And How I Feel About It
I submitted the last chapter today at 5:04 AM. The reason why it was a last-minute thing was that Anna had a lot of unforeseen circumstances that slowed down her work. Still, we managed to do it on time, and that’s important for me! Even when the publisher assumes that everybody will be late, it is still important. There will still be some work with our technical reviewer, and we still need to write the Acknowledgments section, but we are done with the submission.
So, how do I feel about it? It should have been easier than the first edition, and in some sense, it was, but it was more difficult in many ways. We had a new editor, and the whole work was way more formal than the first time. Granted, we were already educated and knew how we should proceed, but I still think that with our previous editor we would feel differently.
And If and when we will be doing the third edition, I am not going to do it in summer 🙂
The first edition is still sells surprisingly well, judging by the royalties, but I still do not know how to figure out how many copies were sold. I asked about it while our first editor was still there, and he said “he will find out,” but it never happened.
Hettie's Reflections 