What a week! I was busy at work and busy at home. Which means I was doubly busy at home because I’m working from home. At least, it felt doubly busy. One negative I grapple with all the time is the separation of home from work. It was easy when I could just walk out of the office. Now I have to consciously log off at go-home time, and it’s not always easy. Nonetheless, I did successfully take a day off yesterday, and it was an excellent way to recharge my batteries.

The last week has been tight to make time for blog-writing. So I didn’t. Well, not exactly. I drafted a few ideas, but they weren’t polished enough to publish. That may be presumptuous…

Anyway, the highlight from yesterday – the week, really – was fishing. I usually go out with #1 son, but he was working, so I went solo. I’m sure he worried about me (or, rather, his ice shack) the whole time, but I miraculously was able to get there and get set up just fine.

Priority 1: open up the hole inside the shack. We’ve had some nasty cold weather, so I had to drill out about 24″ of fresh ice. But that was the first thing to do, so the exhaust could clear while I unloaded the sleigh and chopped some wood for a fire.

Priority 2: get the fire going. It wasn’t really cold yesterday, but a nice cozy fire is psychologically very comforting and relaxing. AND… you can warm up your soup on it!

Priority 3: get a minnow on the hook and the line down the hole. About 8 minutes in, fish #1 came calling. Nearly. I got him right up to the top of the hole and he spit out the hook. He was too small anyway. But it was a good sign – the fish were biting. Minnow back down and on to the next priority.

Priority 4: call Grandma (my mom, actually). Part of the busyness this week and, really, this month, has been resettling my mom. Fortunately, my sister lives (lived) very close to mom and has been a huge help with boots on the ground. After mom’s move, she has to contend with yet one more COVID quarantine, so she’s a bit bored. I had told her I’d try to call her when I got set up fishing.

So, after Mr. Minnow went back down the hole, I called Mom on Messenger. Very cool! I was able to show her around – me lounging on the bunk with my feet up, my soup warming up on the stove, the view out the windows… and then I noticed my line jumping. “Hang on, Mom. I gotta switch my camera and stand up the phone.” Which I promptly did and then reeled in a nice fish while she was watching! Talk about good timing. Mom was almost as excited as I was. The visit was nice, but she said she felt as if she’d actually been ice fishing. And that’s cool because she’s originally from Britain, and they don’t typically venture out onto frozen lakes over there. If they could even find one!

I am so glad I had thought about calling her, and catching the fish was really just exceptional timing. But she really enjoyed the experience and it was a good boredom buster for her. As we hung up, she commented on how she really hoped they had fish for supper that night.

Some priorities are less negotiable or discretionary than others. Setting up the shack has a natural order of tasks that really speeds up a) getting your line in the water, and b) your comfort. Deciding what you’re going to do with your “free time” while out there is more discretionary for sure, but as I said, I’m so glad I had made it a priority to call Mom.

And this week, I was working diligently on the kettlebells, which have been going very well this year. But Thursday was kettlebell day, AND our pool just reopened, so I swam for 45 minutes also. I could say I did a pool workout, but that would be an untruth. So today when I picked up the kettlebells, the old bod’ set its own priority and that was to not complete the original target. Phew!

I’ve realized that this is perfectly okay. There was a time, when I would have had stress about deviating from schedule, but I’ll say I’m older and, hopefully, wiser. Listen to your body when you are working out and don’t overdo it. As I have said before, I’m not training for the Olympics, so it’s all good.

My overall priority is to do something for wellness as frequently as possible, and if that involves fishing instead of work (it was approved!), so be it. Set priorities that are sensible to you and do not unravel any gains you may have already made. Enjoy yourself.

Update from Mom… They had fish.