You may have noticed I didn’t post anything over the weekend. Since I’m no longer doing the 4:30am thing, and I have other responsibilities (kids), it doesn’t make sense to me to try to write on non-weekdays…though I did make progress. Sort of.
I’m a bit unhappy about switching to weekdays-only. Also about not saying so in advance. But I didn’t really make that decision till Saturday morning, and it didn’t seem worthwhile to put that (and nothing else) into people’s inboxes. Surprise! I guess.
Anyway, this morning didn’t go perfectly, but I did get in two dictation sessions, for a total of an hour and 49 minutes. Two complete chapters…ish. We’ll see what they look like once I get to transcription.
Also, I went a slightly different route than I’d originally planned. Instead of dictating my just-in-time outline, I went to a coffee shop and made mind maps for the chapters I was about to “write”…seemed to work. Conceptually this ought to be the same as an outline, but for whatever reason it seemed like a good idea. And it worked. So I’ll probably stick to that method for now. Using an app called SimpleMind, by the way, which is good for both Android and Windows. I’d prefer Linux for the desktop, but I didn’t really like the Linux mind-mapping software I played with over the weekend. Well, either I didn’t like it or it didn’t easily move files to and from Android apps. Different answers for different options. But none of that probably matters a whole lot.
Gotta get ready to pick up kids and have their CPS caseworker visit. Ideally this time without suddenly disclosing to the kids a new plan for their future, with no prior warning, no meaningful attempt to find out how they feel about whatever the new plan might be, no questions to us about how to broach the subject (we’re just foster parents, see, so we have no useful relationships with the kids who’ve lived with us for nearly a year and a half…nothing like the once-a-month closeness each caseworker develops, before disappearing from their lives and being replaced by a new caseworker, anyway) and no apparent concern for any consequences to the kids’ ability to feel safe.
Not that that ever happens. Except that it was happening every month for a while there, and if there’s no sudden switch announced today that’ll be the first month without one since July. Not so much of a good thing. But maybe it’s over, for now. Different people involved, sort of anyway, right? So we’ll see how it goes. We’ve, uh…been surprised often enough that further surprises will not surprise. But we’re hoping it doesn’t happen this time. That’s a healthy approach, we figure. Or maybe it’s denial. Or faith? Or maybe we just can’t control what happens, so our expectations are only relevant insofar as they/we help the kids to prepare for, and process, this stuff that gets dumped on them.
So. All we can do is the best we can do. Guess we’ll try that. And, again and again and again, see how it goes.
Have fun out there!
Be First to Comment