What are you concentrating on these days?

Catching up on my coding, Java, and css to build a better mousetrap than this place.

Hello @Hawaii_Jake Sounds fantastic and gives people like me hope! I am so glad your life is taking off and you have dreams again.

For me, I am finishing up on my exams. It’s taking ages, but that is because my moods are so up and down. Plus, I feel exhausted half the time. I am looking forward to a bright future, if I could just get some energy! (Post me some, or even email me a bit?)

Love having you around to inspire, thank you!

First of all, I’m sorry to hear that you barely got out of your pajamas on Sunday. If you’re spending time with a paramour it would seem only fitting that you should be out of your pajamas more than you’re in ‘em. But maybe that’s just my misunderstanding of your timeline.

Anyway, I’m going to answer the question honestly: YouTube, playing Spades, Facebook and Fluther, and not necessarily in that order.

Saving money and eating better.

@CWOTUS The paramour came over on Saturday, and no pajamas were worn.

Lately, it’s been my kids with one about to visit and another just engaged. They are lights in my life. In addition, examining some patterns that have hindered me in the past and enjoying my friends, music and books. Thinking about how much longer I want to work and how much time I can spend in California.

California? You’re getting closer.

Swim over and meet me halfway, Turtle?

Oh, and joy – I am trying to concentrate on joy!

My husband is trying to figure out what he is going to do going forward to make a living. We might buy a business. It’s a crazy time for us. I just started doing some part time work for a friend to earn a little cash.

I just finished my taxes today. I caught a mistake that my accountant made.

I was watching politics again for a while, but I temporarily checked out again for the most part. I’m so much more relaxed when I ignore the news. I do go to a current events group every Tuesday where I live now though. They talk about poetics and other things. Other current events.

I take care of my aunts bills, so that takes a little time.

I’m trying to be in the moment more. It’s such a happier way to be. I’m so much better at it when I don’t spend most of my day doing something I don’t want to do.

Your keyword “concentrating” is what makes me unable to answer this well – I cannot concentrate these days.

I don’t know what’s happening to me. In college free time was rare and so I used it to its full potential when I had it. Now I have it every night and I fritter it away. I never feel I have the energy or drive to do anything. I used to have so many hobbies that I loved and I said “I wish I had time for this” but now I have the time and I just can’t focus. I don’t feel like I have the right to complain about this or anything, really, because I am so fortunate.

There are things in my life that I can still muster up a feeling of passion for. Most notable right now for me is my aquarium. I have fourteen small fish in a beautiful, planted 15 gallon aquarium. I love my fish and I’m constantly looking at their little habitat with a critical eye to see what I can improve.

About two weeks ago I found out I have Crohn’s disease rather than ulcerative colitis, which means that my surgeries a few years ago did not cure me because I am sick through my whole digestive tract, or, at least, it is possible for me to become sick through my whole digestive tract, where we thought that possibility was limited to my colon before, so taking out my colon didn’t really do anything. I mean, I still feel way better without my colon than I did with it, so I guess it was still a good decision, but that news has been fucking with my head quite a bit.

Thanks for the question, it’s nice to get an opportunity to vent about my personal life a bit.

@Mariah i’m sorry to read that.

@Mariah That so sucks. I’ve been through multiple diagnosis and treatments and it all is such a nightmare in so many ways.

I’m concentrating on improving my astrophotography image processing.

Working on my ukulele playing, showed the grand-kids one of my ukes and let the 9 year old and 7 year old strum and played some chords with me putting their fingers where they should be to play the chords.

Focusing on finishing my final, so that my mind is free to go back to writing my book in the summer.

I have very recently retired and I am just enjoying the change of pace. I am helping my son decorate his new flat and I am looking forward to travelling in Europe and South East Asia.

I’m just working the sheep on horseback with Sam my border collie, as usual.

I recently put earthworms in under the chicken yard to provide the fowl with more natural protein. Suddenly every airborne predator in the area arrived for lunch. Looked like Spain in ‘38 and my chickens were the Spaniards. So I covered the area with a canopy of chicken wire. I’ve rescued an osprey, a red-tailed hawk and a couple of seagulls from entanglement in the wire so far. Today I’ll cover the canopy with a few palm fronds as camouflage, give my chickens some cover. Maybe that will keep the Stukas from dive bombing my peaceful little Spaniards. I may have opened a whole new can of worms here.

I’m studying the various techniques of grafting plants and, in a separate thing, the care and maintenance of Bonsais. I have a young Frankincense tree that I want to use as the mother of many bonsais. There are plants like herbs and some mango trees, etc., that I would like to strengthen with others through grafting.

I’m looking into vanilla. It’s a vine that produces a pretty yellow trumpet orchid. It would do well here and natural vanilla is worth more than it’s weight in gold. But it requires the stingless melipona bee to propagate the flower because they are the only bees with a long enough proboscis to do it. I love the idea of keeping bees. I especially love the idea of keeping nice little stingless bees that specialize in gathering vanilla pollen. I like the symbiosis and the innocence of the whole thing. I wanna be a vanilla bee cowboy.

In the meantime, I’ve been plagued with malarial attacks. I have medicine, but it doesn’t always work. I picked it up off Brazil last year and as soon as the docs figure out what strain it is, we can kill it. In the meantime, there are good and bad days. This has delayed a voyage I’d like to make to the next island, Martinique.

I hope this whole thing is solved by the time my sister arrives for a visit at the end of May. I’d like to get her a horse and show her the place, maybe take her on a circumnavigation of the island, do some diving, etc. I can’t dive in this condition and I can’t trust condition to solo sail anywhere. It’s a pain in the ass.

A cowboy and a sailor, @Espiritus_Corvus? You’ll have to beat the women off with a stick … so to speak.

^He would if he weren’t so danged far from anywhere! ;-)

This thread ranks in my top ten favorites. Keep it up.

@Mariah I am very sorry to read about your trouble. Thank you very much for your candor.

Getting my life back on track and following my dreams.

As a follow-up to my earlier response (to the question, that is), and somewhat inspired by @kid_africa‘s immediate response:

I need to find a track that I want to get onto.

I wouldn’t say that’s exactly a quest – “a quest for a quest” being somewhat recursive – but I’m looking for my next thing.

Working on “Blue Danube” on theremin. ...and starting to learn to read sheet music.

Last few weeks of the school year for me. (The students have a few more weeks of classes and exams after music class ends.)

I’m getting the garden going, major project this year is to rebuild the shed.

Also approaching my long-neglected songwriting/composition with a more disciplined approach—at least 30 minutes a day, more if I can.

But today I’m shoveling snow!

Cooking meals for next week. During this past week, I was spending a lot of time writing a story based on a lynching that happened in my hometown.