26. Are you retired or working? What are your plans for retirement?

I am currently working and having this constant dread that I'll probably have to do this until the day that I pass away.

Life has a lot of twist and turns. A lot of restarts and some plans that had not materialized.

So, I’ve moved all my available resources into making sure that my children have everything they need in order to succeed.

25. Is there a special food from your region or heritage that you a particular appreciation for?

I'm in California and there are a lot of different foods in our area that I get to sample. There are two foods that I find to be special and that I make for myself time to time.

The first is hot dogs and beans. I like to class it up a little bit by using lil smoky sausages that I pan fry before adding the Bush’s baked beans. Now, these are both processed foods and probably have the total amount of sugar for a whole week contained in one serving. I shouldn’t admit it but no one is going to read this and respond, but I eat the contents of both the package of sausages and can of beans in one seating.

The family finds out soon enough.

My second food is a pan fried baloney sandwich. There is definitely an overlap when it comes to the meat that I’m eating in this situation and I’m ok with that. I usually get the baloney from my local deli and then place a piece of cheese on top of the baloney.

24. Write a review of your favorite album. What lyrics mean something special to you?

A LOT of people love Michael Jackson's Thriller. It's got a lot of big hits on it and the title track is a halloween dance favorite. My favorite album is the one before it, Off the Wall.

I find myself really enjoying the entire album. It starts off with a bang with “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” that really gets the energy up. I feel that it’s more of an anthem at that point as it tells the listener not to settle.

Although, I do have a confession, I never knew the lyrics to that first song. I just groove with the vibe and I have that feeling about a lot of my favorite music.

The second song, “Rock with You”, starts off with a quick drumbeat and then a steady beat that contains some of my favorite lyrics of “relaxing to the beat”. I think this is a great song in that it highlights how you can be uptempo without having to be full force.

“Workin’ Day and Night” wasn’t a track that I understood until I was much older. It’s not so much of a song about getting out there and working as it is about why we do things in the “real world”.

I feel that “Girlfriend” is the embodiment of what it means to be “the other guy” in a relationship. Well, technically, not really in a relationship. Usually, you see this situation in media as someone feeling betrayed or hurt. In this one, I feel a sense of longing and hurt. If the roles were reversed and placed in a movie, you would hear a line like “oh, he’s just waiting for the right moment to tell his wife”. That hope that you just need to hold on for a little long and that person will be yours.

“Burn This Disco Out” is the last track on the album and it’s somewhat a wake up call to pay attention because after this moment, you’re going to have to start the album over.

23. What words of wisdom would you have appreciated from your younger self?

Sometimes I don't think I've become any wiser in my years. Just a little more patient in some areas and less in others.

But, if I could say something to my younger self it would be that I should be more present with the time that I have with those in my life. I would try to tell him about what things matter and what things don’t.

I would also tell him to buy bitcoin and get a state job as soon as I can.

22. Have you been to a memorable concert? What made it stand out to you?

My first memorable concert was the [Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out of Their Shells Tour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles#Concert_tour).

At the time, my school had a reading program where you could get a personal pizza if you read a certain amount of books. As a kid, these were my two favorite things pizza and reading! I don’t remember all the details, but I do remember that PizzaHut had tie in with the Ninja Turtle tour and that you could buy the sound track with the purchase of pizza.

I remember listening to the soundtrack on cassette a lot when I was a kid. I think this is the first time where I would listen to an album and want to skip to the next song. I don’t think I was allowed to do that at that age would have occurred sit through it.

I only remember one song from the cassette called “Tub-in” that I really liked but don’t really remember from the concert. In fact, I don’t remember a lot from the concert except that it was pretty loud and kind of slow in some places. I do remember the Shredder singing a song about hating music. That always stuck with me and I remember sharing a dorm room with someone who said he didn’t like music.

We weren’t roommates the next year.

Coming Out Of Their Shells was a studio album, and subsequent live musical tour that occurred from 1990 to 1991 (in 1992, it toured overseas). The tour was endorsed and sponsored by Pizza Hut. The very first showing of the tour was broadcast live on Pay-Per-View. A VHS recording of the broadcast was made released, as well as a "Making Of" direct to home video. The tour is generally lambasted for its terrible costumes and wafer-thin plot. The band featured Donatello on keys, Leonardo on bass guitar, Michelangelo on guitar/lead vocals & Raphael on drums/percussion/tenor saxophone/vocals. Guest vocalists include Master Splinter, April O'Neil, and The Shredder.

Well, we’re at the end of the month and I did not meet my goal of having a post every day about mental health as I had set out to do. If anything, I probably posted less this month than at other times this year.

Apparently, I need to take the break from posting.

Still, there were a lot of great posts that came from this and would like to thank everyone who wrote or read a blog to think about joining communities like indieweb.org or adding themselves to Blog of the Day.

Blog of the Day is a small project created and maintained by James and Joe. I’ve been seeing them in various IndieWeb meet ups and they seem like pretty cool folks.

What did I get out of this?

My favorite part of this whole experience was seeing posts from other people. The small ones, the long posts. Things that were sitting in a drafts folder and even the posts with a simple “I’m only writing this to continue the streak”. I didn’t read everything but it was cool to see what options were available.

For my own writing, I come away with a feeling a little more confidence about posting links from other sites. People like HeyScottyJ and Leon, pushed me to get over the barrier of feeling like an imposter and that the value of me taking the time to find the links and adding my two cents is important as well. I’m not taking credit, I’m pointing the way.

Will I do it next year?

Yes.

Part of my posts were highlighting the importance of mental health and I do enjoy publishing things on my blog.

I feel that next year, I’ll include the entire blog instead of just a category and I might draft a couple posts in advance so that I can stagger the publication.

I’ve been thinking about the different projects that I’ve got going on and some of them have been sitting around needing some time. I thought I would share a couple links about how to restart a project.

Restarting Your Project the Right Way

This was the first link I found and was pretty happy with how it was pretty thorough and didn’t serve up an ad right away.

How To Restart A Stalled Project

This one has the article as a podcast episode so you can listen to it. The article and the podcast as similar but not exactly the same.

Today, was the second to last day of a losing season of volleyball for my family.

It’s been tough.

There have been lots of dropped balls and random issues here and there.

When we lose a game, I like to go through the following steps.

1. Think about what we got right
2. Be grateful that no one got injured
3. Think about how to get ready for the next game

Above all, I avoid complaining about other players. It just makes the losing worse as you keep on dwelling on what you can’t go back and change PLUS you start fighting with the people you have to play with in the next game.

Exercise is a great stress reliever for me. I know my day will be better the next day if I spend at least 20 minutes working up a sweat. I can focus. I’m smarter, funnier, and better looking after working out a couple days in a row. Maybe that last part is because of the confidence I get from the feeling of accomplishment.

But, I’ve been having trouble getting back into a routine.

So, I thought I would tell the internet that I’m having trouble and write up the things that I do that encourage me to exercise regularly.

1. Forgive myself for getting out of shape
   If I haven’t worked out in a while, I feel a little ashamed. I know if feels good to work out, but why did I do this - or not do this - to myself. I have to let this feeling go and focus on the present
2. Start off small. I start off with a small goal. If I’m feeling winded, maybe just start off with a small warm up to get the body moving. I try not to compare myself with what I imagine I was able to do, what I should be able to do, and the ability that I see in others. Comparison is the thief of joy and the joy is from working out.
3. Have a time that I’m going to do this
   I have this problem with so many other things. It doesn’t matter if I want to do something if I don’t set aside time to do it. You can’t move things forward if there isn’t a time for it.

Tomorrow, I plan on doing 5 pushups as soon as I get out of bed. Promise!

Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day and you see companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google post about how they are making things more accessible for their users¹.

It’s good to see major companies doing this as it helps everyone. I just wanted to take this time to remind you that you can do your part by making your website a little more accessible.

A good place to go is WebAim and looking at the page on accessibility for designers. After reviewing the guidelines, you can checkout this page of accessible website examples.

I was feeling really run down the last couple of days due to allergies and lack of sleep. Isn’t is so amazing how coughing and sneezing can keep you up at night. Tonight, I figured I would try to get some better sleep and look up some resources on how to do it.

How to Sleep Better

I enjoy the posts on wikiHow because of the illustrations and how they break it things down into individual steps that you can do.

20 Tips for How to Sleep Better

I like linking to organizations because they don’t have any ads before you get to the information or links that say Click Here for production information. I’m sure that you can find something on this list that you can do in your own life.

How to Sleep Better

I like this article because it has more details on how the tips actually contribute to better sleep.

Well, I’m hoping to get back into writing regularly. Tomorrow, I’m going to be writing a little bit about exercise.

Sometimes, it’s hard to think about how to make it through the day. I’ve had my moments where I thought the world would be better without me.

I’m lucky to no longer have those thoughts play around in my mind as they did back then.

I’m not going to say that my life is perfect now, but I will say that it has gotten better. I have a better understanding of what kind of solution I was thinking about and how it really just makes things worse.

It’s not over. This world needs you and things can get better, but not without you in it.

Hemispheric Views had another great episode of their podcast. This one was about the perfect album. Defining perfect as an album that you can listen to without skipping tracks and just enjoying. Since the initial release of the podcast, people have been blogging about what they feel is good.

I’ve thought about a couple albums but one that comes to mind right now is Louden Up Now by !!!. I bought this album while I was in college on a whim and I find myself putting it on when I’m feeling particular angsty or frustrated.

It is ** extremely explicit ** and puts my frustration into words with a beat. But, after the album is over, the anger is disrupted and I feel like I can move on.

Of course, sometimes I just feel like listening to Pardon My Freedom on repeat and letting the world just float on by.

But I feel that it’s the other tracks that jostle me out of that feeling as it becomes a little absurd with the lyrics and the beats are just erratic enough to shake me out of a funk.

It took me a while to find other information about this group online because I thought they only had one album and the fact that looking up !!! didn’t work in the search engines that I was using because of the wildcard nature of their names.

I highly encourage you to check out the listing of Perfect Albums that Robb Knight put together.

I’ve been thinking about what to write for this day during Mental Health Awareness month.

And, it came to me.

Sometimes we need to take a break.

I wanted to write an article about finding music that you can relax to. I tried finding a couple links to where you can find relaxing music and the first couple pages of my search results were links to hours long videos on YouTube and I didn’t want to link you to music on a streaming service.

I tend to find myself listening to albums that I’ve had for years in order to relax or using an app called Focus@will. I’m still trying to figure it out.

This is the first Monday of Mental Health Awareness month! A lot of my coworkers HATE Monday. For them it’s the hardest part of the week. Some days, I feel the same way.

I try to be grateful as Mondays usually mean that I’m starting the work week and that will lead to a paycheck that will provide for my family and I. But sometimes, I need a little bit extra.

I thought I would do a search and put what I found on these sites that don’t blast you will Cookie popups as soon as you load the page.

10 Mindful Monday Ideas To Improve Your Life

I don’t do number 10 - Posting to Instagram. I tend to do that kind of posting to a chat thread I have with friends or on my blog.

8 Tiny Things I’ve Tried to Make Mondays More Pleasant

The last one is important. It’s ok to feel less than fantastic all the time. As humans, we have our highs and lows.

10 Ways to Make Your Monday Better

My favorite on this list is Prep on Friday. I’ve been attempting to start a new habit where I do an end of day wrap-up. Still working on that.

Hello! You might have missed the news about weblogpomo or missed the first couple of days. Who knows, you might be missing today or tomorrow. You might throw your hands up and say Shucks! I missed it!

But, and this is a secret, it’s ok.

I’m going to give you permission to join us.

Any day is a good day that you can write something on your blog. Because, ultimately, you are the first audience for your writing.

If you’re running out of steam or just having trouble getting those first couple of words down, I’m giving you permission to be imperfect and share that imperfection with the rest of us.

Thank you.

I was hoping to have a longer post about how to improve your sleep but I woke early this morning and all I can think about (other than this post) is when I can go back to sleep.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, I suggest you read this article on WikiHow about taking a Power Nap.

Have a great day and even better nap!

I’ve been trying a different approach to planning my day this month. Instead of looking at all the things that I feel I need to do, I’m just going to a couple of them and knocking it down.

I don’t get through all of them and sometimes I add more through the day but it’s a nice visual reminder of what I have set out to do.

Sometimes I feel like things are really a mess. I don't know what the next step is or - on the hardest days - what steps are possible. On those days, I try to clear my mind and gain a little bit of control by clearing my desk off.

Here are a couple of articles linking cleanliness to mental health and stress relief.

The Connection Between Cleanliness and Mental Health

I like this article because it talks about how cleaning sparks that feeling of control over your environment. It also gave a really good tip on setting a timer so that you don’t lose yourself into cleaning for hours and then feel stressed that you lost time. Cleaning is always time well spent in my opinion.

The Mental Health Benefits Of A Clean Home

This article is shorter than the last and breaks it down into two sets of bullet points that you can use.

Cleaning for Mental Health

This article from the Cleaning Institute is a pretty good one in that it also has links on how to clean. I know that I sometimes don’t know how to get started. Don’t let the idea that you can’t clean it perfectly stop you from doing any cleaning.

For me, I stopped at after cleaning up the desk area and was able to focus a little bit better that day.

Every month should be Mental Health Month.

Period.

But, just like Christmas, Halloween, and Valentines, it’s good to do a little bit more as we Get into the Spirit.

I drew the picture attached to this post because I find myself doing this when I’m stressed. It makes me happy. I also like to do large multiplication problems and then checking my answer with a calculator, but some people find that stressful to look at. :upside_down_face:

Here are some good resources that are promoting mental health awareness.

Mental Health America

They have a nice toolkit filled with ideas, posters, and resources.

SAMHSA

I like this site because it has a lot of things that you can share on different social media platforms and it’s broken down week to week. I feel this could be better in gives you more reasons to come back to the site.

NAMI

I like fact that they point you to the national HelpLine on the page.

San Francisco Warm Line

I really like the idea of a Warm Line. Sometimes we just need someone to talk to. Sometimes we wait until we’re almost at the breaking point. This might just the thing you need.

CalHOPE

Targeted towards people where I live. Hopefully there are other resources closer to you as well.

I’m planning on posting about Mental Health all this month and talking a little bit about how I’m going to be picking up new habits. I hope that you take a moment to review the resources and share it with others.

If you are looking for inspiration to write more on your personal blog, then I would like to point you to this upcoming event put together by Apple Annie.

What is it? Weblog Posting Month, 2024! If you use weblog.lol, or otherwise have a personal blog, you should absolutely participate in this month-long blog posting extravaganza!

I am hoping to have a theme of Making it Happen in May, where Ill write something about self-improvement or promoting Mental Health Month.

Discovered via Robb Knight on Mastodon.