30 Hubs in 30 Days, Scaling Back My Goal

 I proved to myself that I could have done it. That's the important thing. On any normal month when I didn't have something else major going on, I'd have just sailed through the rest of it to finish early the way I usually do with http://www.nanowrimo.org and other writing challenges.

I enjoy them. I always get a lot done when I take one up, and this month's is no exception. I already exceeded the lower level goal of 30 hubs in 30 days substantially.

But I got some news this morning that instead of leaving on the 1st, we're leaving for Arkansas on the 25th. Instead of doing my own packing and having ten more days to do it in, I'm getting help from my daughter and son in law, who are young and strong and undisabled. They could get everything in my room packed well with nothing broken or damaged in about three hours by my daughter's estimate and she planned for it.

What I need to do is pack my trip bag and the Tote Express with the art supplies I still want to keep handy and the books I'm currently reading.

Then when we get there, we might be in a hotel if the utilities aren't turned on yet. It will take another day or two to get Internet access up and running.

I have been stressing too much and I'm in the middle of a fibromyalgia flare. I'm not all that sure I can do a good job of packing the Trip Bag without help.

I'm happy about it! I was not looking forward to living half packed for another ten days at all, and have been doing the HubChallenge partly so that I could have something to look at every day as an accomplishment, same type of thing as my Daily Art. Getting a minor goal done every day is an important part of my stress management. The days when I don't get anything done at all start a vicious cycle of feeling lousy about myself and too aware of my limitations, too depressed about being disabled, too jealous of people who can get up every day and do something important every day like getting to work or taking care of their own housework and activities of daily living.

But I've also pushed myself to my limits.

I've been stressing over catching up -- and succeeded. Like most writers, I am a stubborn cuss and so I used the HubChallenge to keep from physical overexertion. It takes an hour and a half on average for me to write an article. So that was an hour and a half of doing something real instead of just farting around playing a game when I had to stop packing because my back spasmed -- my back is one of five or six permanent disabling conditions, not in itself totally disabling but it's also important as the one that warns me when I'm overdoing it on the rest.

If I ignore my back spasms I will damage my bad leg and hip. Then get stuck with a month or more of resting up without being able to walk even as far as I normally can or stand up to do anything but get to the bathroom, which is sucky. So I pay attention to my back when it flares, and it's been flaring. Thanks to the HubChallenge, I have not blown it to the point I need bedrest.

I would get behind again if I just started packing for Monday's move without worrying about getting new Hubs done. I would get a lot more behind by the time I had Internet again. Writing offline without being able to upload it immediately tends to result in articles written and never sent anywhere. I forget about them.

Memory problems are one of the most annoying fibromyalgia symptoms. Routine is important to getting things done, the less I need to remember, the better I get things done. It can also be a bad thing if I take on more than I can handle because I'll drive myself right down into a total collapse if I just get into a routine that is cumulatively a bit more than I could do.

I could maintain it if I had no more interruptions, and I know that. Thanks for holding this challenge, it's been fun. Writing is much more fun in a group or a gang and the "mob effect" is something that I can rarely if ever indulge in. Most people enjoy concerts, sports events, group activities that involve lots of people they don't know. It's human instinct to enjoy those -- unless you're the one that limps and constantly aware you can be trampled by the crowd.

What's funny is that I didn't realize till my thirties that I kept going to concerts because all my friends enjoyed them but had a lousy time every single time and usually got some minor accidents from the crowd pushing, shoving and stepping on me. Always felt alone in the middle of the crowd because by the time anything got going I was already in a lot of pain, exhausted and not having fun. So I came to the conclusion I didn't like crowds and quit doing things like that.

Till I ran into online things like that where I can keep up, with effort, and discovered that marathons with other people can be deeply satisfying down on a gut instinct level. "Write a whole bunch of cool articles on topics of your choice" is the kind of riot that is harmless and positive. It's given me some darn good reading too!

I started late for 100 Hubs and managed to catch up three days worth slowly with sustained effort. That's an achievement. But I don't want to roll down to the bottom of the hill again like Sisyphus and wind up even farther behind -- when I may come out of the physical process of moving with the need for a week or two of bedrest from the activity of the trip itself.

So this is the end of my HubChallenge -- I hope you've all enjoyed my new articles and I'll see if this did help my AdSense income. It probably will, I've much more than doubled the number of Hubs that I had up. I've been cutting back more and more on the other things I do online and off to catch up and that would've been fine -- if I could coast here on out. But I can't.

It's hard to let go of any challenge or commitment. It was hard this morning to decide to call off doing Daily Art, when my Daily Art Blog, http://robertsloan2.livejournal.com has been getting more comments and more readers ever since I started doing it. I hate slamming into my limits and having to admit they are there -- especially on things I do well.

When my hands are on a keyboard, I'm not a limping cripple but a soaring athlete, a Dvorak user super-typist speedwriter. I can slam out a novel in three days. I compete in the serious ranks on this type of thing and will be entering the http://www.3daynovel.com contest this year for real -- I am so up for it and it would rock to have a chance to win. But usually when I do something like that, I sweep everything else off my desk and don't plan on getting anything else done till the marathon's over.

I can't do that this time. The truck is in the driveway and my room is full of boxes, my back is spasming and right now packing the Trip Bag essentials is the one thing I am determined to finish by Monday morning. I don't have to do it now. But the sooner the better -- it can sit open next to me with my stuff going in and out as I use it. I might well do some art just to relax and I might even do another Hub or two, but this is the end of my challenge -- this time.

If y'all do another one next year, I may do it for fun and really enjoy it provided nothing else important is going on. I had a good time. Thanks for the memories and neat little graphic. I'll claim the one I earned, because 30 is an achievement too and much more than I had.

I have a massive effort ahead of me this weekend and then some well deserved rest. I'll start picking up online activities and commitments again after I'm really rested up and ready for them. Thanks for everything! Especially marisuewrites and pgrundy -- your articles rock.