Fool Me Twice…

Yesterday was the perfect morning for a bike ride…sunny…breezy…cool…so…I pumped up the tires…donned the padded shorts…and headed out…for what I told myself would be a six mile ride…I know…if you aren’t a bike rider…that sounds far…but…if you ride…then you know…that’s really not far enough to warrant tire pumping…it’s just the distance I’ve been able to go while…putting myself back out there…

So…that was my original intent…until…I crossed the highway…and got started towards my favorite riding spots…then…it became…well…I could ride here…then…it would be about seven miles…good to start increasing my mileage…think I’ll just go to the big tree…I can turn around there…that would make about eight miles…yeah…that would be a good ride…

Of course…once I was at the big tree…I wanted to ride the road that…began there…and…there is a Church a few miles up the road…that is a nice resting spot…

Anyway…I won’t give you the pedal-by-pedal details…but suffice it to say…sixteen miles later…the bike was back in the garage…and I was feeling…even more satisfied…than tired…and…I was plenty tired…

Later…I found myself…in the kitchen…having bought groceries…and…cooked a healthy dinner…looking at the mess…and…not really wanting to clean up…so…I said…well…I’ll just rinse the dishes off…I can leave the rest…along with the nonperishables…until morning…

Then…something happened…I picked up a can…then another…and another…then…a dish went in the dishwasher…and there was…warm…soapy…water in the sink…for the pots and pans…the kitchen was cleaned…whilst…I declared…I was only going to do this one thing…

Bertha…of course…had to remind me…that…this is an approach that works well for me…trickery…tomfoolery…when the task seems more than I can handle in the moment…tricking myself into starting…by…giving myself permission…to just do a tiny portion…knowing…full well…as I did with the bike ride…as I did in the kitchen…that once I’m started…I’ll want to do more…

Hmmm…now I’m wondering…what tricks will I play on myself today…

Jane