Tag: self-reflection

Midweek PSAT Update

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As noted on Monday, yours portly has been tied up with some major life stuff—all good, but all quite time-consuming.  Indeed, today marks one month to my wedding!  Dr. Fiancée and I are excited, and most of the details have been hammered out (I know that I will regret writing that overly optimistic assessment).  At this point, it’s mostly just paying the vendors.

I’m also gearing up for the Spooktacular, which is this Saturday, 25 October 2025.  Yours portly is not the best about maintaining a clean home, as it’s not a high priority to me.  As long as the kitchen counters are disinfected and the toilet is scrubbed, I’m content.  Naturally, dust and crumbs accumulate like the ash from a volcano; somehow, I’m incapable of eating breakfast without leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.  Murphy and I both do our share of shedding, too.  I imagine the tops of my ceiling fans would give housewives the hives.

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TBT: Alone

The Portly Politico11 Comments

Last February I found myself in a rather discouraging place—dumped and dejected, wiling away my time with designer LEGO sets and DiGiorno pizza.  Unbeknownst to yours portly at the time, I’d embark on two relationships:  a short-lived, doomed-from-the-start imbroglio with a hyper-progressive, anxiety-ridden schoolmarm, then what I thought might be “It.”  It didn’t last, and I found myself in a similar mindset around Christmastime.

Ironically, watching It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) helped immensely.  George Bailey’s frustrations and struggles very much mirrored my own (except that he resented his big family and happy marriage), and I understood his character’s despair and broken dreams palpably.

I’m in a better place—no need to send Clarence—but some of those enduring frustrations still hold fast.  I’m not nearly as bitter about it as I was when I wrote this piece, but no amount of frozen pizza can mend a broken heart.

With that, here is 1 February 2022’s “Alone“:

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Phone it in Friday XXX: Blog Updates and Writing

The Portly Politico1 Comment

Ah, yes—the bleak midwinter.  A time for eating frozen pizzas and warm soups, washed down with hot, black coffee.  A time for turning in early at night, indulging in the warmth and comfort of fleece sheets and heavy quilts.

I see why bears hibernate right now:  ’tis the season for coziness, to embrace the hygge.  I certainly eat like a grizzly preparing for a few months of hibernation, but I don’t sleep off the excess fat stores.  It just gets added on until another round of gastrointestinal self-denial kicks in after I gaze at my double chin too long.

It is with the spirit of the hibernating grizzly that I write this post.  I love writing, but like most writers, that love is sometimes coupled with hate—or, in my case, weary indifference.  It comes in waves, most of them brief, but I’m currently riding one at the moment—or flailing about frantically amid it, my head occasionally dipping below into the briny deep.

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TBT^256: It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle!

The Portly Politico2 Comments

I’m continuing the time-honored tradition of Thanksgivings past (2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, and 2017) with the annual reblogging of “It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle!”  I wrote the original post (on the old blog) back in 2017, just a few days after I fell from a ladder and broke my wrist.  It was my lowest point in a number of ways, but I was grateful to be alive.

I’m thankful this year, too, although I am similarly in a bit a slump personally.  No matter—I’ve got a good family, a good house, a good dog, and lots of private lessons to tide over my insatiable lust for frozen pizza and LEGO sets.

My pastor has been working painstakingly through Philippians for some time now, and has been hammering home the idea of finding joy amid our situations, no matter how difficult they might be.  If the Apostle Paul could rejoice in a Roman prison, we can rejoice in the far less trying times of our daily lives.

Good stuff, even if it’s hard to live out.  At least today I’ll get to eat some turkey.

With that, here is “TBT^16: It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle!“:

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Blogging Reflections at 1192 Days

The Portly Politico8 Comments

Anyone who has been on WordPress for longer than five minutes has probably come across Cristian Mihai, a Romanian-born blogger, who writes about, well, blogging.  I don’t know much about Mr. Mihai, but he has apparently figured out a way to make a living blogging.

Many of his posts are tips about blogging, and almost all of them are sales pitches (no judgment here—I do it, too) for some blogging-related product or another.  I’ve never paid for any of his courses or the like, so I can’t speak to their quality.  He does sell reblogs on his blog, meaning he re-posts another blogger’s work in order to increase that writer’s views.  I don’t endorse that practice personally, but if people are willing to pay for that exposure, they have the right.

I do, however, have a free membership to his irevuo website.  On Monday, he posted a very interesting piece about Seth Godin, one of the early adopters of blogging.  Godin has been at it for over twenty years, reaching his 7000th post on 6 November 2017.

That’s insanely impressive.

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