Today I feel overwhelmed. I went climbing, though, and that helped. I attempted the green 5.7 shamrock route three times, the purple 5.8 once, and the 5.5 pink handles up on the mezzanine once (flash send, of course). Brian and Emily were taking turns leading, so I stuck to the auto-belays today. My grip was jelly, anyway. Not sure what’s going on (besides PTSD), but I haven’t been feeling well mentally for about two months. This is a hard time of year for me, though. Beginning in August and running until mid-November is a difficult time due to my time in the Desert. Immediately following that is Thanksgiving, which is just a logistical nightmare. Black Friday, Small-Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday all usher in the mad rush to the post office to mail and receive packages…two of which I need to mail (product returns). That’s without throwing my Pop’s stroke in there during September. Watching our nephew gets me out of bed, at least. I really should go to the climbing gym the minute we’re done watching Cullen in the morning, and at 0600 hrs on days that we don’t have Cullen in the morning. That would get the day started, but there are other obligations that factor in, too. What I’m really aiming for is those alpine start (members only) hours between 0600 hrs and 1000 hrs in the morning on Tuesday through Friday.
Tomorrow I’m going to set routes at the climbing gym with AJ and whoever else shows up to set at 0900 hrs. I have to have AJ at choir practice at 1145 hrs, and then I have my appointment with the Doc, so we’ll only be doing a few hours’ worth of setting unless AJ finds a ride back to the climbing gym while I’m at my appointment. Route setting tomorrow will be good. I look forward to that as much as I look forward to climbing! I’ll have to run some ideas through my head and put them down on paper tonight because we won’t have much time to set our routes tomorrow morning! I wish I was more familiar with the walls and the new holds we have available. That’ll come with time. For now, I just need to get rough ideas in my head and sketch them on my iPad Pro. I may need to get a journal for my route sketches so I can look back on my ideas as I progress. That’s actually a good idea!
CLIMBING 4 THE REST OF US 