Cait Reynolds's Blog

The rest of the country and parts of the world may be opening up, but yours truly is staying put. I have a kidney transplant, and therefore no immune system to speak of, so anything more than walking my dogs (while wearing a mask and practicing social distancing) is off my agenda until the transplant doctors at UCLA give me the all-clear.

So…I’m still at home. I mean, I kind of would be at home anyway because I work from home, but I would at least be able to run to the store or see friends, ...

When I was finally diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Disorder in my late 30’s, my life changed — dramatically and for the better. I won’t talk about the fact that many women don’t get diagnosed because of gendered symptomatology. Or that hyperactivity isn’t automatically a part of the brain’s malfunctioning chemistry.

What I will talk about are…lists.

All my life, I’ve been a list-maker. Sometimes, my lists have had to be granular to the point of ‘brush teeth’ and ‘take meds’ and...

I dont know about you, but these days, I am consuming content at double the rate I did pre-pandemic. And thats saying a lot. A LOT.

I also happen to be one of those annoying friends who, at the slightest bit of encouragement, will launch into an exhaustive list of book recommendations. Its annoying. I know. I also cant help it.

Thats how I came up with the idea of creating catalogues raisonnés. Thats a fancy French way of saying annotated bibliography. But, really, its more in line with the...

Before we begin, let me just say, this is not meant to be a political post. In fact, it has almost nothing to do with the politics surrounding Covid-19 and questions of continuing to shelter-in-place or not.

Science says we arent out of the woods with Covid-19 yet and probably wont be for another two years. Im not here to comment on whether states should open back up or not because I believe the issue is scientifically simple, economically complex, and emotionally volatile.

Therefore, I am...

First of all, Id like to dedicate this blog post to Mrs. Barbara Bender who taught my high school sophomore year American Literature class. It wasnt that the reading selections were all that riveting, or that we had any kind of Oh, Captain, my captain, kind of moments. What made the class so pivotal in my formation as a writer is the fact Mrs. Bender made us write papersand we hated it.

Why? Because we had to submit an OUTLINE for every single paper, and the points had to match up. The...

I hate blogging on the best of days. Part of it is that I am lazy. But, part of it is that Im slightly obsessive about creating cast-iron arguments or doing the most meticulous, perfect research. But then, add in Yoast, that plugin that promises to boost your Googleiciousness, and you have a surefire trigger for panic-fueled procrastination.

See, that paragraph right there would have set off Yoast alarms right away. I didnt lead with the keyword (I didnt even set a keyword for this post, and...

Hi, my name is Cait, and I’m a planner addict. No, seriously, you name a planner, I have probably tried it. I’ve done Franklin Covey, Commit30, PassionPlanner, DayTimer, At-a-Glance, Filofax, and even various Kickstarters. That’s just scratching the surface, because I have an itch to be organized.

That didn’t come out…quite…right, but you know what I mean. Can I get a show of hands if any of these have ever applied to you?

Don’t get me wrong. I love the holiday season as much as the next person. However, I also love torturing my dog with Christmas costumes, making traditional plum pudding that would fail a breathalyzer and get locked up for DUI, and sending chewed-up Denny toys to my friends’ dogs.

So, these pieces of evidence of torture…er…photos of family togetherness also represent my attempt at a kind of advent calendar. We take 24 of these photos, and I put them up on Facebook for my frien...

So, Kristen Lamb and I spent a lot of time last week talking about self-help (among other things, including podcasting, serial killers, and why the NSA doesn’t get better phone tap tech – we can hear the clicking!).  As the daughter of a psychologist and a social worker, I am genetically predisposed to be twitchy and see cult-like induction strategies in almost all self-help books/groups/techniques/merchandise.

Anyway, we’re talking about self-help. I broke out in hives. Kristen laughed. She...

Last week was one of *those* weeks. You know the ones I’m talking about. A Sisyphean series of tasks that kinda sorta moved forward but never really got finished. A black hole of productivity where effort went in, but nothing came out.

Yeah…that kind of week.

In my case, the causes of that kind of week could be any number of things: anxiety, procrastination…the need to do the dishes above all other income-generating work.  

The results can range from snail’s-pace productivity to complete par...