Well, the dust seems to have settled. It is July of 2018 and I have been peering through the storm for a year, trying to sort my Small Projects (SPs) into some kind of approachable landscape while maintaining a feet-on-the-ground attitude about growing increasingly old. Retirement looms like a balloonful of psychedelics, distant or in my face OMG, but not yet. I fret and mow the yard and manage Mimi, the new puppy Silver Fox and I added to our pack. And once again, I will be sharing my thoughts through this looking glass, an SP to which today I return. The post below is from August, 2017 - a reminder of last year's plans and this year's reckoning:) Welcome back, everyone:)


The thing about VLPs (Very Large Projects), is that they prioritize things for you. To a person like me, whose list of I'd Like To Dos gets longer every day, that focus is invaluable. But the cost of VLPs gets higher with every passing year, and while I would like to have found that new wisdoms will balance those costs, for me they did not. Frustrations with learning curves, late-night tasking, time management issues, loneliness - Nevermore; I have foresworn.


And that leaves me with SPs - Small Projects. Lot and lots of them. I dream them, some float through my thoughts, conversations spark them, and I am inundated after traveling somewhere new. I want to paint; I want to make a photography book; I want to travel with my family; I want to sew up a pattern I have in my head. . . these SP visions begin to swirl through my mind until I am dizzy. If I pick one to work on I am easily distracted. If I start something new I am easily frustrated. I find it easiest to rant at whatever comes my way and just be reactive rather than proactive. This is not the way I want to live!

Take electronics, without which I cannot continue publishing. I bought a new phone and suddenly my music is gone and I have Silver Fox's instead. Ummm. My camera takes these cute little series of pics on each shot that makes action for a second before it stops. Those transfer to IPhoto as a whole load of photos taking up who knows how much space that you can't just grab and move, or choose only one, or anything easy, as apparently you have to click on the whole set to even delete. How do I make my camera stop doing that??? Now I have a new SP learning all about my new phone from the internet, a lengthy proposition for my slow old brain.

The world is going crazy, and the last time things were so bad I was right in the middle of it. I want to help, but I can no longer be the foot soldier I was then. And regardless of how we third-stagers puff ourselves up about wisdom and experience, no one will listen. I should read and write more; I should send money; I should sign petitions; I should write congresspeople; I should be part of the answer.

My physical regimen for the summer has been almost exclusively landscaping and gardening. What the hell am I going to do now???

Around and around they go, blowing up large for a moment and then receding while the next blows up, like those folder and desktop application functions that wax and wane as you run your mouse under them. I hate those. The views are too small and they move to fast, just like my imagination.

Becoming the belledame has, however, had unforeseen impacts. Having crossed that bridge when I came to it, I find myself now transitioned, bedamed if you like; and one thing I seem to have less of is tolerance for foolishness, in myself and in others. I can fix this and be dizzy no more. Today I have a plan. I make a list of all the SPs I currently know about and decide what to do about each, then get help. I will sign up for Apple phone training. I will send money and shut up about injustice (well, maybe a rant here now and then). I will get a yoga teacher. I will delegate, and, following another of my newly crystallized dame precepts, I ain't gonna do anything I don't want to. If an SP requires me to do something I don't want to, it is out of the band. The new-agers say this is a year to clear:)

And when the dust settles, I will too.