Wow, I have been behind ever since I started this blog. Well, what else is new? I live life 15 minutes late or a day behind in general. With good reasons these past two months, however.
The week after the official start of my year-long project to do 60 new things before I turn 60, we left for two weeks in England and Scotland. When we got back it was October and time for me to make Halloween costumes for my grandkids, as I always do. This year I made Raphael the Ninja Turtle, a puppy dog, and a dragon monster, plus a skirt and bow to change a hand-me-down monster costume into a girl monster. And the deadline was October 23, not the 31st!
Along with the sewing, we also had to prepare for big crowds for two tailgates (great football weekends they turned out to be!) and we had two sets of house guests during October, too. Adding to the chaos, we got a call a few days before we returned from Europe that the lake property we are interested in was again available. Always happens when you’re out of the country! So we’ve been dealing with the stuff you need to do to buy real estate and build a lake cottage. Add a couple of days of work on my one remaining paying editing job, a few social events, part of a day watching a sick grandchild, etc….I really can’t believe our October calendar was empty on October 3 when we flew home. It was over-full by the end!
By now it is time for a bucket list update. Check out “The LIST” page to see what’s been checked off! Not nearly enough, but I’m working on many items behind the scenes. Quite obviously, this website is still quite rough, and the design needs to be polished. Who knows when I’ll be able to call “create my own website” done.
“Send birthday cards to all my cousins” is one item that is in full swing. By mid-October I had contacted all sides of the family and gotten all the dates I needed. Facebook reminders aside, who knows all their cousins birthdays? I now have all eleven, plus those of my aunts. Adding in the nieces and nephews, cards are going out at the rate of two a week–the fall is busy for birthdays in our family.
For “plant a tree from a seed,” I have been collecting fall nuts and seed pods and researching how to get them to germinate. I really need to get on with following the instructions for these, or I’m going to be planting spring maple helicopters in desperation!
After the costumes were done and the football weekends accomplished and the sheets and towels all washed after our house guests, I did spend some quiet time on “redo my top 100 song list,” which now has 131 songs on it. A work in progress. I also started “create a top 100 list for classical music,” with just nine pieces on it so far. Lots of work to go there.
One item is backsliding–“start using my skinny clothes wardrobe again” is in total failure due to Halloween candy, and Thanksgiving pies and Christmas cookies are looming. Although I ran a 5K, did a mud run, and biked 42 miles over the weekend, it is true that you can out-eat any exercise program. Aaargh!
So what do you think? Am I going to get all this done? I can say that having these specific 60 goals has inspired me to get more done than previously in my retirement. A curious side effect has been that basic chores such as cleaning the house are getting done quicker now because I have other things calling for attention! The brain and body are both in motion.
Which brings me to “participate in National Novel Writing Month.” Which is NOW! I signed up for Nanowrimo on October 31, and should have started writing my novel yesterday. With temperatures in the high 60s on the first day of November, the outdoors was beckoning (garden clean-up and biking), and sitting at the computer wasn’t going to happen. So here I am, writing a blog and procrastinating as I face that blank page. Just 28 days to finish a brand-new book! If you don’t hear from me in the meantime, you’ll know why…
[image Copyright © 1999 – 2015 National Novel Writing Month]