The Trouble with the New Year

Rock Baby by J. Binford-Bell

The trouble with the new year is we are sold on idea that we get to start over. Things are going to be different once 2011 is over and the brand new year begins. And then the December bills hit. We discover that our new get in shape program seems to be plagued by the same issues we had with the old get in shape program. Taxes are not that far off and we are still broke from those we had to pay in the old year.

Warm weather seems forever in the future. So there will be other heating bills like the last 2011 bill that awaits our attention. One year I would like to have the money and time to prepay everything for January in December and launch the new year truly new.

At times I feel like the photograph above - an eroding rock being a base for lichen which has taken hundreds of years to get to that point but is new as opposed to the rock - their growth and erosion now totally linked forever together - till death do them part.

Trying to get on the stick and get a new renter soonest but then the state the apartment is in I don't want to show it until the one that gave notice has moved out. It is a hoarder's haven. Hardly room to walk. And daily I learn more from others about why it is my renter so suddenly up and left (hasn't been back in town since serving notice) and in spite of my well developed guilt complex (owed me money for 5 months and I was getting rude about it) doesn't look like it was my fault. May be reluctant show up in our small town again. Or give me a forwarding address.

I always begin with Anne Frank - that all people are basically good at heart; and in with end with my father - Anne Frank was wrong. I do believe that we are producing more narcissistic personality disorders these days. Would love to be able to talk to Dad about that.  Meanwhile I am trying to cinch down the budget belt which binds this time of year in the best of times. Keeping the house a bit colder, picking and choosing my invites to lunch out, rethinking February expenditures over and over. Oh, and the balance of January.

While trying to rethink my policy on approval of tenants yet again. I was blessed with great renters the first 10 years of owning the duplex. And have been plagued with a run of three awful ones. I think I am in for a run of good luck. Please universe send me the perfect tenant and send them soon.

Will also take a part time job, art sales, art awards, art students, and pet sitting gigs. And any massive improvements in the economy. Getting tired of being cold and broke.

Comments

  1. Dave KingJanuary 18, 2012 at 3:26 AM

    Maybe we should just agree that the new year starts in April. (April 1st?)

    (Superb image.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ien in the KootenaysJanuary 19, 2012 at 10:00 AM

    January is a ridiculous time to start a new year. Mine is either in early spring, or in September after the summer break. I love your rock/lichen image, both the photo and the metaphor. Did you get your money out of the renter? Good luck with it all! Do NOT count on massive improvement of the economy. Plan for collapse, and if it doesn't, bonus.

    ReplyDelete
  3. JBinford-BellJanuary 19, 2012 at 11:11 AM

    I have decided to begin the new year on Imbolc which is February 4th and the day my black hole of a renter is gone.

    ReplyDelete

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