Sidetracked Charley

The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things. Of shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. And typically, as tradition dictates, resolutions for the new year. I don't do resolutions. I have called them commitments and acknowledgments but I seem to avoid the avoid the world resolutions. It reminds me of court room dramas - It is hereby resolved . . . Resolution is defined as 1) a firm decision to do or not do something or 2) the action of solving a problem, dispute or contentious matter.  I think the words firm and action get in my way. A resolution just seems negative like stop biting your nails, stop drinking, or lose weight. Even phrased in the positive (I will do ten planks a day) has negative connotations. And half the time as you are writing them down you know you will not keep them. Not for a full year. No way. And that is assuming nothing gets in the way like a broken leg which makes planks impossible. Or a definite nail bitin...

Magique After Vole Under the Snow I would like to say I jumped right into accomplishment of my lists - resolutions, to-do's, and dreams all gunge ho like my labradoodle after a Vole. But I cannot. Oh, the Holiday decorations got taken down and packed away. Even the boxes got carried one by one, through a foot of snow, out to the far storage shed. The space where it stood is now my yoga practice area and I gave it a test run once this week. I like to tell myself I sneak up on my resolutions. Frankly, in my opinion, the first week of January is why most people fail with resolutions. And why there are twelve days of Christmas ending on Epiphany which is January 6. The first week of January has hideous weather, a refrigerator full of leftovers, and one holiday (New Year's Day). For us here in Black Lake it also has two weeks of trash (the tourists have hogged the dumpsters for at least two weeks), four holiday snow storms to be managed, and this year subzero nights in the tw...

Brighter Day I sat down last night, sung and warm in my house with my fur kids, to watch some old DVD's of favorite movies and to work on my New Year Affirmations. I began doing affirmations some years back when resolutions just seemed beyond me. I knew I was keeping none of them because of the dark cloud of the mechanics lien. The affirmations were all about keeping my spirits up and keeping on, keeping on against all odds. The dark cloud is gone so the resolutions seem appropriate this year. As does an ambitious list of improvements I want to make on my house beginning with the cheapest because at the moment the rental unit does not have tenants and ergo no rental income. And since it is currently empty the first improvements are on the apartment. First project after cleaning is to tile the entry way with some stone tile I have saved for the project I was going to do five years ago. The list for my part of the house is longer, but includes a deck at last outside the stud...

Elk Dawn at Black Lake I am a writer of journals and blogs, a maker of goals and affirmations, a believer that the future is a gift we have the opportunity to shape. So with the last day of 2011 before me I pulled out my journal and looked back to the same time last year. And then the year before. I had begun 2010 with a lofty and extensive list of goals. I accomplished less than half. I was grateful I did that much but it did effect my list for 2011. That list is only 6 items: 1) Move beyond the events of 2010, 2) Be more positive in my outlook, 3) Set my own directions, 4) Set more adventurous directions in my art, 5) Look at doing poetry/art book, 6) Keep website more current. I have failed miserably at number 6 which now adorns my todo list for 2012. And I will admit that it took me almost all of 2011 to get number 2 and 3 accomplished. And I can still be overwhelmed by grief from time to time. I am busy working on poems to fit various pieces of my works and have tracked dow...