The Year of Prompt Solutions

The new year sputtered to a start in our neighborhood -- the pump went out on the community well sometime New Years Eve, and we all woke up to no water. Happily, it was fixed and the system recharged before nightfall. Maybe 2009 will be the Year of Prompt Solutions.

I've got some serious must-do items for the coming year: I need to get my house in order, literally and figuratively.

Literally:
We are still sorting through all the stuff -- from Jim's business closing, from my folks downsizing, from plain old unexamined accumulations. I am starting to see the light at the end of that tunnel, and that helps.

We still aren't really set up for the critters. We put temporary insulated walls up on the back porch to see the goats through our extra-severe winter weather. Gigi was still recovering when the cold hit and we really needed to keep them warm. We need a real goat shed for them. They won't appreciate it, though. They've gotten used to watching us in the living room at night. The chickens will appreciate a proper coop. They did amazingly well through the cold, partly by eating heroic quantities of layer pellets. But now the runoff from the melting snow is invading their run, and damp is worse for them than cold. Well, at least it is well-ventilated.

We managed to tear up the yard, front & back, last summer. Now we need to landscape and plant.

Figuratively cleaning house, now that's harder. I need to sort out some new directions for my work. I'm burned out on the kind of writing that has been my bread & butter for so long. Really, really burned out. It's a bit scary. So I'm looking at other ways to make a living. Faux finishing... I'm pretty good at it but this is not the economy to build a new business like that. (But, oooh, I do want to get into those traditional lime plasters. Beautiful stuff, natural materials, and it makes for a healthy indoor environment. That is what we will be wanting in our homes.) Writing is still my mainstay. I'm looking at ways to make money writing about things other than computers and software.

With the house clean and tidy, the animals properly housed, and work in front of me that doesn't constantly remind me of difficult times, I expect to have a lot more energy. Enough to get paying work done and still have the time and enegy to work in the garden and with the animals, doing the things that light me up.

I don't know how long your "must do" list is for this year. But I know we are all apprehensive about the economy, the ecosystem, etc. So let us raise our cups to the Year of Prompt Solutions.