Unscheduled Maitenence

My personal “check engine” light has been glaring at me for the last weeks. I look at the date and think “Where did January go?!” I have been busy, yes, but certainly not so much that I could miss an entire month passing by.

Somehow I thought that life would find this magical place where the hourglass would even out and I would have time. Yet alas, no. Not yet.

Bug in SnowLooking at my posts for the last year and taking stock, it seems this is rather a continuous problem for me. Whirlwinds of adventure mean that time goes quickly. It is a reminder to appreciate moments but also that maybe I should finally take stock and figure out a bigger chunk of what I am doing. Hello Adult-Type World, I guess I am in you now.

In addition to figuring out my big-girl-pants next life steps, I’ve been in the process of trying to come to terms with this blog. See, at the end of December I broke my steak of blog posts. Once I missed one, I missed many. It is sad to say that a habit can so easily fall apart.

Instead of wallowing, however, I’m pushing myself to get the thing done and, imperfect as it will seem to me as soon as I hit publish, I will ship this today… or at least “today” Eastern Standard Time. Sounds like a rather inauspicious beginning but such has been the journey to this point and so at least that wild streak will continue.

The Tune Up

The conclusion that I have come to, my dear reader, is that Wednesdays don’t work for me. It isn’t anything that they did, you see, it is just me. I’ve changed. I’m not breaking up with them entirely though, I hope we are going to remain friends.

At the end of this long intro, I’m bringing back Linkage. It was funny to go back and see that I started my weekly-round up about a year ago. Same idea this time — a weekly review of the interestingness I find in one of the 57 tabs I usually have open of the interwebs (and perhaps on actual paper) — but all newly packaged up for Wednesdays.

What I’ve also learned is that I really like the short form writing I’ve been doing over at my A Photo A Day project. I also have actually gotten some good responses to the images and words over there (thank you to all that have responded, liked and reblogged content).

I’m recommitting to APAD as my artistic space. Please follow along my daily musings and findings. I’m contemplating a move to WordPress but that is at the end of a very long to-do list.

Finally, I am vowing to rekindle my long-form blogging flame and post once a week. This time, I’m choosing Sundays. I think it befits my style in addition to much better working with my schedule. I hope you’ll bear with me as I work out all my kinks. Many of you might not even notice the difference.

And, if you’ve been missing my missives in your inbox, those will still arrive on sporadic Fridays.

The Takeaway

If you can glean one thing from my laundry list it is this: take stock and find what works for you. Make your commitments from there. Our plans and schedule will always be in flux. Life happens and all that cliche stuff that is cliche because it is so very true.

We have intentions and sometimes they get the best of us. We are at our best when we don’t ignore the maintenance signs and do the repair work that needs to be done. 

If you are still with me you might realize that really what this was about was giving myself the pass on missing doing the work for the last month and publicly announcing my new intentions for some accountability. We’ll see how it goes.

On to the Linkage

Seems apt to start with a reminder not to take myself so seriously. A repeated good one: The Pale Blue Dot. Zen Pencils also recently did a fantastic version of the same Carl Sagan quotation.

Keeping with the YouTubes, a friend sent along this peppy piece of inspiration to help inspire you to create something to make the world awesome (not cool Robert Frost).

As I also struggle with my Italian, I enjoyed this forwarded Writer’s Almanac reading for Feb 3rd, doubly for the birthday blurb on Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to go to medical school.

Too sexy for Big Data, hopefully I can eventually be so lucky.

The important thing is that we think for ourselves and make up our own minds about what’s best for us.

On finding community… even hipster vegetarians.

What I am reading offline: “The Gifts of Imperfection” by Brene Brown, “Never Let Go” by Dan John and “The Agony and the Ecstasy” by Irving Stone. I recommend them all. In case that isn’t enough, Seth Godin has some other books worth checking out.

And finally, another by Zen Pencils on not yielding — very apt to me as I completed Tough Guy 10 days ago (post coming soon) and the last image looks very much like my finish photo.

Sempre Avanti
Jo

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