The Best of Intentions

Isn't that what we all start the new year with?  Lists of things we want to do better, or more of, or less of, in the coming year?  We start with what feels like a clean slate, and we're off to the races. . .

. . . to fizzle before January is over.

Or maybe we hang on a little longer, because some of that list has to do with our garden, which can't even be started until around April or May.  In which case things look peachy until roughly July, when the heat and drought hits and the weeds take over and the veggies fizzle right along with our enthusiasm for growing enough food to stock our larder for an entire year.

Earlier today (while waiting for the dough to rise for the cinnamon rolls I was making for breakfast--OK, lunch, since after feeding horses this morning I went back to bed for two more hours) I was perusing my computer folder labeled "Lists and Projects".  I found several year's worth of good intentions.  Most of which, you could say, have been 'recycled' every few years to show up on a new list.

For instance, in 2008 my goals were to:

• ride often
• have horses at home
• publish my book
• lose 15 pounds
• have an orderly house
• work for myself

None of which actually happened.  In 2011's list, I find:

• RIDE (yes, in caps)
• submit book for publishing
• quit my job 
• time with DH regularly
• finish HT quilt (blocks I won from a forum quilt in summer 2008)

Well, the riding regularly, let alone often, still was eluding me three years after it appeared on my 2008 list.  And, truth be told, as I welcome in 2014, I'm woefully lacking in a regular riding schedule.  Guess which item again tops my list of good intentions for a new year.  

The book, and it's sequel and then part three of the trilogy that it became, still sits in my computer unseen by any potential publishers.  I'm unsure how to go about submitting it, and, since we're into truth telling this afternoon, I'm a bit afraid of rejection.

Quitting the job hasn't happened (in large part to the horses still being boarded away from home), although it really really needs to.  The job has become something that weekly attempts to eat my home life.

The quilt is an unfinished top, in need of borders.  The backing and batting have both been purchased, in about 2012, and wait in the sewing room for me to get off my duff and make the darn quilt all ready!

Time with DH comes and goes.  His work and travel schedule really ramped up in 2011, and 60 hour work weeks plus travel 7-14 days nearly every month made it hard to find time to do things just the two of us.  In 2013 he did start keeping track of his hours per week and taking a personal day when he'd earned it. Being salaried, he gets no overtime, and if he doesn't remember to take a day off for every extra 8 hours worked, well, the company isn't going to remind him.  He just ends up working for a lower wage per hour is all.  They don't mind a bit.  But I do.  Because all the time he isn't home means less things he gets done at this little place here.  Things that either I have to take up the slack on, or we end up paying someone else to do (making DH's wages go less far), or they just don't get done at all and pile up.

Having an orderly house has yet to be obtained.  If anything, my house is less orderly with just two 'kids' at home now.  They don't listen as well at 16 and 19 as the did at 6 and 9.  Or, maybe, they've learned that Dad's brain is nearly always on his work, and Mom is frazzled and they can dodge their responsibilities easier than when Dad was checking the list every night before bed.  Or, there are less hands pitching in every day to get the floors swept and the dishes washed and the animals cared for.

So, here  it is a new year.  Another clean slate.  Another new start.  More good intentions.  2014 holds the prospects of:

• implementing a riding schedule
• an orderly house
• finally submitting my book(s) for publication
• keeping the garden weeded
• quitting my job at the horse farm to bring my horses home and board the horses of others for income
• losing the 15 pounds I gained in 2013 (after losing 27 in 2012 *sigh*)
• finishing that HT quilt
• finding time to relax/recreate with DH on at least a monthly basis. . .

Here we go again :0)