There is little question that the winters in MN are much less severe than they used to be with less snow and fewer really cold days and much shorter durations. We get teasers of the past, now. We had a few days of -20F when we used to get that and colder predictably. As a kid we'd frequently have several days a winter when the wind and snow would blow in off the prairie leaving us housebound. Really good blizzards would sweep the snow off the prairie dump it on the small downs like small windbreaks and then top off the drifts with sprinkling of frozen black loam.
This winter has been cold and damp and we've had a lot of snow. At the end of the driveway where I come face-to-face with the Ramsey County snowplow in defining and debating what should be snow free the white skyfall is now about five feet high. Each shovelful needs to be heaved a bit higher leading to smaller shovelfuls and more time at the task.
Difficult projects require seat time. You don't sit down and write a great book or article in fifteen minutes. I've heard that songwriters put together really great songs in short periods of time but I suspect that they put together really mediocre sons in a short time more often. I find that I have to find my grove before things start to flow. During my long employment gig I used to lobby for quiet space for my programmers. The office Nazis always fought that and they almost always won, lobbying that open spaces create collaborative spaces. When working in your own head, your primary space, distractions are like leaving the windows open in a blizzard.
Today I spent about three hours working on an accounting task that was challenging because of some people's expectations and because I was missing some critical information that I could not make up (not that I ever make up accounting information in case the IRS or NSA is reading this). At a point it was time to work on some sort of commentary for #108.
I can see some progress on all or some of these ignored life projects. The reading pile and magazine pile is shrinking. There have been some donations to Goodwill. Demo has started on the real estate rennovation project. There is progress on accounting issues. Nothing has been done on taxes yet but the 1099s are starting to come in and that's good. In the midst of this the most important thing I've been able to do is find some time to work on projects like this, without distraction.
This upcoming week I'm going work on a couple of potential income-producing projects. Taking a break for LHH and the job search was good. There is, was, and will be value in that resource but it was a distraction. Making the decision to wait, to approach projects (and jobs) in some logical fashion, with some put on hold, was correct.
On a legacy note I ordered replacement bees. My first bees were ordered in 1964. At that time the cost was $8. Now the same unit of bees is $99. The span of bees in my life is now fifty years. I'm still learning.
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