Wednesday work day

Outside, Michael and Gary unhinging doors, hauling them through my house, then Gary painting said doors. 

Michael pausing to adjust the gate so it doesn't spring open when Billie jumps at it. She had a recent adventure when she managed to open it. Found two streets away, other side of a busy road, phew.

Inside, Boud doing laundry, having finally noticed no clean clothes, and making a new batch of laundry liquid, since the laundry load used up the last of the supply.  

Earlier,  morning blood work, some results transmitted almost before I got home.  Urgently needed breakfast then, fried egg and toast, coffee. Watered outdoor plants. Took shrimp out of freezer. Then it was still only 11am. Then I noticed the sink packed with yesterday's dishes. Oh.

I'm thinking about small weavings, using various bits of fabric for the weft, on the pinloom. I've had weaving in mind for a while and haven't settled on a loom. Yesterday's Textiles and Tea reminded me of very small works. 

Just playing for now.

My crochet mojo has gone walkabout for now. 

Another major task I remembered: change from winter to summer purse. That will take all of thirty seconds, tops. It gets postponed though.

Chop wood, carry water, change purse. Then enlightenment. After which chop wood, carry water.

I don't believe in an afterlife, but I see it as an endless chop wood carry water but with posh white robes and harps. With maybe a bit of pinloom weaving now and then.

One of my friends, a professional band musician on many instruments, used to do volunteer end of life work where she would play, at the family's request, including harp.

I asked her if she would reconsider playing harp music to patients coming into consciousness in their last days, especially after last ditch surgery. I could see the confusion that could arise. She didn't think it was funny. 

But I could definitely visualize the patient, looking around the same old faces, room, with added harp music,  and thinking this is an economy version of what I expected.

Not everyone's taste in humor, but I'm old enough to go with it.

Happy day everyone, with or without musical accompaniment.

Dinner was shrimp over jasmine rice, with lime wedges, smoked paprika and amchur

Sez Ted 

When in Doubt, Just Do Everything 6WS

For better or worse, this is how I've always been, though I'm being forced to narrow things down a bit as time goes on.  But there are so few things in life that are irrevocable, that it seems a pity to close off opportunities without even trying them.  

This means I've made some big mistakes, but in the end I've still been glad that even if the experience turned out to be negative, at least I knew how it turned out. Better than wondering what if. Some of the threads in the shawl of life are rough and bumpy.

A job I had long ago involved a lot of work with midlife women at crossroads in their personal and work lives, and they would be very surprised at the suggestion that they could just try several paths, instead of having to analyze and plan and get just the exactly right next step.  This is not what the books tell you.  But most of the books are written by academics who have little to no experience outside of academia.

You don't have to have all your ducks in a row!  they can be waddling all over the farmyard and it will still be okay. I often come across adult art students who want to know ahead of time how a process will come out, and they're a bit disappointed when I say, I don't know, just try it and find out!  And if it's different from their expectations, to deal with that and see what's good about it rather than lamenting the imagined work that didn't happen.

Years later people I worked with on job issues would come and tell me they'd actually followed my advice, to my amazement,  especially the bit about how you can't tell if you'll like a particular line of work until you've been in it a while. 

And they'd say, gosh that was great, I found I liked jobs I never thought I would.  Or they'd say well, I'm glad I had a Plan B, because that job I thought I'd love I just didn't.  But I knew it was okay and I could just try something else instead, no harm done.

Since we're the CEOs of our lives, it's a Good Thing TM Martha, now there's a person who's made mistakes and gone on, to have an exit strategy for any new venture, which might include a different adventure to get onto...my dear late Handsome Partner, a lifelong research chemist, used to ask me what I was going to be when I grew up. 

He'd seen me change direction completely in my work every few years, and always ready to change once I needed to move on. He imagined I was always in search of a lifelong job.  I explained that I was already grown up.  That this was how I was.  Life too short to just do one thing. It was fine.  And when he saw how I never lacked employment, which created new opportunities as I went,  in my whole life, he realized that this flexibility was actually a strength, not a lack of resolve!

Life's a banquet!