Football Epilogue

A favorite scene from "The Money Pit" . Sometimes feels fitting :) Calling weather in the mid-40°Fs (~7°C) comfortable seems absurd but that's the hand we've been dealt at the moment. At least it's warm enough to keep things thawing and to start out on some outdoor projects. I even had a tree cutting/trimming crew out this past week (I've got a recommendation if you need it) to take care of a few things including a branch that was significantly deflecting my power line, removal of an overgrown birch and trying to keep a couple of ash trees cleaned up and treated for ash borers as good as possible (although that may ultimately be a lost cause).  The tree work is one small part of the greater home ownership challenge I've been encountering. It seems it's near time to reset/refresh on most everything to do with the house. Starting with the trees, they seem to have been planted with the notion that they'd stay small-ish. Spruces and oaks were planted w...

Upping my writing "game" has been on my mind lately. One way to exercise the brain and spur some creativity is using writing prompts: story ideas generated by someone or something else. Using prompts are a supposedly a good way to exercise creativity, find some new inspiration, build some endurance at ye olde modern typewriter and just have some fun with; a sort of mental cardio.  The challenge for me is to break away from my usual flavor of writing, which is rather functional. I tend to write to sort out my thoughts and assign some structure to my perspective and my life. More functional and purposeful. That's fine I suppose, but writing just in that genre can be limiting. I at least like the idea of being able to write more broadly. Being able to do so would probably even help out the writing in that genre, both bringing new ideas and new diversity to my prose. Hence, in writing this paragraph I just rationalized the importance and utility in writing prompt exercises.  ...

As with my last couple of posts, writing has been a tricky endeavor. My head feels muddled and it's hard to linearize my thoughts in a manner conducive to a blog post. Still, I try. It's an interesting problem as there is a lot of stuff I want to write about, but there's enough thinking pulling me away from those items. In essence a lack of feeling centered and in the moment; preventing some level of agency in my writing. I'm not sure what to do about it, but to keep scribbling as best I can.  Heightened anxiety is the best I can attribute this state to. As much as I lament continued lamenting of the new job I think it is the reality that I am a slow adapter to change. Maybe this is a good opportunity to look back to other times I've had some big changes in my life. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) these times don't happen terribly often. Working backwards chronologically, the biggest next most recent thing was the divorce. It was a tough time, although I do...