Plans

Wow!  Another year is basically over.  It’s amazing just how slow they go by and how quickly they end.  I spend each year planning things I never do, and doing things I never planned.  That’s not to say that everything I planned to do didn’t get done, nor did I finish all the things I never planned to do in the first place.  However, I did fail to finish much of what I planned to do, and I did actually finish much I really had no desire to do.

 

There are really only a few big things I plan to do each year.  The Annual Wild Game Feed is one, Santa Claus is another, and go fishing is not last on the list.  This past year I managed to do two out of three.  I didn’t make it out to the water to fish, and this is really sad since I live across the street from the beach.

 

I didn’t plan to get ill this year, but I did a good job of it, and even after eight months of this affliction, I’m still not finished with the project.  While I’m not well, I am functional, and I keep on keeping on.  I did make it to the Annual Wild Game Feed this year, I did work for a few weeks as Santa Claus, including some television time, and I did earn a certification as a Master Food Preserver.  So I guess this was a successful year in completing things I planned to do.

 

I’m just getting my feet wet as a master food preserver.  My early life on the farm gave me a curiosity about how things work, and food preservation was one of those things.  For years I’ve canned and pickled unique items just because I liked them, and no one was producing them commercially.  Now I’m starting to teach others how to do it.  Such fun.

 

The path to the certification required learning about food safety and the techniques to ensure a safe finished product.  The more I think about the methods we used on the farm to preserve our harvest, the more I realize how lucky we were not to have succumbed to botulism.

 

This year I planned to clean out my garage.  Oops.  I wanted to finish another novel.  Oh, well.  I had hopes of losing another 50 pounds.  I gained 10. 

 

Not all is lost, and nothing here can be considered a failure.  There is always next year.