I am the Captain of My To-Do List

It is time once again.  Time for a New Year's Accounting. 

Another year in the can?  How can this be?  

This year more than ever before I face the coming turnover with a greater measure of anxiety than in the past.

"ohh, I'm too blue for work... oh wait, I don't work, I'm a dog."

I know that a small life is nothing to be ashamed of.  And yet I feel like this past year has been filled with more disappointments than happy accidents.  More missed opportunities than bridges built.  

Still, I think this past year I have planted seeds.

I have broken down obstacles, and I have swept away the dust.

Each year I try to say I will do something I've never done.  

• I got a new job.
• I volunteered with the elderly (once only, I admit)
• Went to a Reds game (twice)

at least the weather was nice

•  Took D to a soccer match (twice)

Columbus Crew: Rentariaaaaa!

•  Went to a Seahawks game (in Detroit)

Nailbiter game

•  (Finally) went to Shakespeare in the park

Taking the dog seems like a good idea: it is not.

Each year I try to go somewhere I've never been.

• Ogunquit, Maine

• Equus Run Winery, Midway, Kentucky
• Cave Run Lake Morehead, Kentucky
• Ash Cave, the Hocking Hills

And I try to accomplish something.

Completed Home Improvement Projects: 

• Planted the front garden. 
• Built a small plot where once there had been a vine orgy and assorted buried bricks and trash and a laundry pole.

• Built and installed closet shelves for office.  
• New external doors to replace some really crappy doors in pretty poor shape.
• Massively de-junked and reorganized the basement storage (thank youuu holiday vacation)

And what do I want for 2013?

• Help the front garden survive and thrive.  
• Replant (the poppies didn't make it.  dunno why...) (and the irises never flowered...)
• Hopefully the lilac survives, and it should, since we murdered the honeysuckle that was choking it.  If it does,we will finally prune the lilac in the spring after it blossoms.  Because as of now, it still looks like an unholy mess. Albeit slightly less unholy now that the honeysuckle is gone.
• Plan and plant the veg garden.  (we are weighing options to keep the groundhogs at bay...)
• Replace the gutters. 
• Paint the basement floor (it's gross)

And other than this?  This, which is really just a home improvement To-Do list?  Isn't there more?  

Of course.  I have things I want and the means to walk the road to get them.   

I am still and always a work in progress.  

I have some regrets, but here at the end of the year I want to lay them down, in the hopes that they create a more fertile ground.  So that next year is better.  Braver.  Stronger.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
(Invictus, William Earnest Henley)