What are your biggest challenges?
The WordPress folks have a new set of prompts for this month, so I’ll try to answer them, for fun. The first one was about challenges. Oh what fun. I don’t have all night to spend on this topic!
What’s not a challenge is making New Year’s dinner. My black-eyed peas, collard greens, and cornbread came out delicious, for the four of us who could make it. We made plates to take to Lee’s brother and Anita, who came down with the flu, and have plenty of leftovers. Success!
So, my main challenge these days is a lack of self confidence, I think. I always think I can’t do new things, so I put them off or avoid things. Learning horsemanship has helped me a lot with this. I’m making myself try new things and I’m often succeeding or making a good try. I think this new bravery is manifesting in other areas, which is really great.
One I’m not doing as well with these days is expressing myself without offending people I care about or causing problems. So I’ve been much quieter for the past year or so than I used to be. These days it’s probably safer to keep some kinds of opinions to yourself but I do want to advocate for myself at work and in other personal areas.
I’m also tired of being vertically challenged. I wish I could reach things without stools and mount a horse from the ground. There, a less serious one.
A final challenge is figuring out when or if I can retire from full time work. There are too many factors for me to figure out right now. More on that in the coming months.
That’s enough of that list.
It was cold and windy, so there weren’t many birds. However, there was a brief moment of sun that encouraged the white-throated sparrows to launch into a concert. Their song is hauntingly beautiful. It has three or four slight variations, like a fugue. What a greeting for 2024!
The Hermits' Rest 