New Year's Resolutions, revisited

We should all revisit our resolutions from time to time. Here were mine. Update:

• I never finished reading "The Artist's Way." In fact, I didn't really get past chapter one - I got too engaged in the very first activity ("morning pages" ) and the things it led to.
  
  
• The friend who interested me in "The Artist's Way" - and who wanted to get more into music - has been playing his guitar and learning to play spoons, because he loves old-time music. It perplexes him how easy it is. He's buying lighting equipment to go with the sound equipment he bought last year and is signing on to be techie for various events.
  
  
• I still write three longhand pages every morning. Since mid November I only missed once (this past Tuesday I suddenly realized I should make valentines for the kids at school and it took up the writing time).
  
  While I still enjoy writing the pages, I'd rather be doing the things they've led to:
  
  
  1. The class with Jane Filer - I'm now crazy about painting. I wrote and started illustrating a book in Spanish and English for second-graders. Then I interrupted that project with an interim one this week: I'm making a Spanish-language copy of a kids' book by painting my own versions of the pictures. I'm going to mount them together with the Spanish text and comb-bind it. That's fun.
     
     
  2. I love the Yiddish class but don't have enough time to study! Ditto with Spanish class. Either of them could be the subject of many happy hours. And hopefully will be, when I'm not so busy.
     
     
  3. Not only am I still memorizing fiddle tunes, but I'm playing again with my old music partner and we're doing a concert for St. Patrick's Day sponsored by the Triangle Folk Music Society.
  
  
• Ken and I needed a couple more songs for our "Ben Franklin" program for children - so I wrote them. Nice to know those brain cells still fire.
  
  
• In general, I find while writing every morning, I discover problems I want to work on, and then seem to come up with possible solutions either during the writing session or soon after. That's quite amazing!
  
  
• A resolution I forgot to write about was to squeeze more enjoyment out of every thing I do - to be present for my activities. That's happening for sure, the "life is short" aphorism informs my daily enjoyment...
  

The last thing I wrote on January 1 was that I enjoy my time alone - maybe too much. I decided I should "get out more." I'm not sure how much progress there's been on this one. Rather, I've made progress on accepting my fate as a solitary crone with a lot of great hobbies.

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