I am now a month into summer vacation 2019. As is the case with everything these days, I have no idea where the time has gone. Thus far my break can be summed up as…random acts of….

Today I find myself examining these last four weeks more intentionally, trying to identify in concrete terms exactly what I have done, what I haven’t done, and what I want to be doing with my days. This exploration will hopefully lead me to an answer to the real issue question…

Why am I wasting time and not doing the things that I want to be doing?

Using my best powers of recollection, this morning I decided that the best way for me to see where my time has gone was to  sit down and physically write out lists.  On the list of accomplishments is random cleaning – surface and deep, reading, playing my guitar, knitting, working in the garden, preparing reasonably healthy meals, some writing, some photography, social time with friends, and a lot of doing what seems like nothing.  The real problem is that I do all of these things haphazardly.  I’ve cleaned some drawers and closets, but not taken the discarded stuff to the appropriate agencies.  I have several books going, but I don’t think I’ve actually finished any of them.  I also have several knitting projects going, none of which have been completed in the last month.  I have been writing and practicing guitar, but not enough.  I’ve maintained the discipline of a photo a day, but only because doing so is now a seven year habit; my photos have been seriously uninspired.  And, I’ve written a haiku a day for the past eighty days.  This may be my biggest accomplishment of the summer thus far.  Not because I have written so many haiku, but because I made a commitment to writing something regularly.

This is one of the haiku from earlier this week:

Hand in hand they step

Success, failure, and practice

in a ceaseless dance  

– KEB  6/18/19

I love to write.  I don’t really care if anyone ever reads what I write.  I enjoy the process.  Lately, I have given more time to photography, which I also enjoy,  but this has come at the expense of writing.  I seriously miss writing  blog posts.  When I wrote them regularly I felt like I was more accoutable to my life.  I had a real sense of what was going on in my head and a more accurate perception of my world.  

A year and a half ago, I said that I was going to write a series of weekly posts called, Sailing Toward Sixty.  I failed at keeping that commitment.  There is nothing I can do about the year that has passed between the last post I made and now…except wallow in regret.  And that serves no purpose.  The best I can do is acknowledge the failure, commit to the practice, and strive for success.  So that is what I am doing.  Starting today.  Hopefully blogging will not fall into the category of my random acts, rather, as I move forward, it will be a regular act.

Back to those random acts for a minute, though…

First thing each morning when I take the dogs out, I make a random trip into the yard, the garden, or the greenhouse.  I have no fixed routine.  I wander wherever the wind blows me.  I may admire whatever new blooms the day has brought.  I may pull some weeds.  I may just sit and listen to the birds and the distant traffic.  I may water the greenhouse.  I may even grab the pooper scooper and do some clean-up.  This part of my day definitely falls into the random acts category.

Two days ago, I checked the vegetables.  I guess it had been a few days since I had done this because I found a gigantic zucchini.

It has several relatives coming along that I definitely will watch more closely and pick before they get quite this big!

Because of its size, I was worried that this fella wouldn’t have the best flavor, so I decided to use it to make zucchini bread. Though generally  I don’t function well without structure in my days, I was most appreciative of the fact that on this day I had no commitments and had the freedom to decide on the spur of the moment to spend the morning making zucchini bread without having to give up another obligation.

I first grated the zucchini to see how much I had.  That would help me to determine which recipe to use.

I ended up with four cups!

I used this recipe that I found online.  It uses one cup of zucchini per loaf; so, I made four loaves!  Two with chocolate chips and two without because someone that I am married to does not like chocolate chips in baked goods. That is a lot of zucchini bread!   I am grateful for friends who were willing to take a loaf off of my hands…and that I now have two loaves in the freezer.

This random act of baking was a good thing.

As I write this post, consider it (another) new beginning.  True to my blog’s cutline, the topics about which I write will undoubtedly be random; however, my sincere intent is that the rhythm of the actual posts themselves will not be.  I am not yet sure how many posts a week I can commit to, but I am going to determine that quickly and in the words of Nike, “Just do it.”  This may mean that other things get less attention.  Figuring out a healthy balance is all part of the practice.   What I know right now, without a doubt, is that I miss regular blogging and I am now addressing that.

If you have read this far, thank you!  And, please feel free to hold me accountable.

What do you want to be doing?  Maybe we can be accountability partners.  Just a random thought…