New Year, New Initiatives

To keep moving on my goal of trying new things and looking forward, I am being creative.  This isn’t a brand new initiative: last year I did some contract work for VoltDB, and Firemon, consulted for The Durand, participated in a focus group, worked a fund-raising event for Lovin’ Spoonfuls food rescue, and visited our son in Alaska.  On Monday night, I joined in the Sauta Farm book group, where we discussed The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty, a book I enjoyed from start to finish.  The next read is The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, but I’m having trouble finding it at the library—and it’s a big book.  

Yesterday, I registered with Boston By Foot for the spring training course that will let me become a docent and lead tours. This is not a little thing: guides are “expected to complete a 6-week training course that includes lectures, field trips, written papers and even a final exam.”  So it’s commitment but I have wanted to do this for years and Kathy Vorse, who is on the board of BBF, has urged me to follow through.  Work got in the way, of course, but that’s not a problem now.   I have more outreach planned but that’s fodder for another day. 

In the meantime, I’m appreciating different opportunities.  Just being home has allowed me to watch things that I ordinarily would only catch in snippets on the news as I drove home from work.  Things like Monday’s presidential inauguration, yesterday’s testimony by Hillary Clinton on the Benghazi attack, President Obama’s press conference and the presentation of his 23 executive orders on gun security.   

  

Not only does trying new things make my next phase richer, they keep me from spending too much time by myself, talking to the cat.  Right now, Mystique is tucked up on Seth’s desk, pointedly ignoring me because I just gave her the morning pill.  Gaaakh!  I do talk to her more but I’m not sure what she understands.  She appears to like having the company, though.

Onward to today’s new things. The cold won't keep me in.