The Mandelbear's Musings

I would like to think that 2021 will be an improvement on its predecessor, but I am not so foolish as to say so out loud for fear that it will be taken as a challenge. Mostly that will be determined by things outside my control, which I think means that I should avoid setting myself goals that depend on, well, much of anything besides myself.

1. I'm going to put self-care back at the top this year, because I still need to remember to do it. My back exercises and walking are the top physical priorities, along with getting vaccinated against COVID-19 (which is a no-brainer). Losing weight would be a good idea, but it's a stretch. Mental self-care is problematic, since I have very little idea of what that would involve. (5 sub-goals, but fractional completion is likely for most of them.)
2. It's been pointed out pointed out that taking care of Colleen ought to be on this list somewhere. It still feels like cheating.
3. Wrapping up Mom's estate is going to be a fairly large project. Fortunately my brother and niece are doing most of the heavy lifting, but there will still be plenty of work for me, starting with taking charge of her computer, files, and any online accounts that haven't already been closed out.
4. Update paperwork, because 2020. Wills, advanced directives, powers of attorney, Colleen's passport and ID renewals, and guides to my paper and electronic files. (10 items total, to make it easy at year's end.)
5. Music: singing (with Kaleidofolk whenever I can), and hopefully recording (with and/or without them, since I have enough solo material). There will be plenty of opportunities for recorded or streamed concerts, too, so I'll throw in a few of those too. Two hours of singing per week gives a nice solid total of 100 (104, but let's allow for some slop here) as a target for the year.
6. Doing the rest of the sorting in the garage would be a good idea too. Sub-goals of getting all the book boxes sorted and re-boxed by category, sweeping out the northeast corner, putting up the lights, and making the workbench usable. (I'll add some actual woodworking as a stretch goal.)
7. Along those lines, decluttering, and actually downsizing. Getting rid of Stuff. Finding places for things. I've sometimes believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
8. I should write more. Songs (a song?), Curmudgeon articles, memoirs, all that stuff. I've been too willing to accept Done Since, the occasional Thankful Thursday, and the even more occasional Songs for Saturday as "enough" writing for a week. I should add at least one more post each week, including at least one curmudgeon and one memoir post each month.
9. There is a lot of website maintenance needed, including updates to lyrics, cleaning out cruft in the older websites, and creating a memorial page for Mom.
10. I should write more software, too. I haven't done much -- hardly any last year -- and there are still lots of unfinished and unstarted projects. This can start with tracking singing and self-care time, auto-linking concerts and DW posts from song pages, and the long-delayed command-line DW client.

There are 10 items on that list; some are substantially bigger than others, and some are more nebulous than others. Despite my fondness for numbers, I don't think I'd want to ascribe much importance to the eventual sum. At least, I hope I won't, a year from now. Maybe they'll average out?