On Why I've Made No Plans for the Winter

I've had to cover up the finally fruiting green beans up two nights in a row. Last night it dipped down to 22 degrees and steam rises off the lake each morning. But despite the chilly temps, I've spent very little time thinking about the winter months to come.

It's a summer Emily over at the Happy Home and her fiance have labeled "bummer summer." Here at Of Woods and Words? Maybe not a bummer summer, but certainly a static one.

Projects that sat unfinished at the start of the summer remain half done. Gigs I enjoy doing have fallen by the wayside until I finish with the 40 hour work weeks in a month's time. It feels like in this push to make ends meet, by balancing writing and a full-time, seasonal job, everything suffers. My performance at work would be much improved if it was my sole focus. My freelance writing career might not feel so prone to fits and starts if I contributed a consistent amount of attention to it year-round.

The truth is, I've been distracted. By pumpkins, among other things.

To really make summer work and to make the extra money and procure the work necessary to get me through the lean winter months, I really should put in a 10-20 hour work week from my home office each week on top of my 40 hours outside the house. You can probably guess by the dwindling blog posts this summer that that's not be how things are going. Instead, I've spent the summer berrypicking, having cookouts, paddling, hiking, gardening. When given the choice to write some query letters or bake up some pumpkins to mash and freeze, I've inevitably chosen pumpkins.

The other week, my brother asked me what my short-term goals were; where I wanted to be in three years or so. I wasn't really sure how to answer. Lately, I've spent very little time thinking about goals, although I know goals are the stepping stones to get where you want to go. I have a general idea of what I want: more financial security, more independent work, more travel opportunities, maybe some chickens.

And in a slow shuffling way, I feel like I am moving in that direction and I don't want to have a life so career focused that I don't get moments to watch Netflix with Andy, or knit up a pair of socks or can some applesauce. If these sound like excuses, they're really not meant to be. Really, they're realizations; that there are more important things to me than putting my foot on the gas of my career and going full steam ahead. There's a certain level of contentedness I'm not willing to forgo, even if making myself a little more uncomfortable would mean more money and opportunity.

Of course they say, it's about the little things. It's the big picture that's evading me, and maybe that's okay. So no, I haven't made much in the way of winter plans. Instead, I guess I'll "open my heart and come what may."