Looking back in the blog archives to December 2021, it seems that I didn’t sit down and map out goals for the new year, as I had been doing in late December in most years. The last set of new year professional and household goals I set for myself were all done and dusted in the following year, all but the one involving me being able to wear a size 10/12 pair of jeans again and finishing the Civil War novel – which is still only half-finished. Done in 2023, I absolutely promise. Over the next year, I am resolved on these several projects –

  1. As noted, finish That Fateful Lightning; a novel set in the Civil War. The first half, concerning the activities of Miss Minerva Templeton Vining in the Abolitionist movement in the 1840s and 1850s is more or less complete – it’s her experiences as a battlefield nurse during the war that I have been putting off. I’m not certain why – just that I will have to immerse myself in a fresh round of research and that readers of Civil War historical fiction will be going over it all with a fine-tooth comb.
  2. Finish the latest Jim Reade-Toby Shaw adventure collection; it will be titled Lone Star Blood and comprise five or six short adventures loosely based on the Lone Ranger legend … only set in the era of the Republic of Texas, historically accurate and less the stupid mask, the silver bullets, and the magnificent white horse. Like the above, it is half-complete.
  3. Complete Luna City #12. That, unlike items 1 & 2, isn’t even begun yet, although I do have some partially-formed notions of what the various story arcs will accomplish.

Moving on to goals for the household. I considered getting vinyl flooring installed in the rest of the house, but after talking it over with my daughter, decided to wait on that one until she has moved herself and Jamie into her own house, which will happen after she completes several profitable years in real estate. At least a quarter of the furniture will go with her, which will make it much easier for me. I did the den flooring myself, but that was a small room, and even so, exhausting. More realistic intentions are –

  1. Get the short length of privacy fence and a gate from the side of the garage to the gatepost at the corner of my next-door-neighbors’ property – this to enclose a small private patio by the front bedroom, a patio already accessed by a French door. This would increase security at the front of the house and provide a secure play area for Wee Jamie. It will also baffle the heck out of delivery drivers and door-to-door salespeople looking for the front door, but that’s a price I’m willing for them to pay.
  2. Get one of those inserts for the slider door which incorporates a pet door, so that the cats can go in and out of their own will. I’d also like to move at least one of the litter boxes to the catio and finally, to replace patio furniture which was basically destroyed by cats and a series of dogs. I used to love sitting out on the back porch when it was temperate, watching the sun go down, and the birds fussing around the bird feeders.
  3. For certain, now that the back yard is secure with a solid new fence – start with chickens again. Four for choice, as we had several years ago. We really did like having fresh eggs, and so did our neighbors.
  4. Get the dryer vent professionally cleaned, for once and all. We’ve done our best to clear out the lint with various consumer gadgets, but we suspect that the vent is at the point where it does needs a full top-to-bottom scouring.
  5. This may be an optional item – but see to having the chimney swept and inspected. We haven’t had a fire in it for years, and in the event of the next snowmagedden and subsequent power outage, it would be nice to be able to burn wood in the fireplace without taking down the entire house.

And that’s my set of goals for 2023. The mortgage on the house itself has just two more years to go, and once that is done, I can turn to paying off bills for the work done on the siding and the replacement windows.

2 Comments

  1. Solid two thumbs up on both the dryer lint cleaning and chimney cleaning. I just got my dryer done, as a matter of fact, and the chimney here will be cleaned next week. I don’t feel safe using it till then as I doubt my parents ever had it cleaned.

    I will be very interested to hear about your experiences raising chickens. I have enough room to do that here, but we have coyotes and I would have to build a mini version of Fort Knox to keep the chickens safe.

  2. We have had two rounds of chickens – the first were three Barred Rocks (the pretty black and white ones with red combs.) One pullet turned out to be a rooster, we got a couple of banty Wyandotte hens from a neighbor who kept chickens. The two Barred Rock hens and the rooster eventually died of old age, the Wyandottes were killed by hawks. Second round – four red hens; three were mailed and killed by something that got into the yard through a decrepit fence, the fourth died of old age – she was from a breed intended for battery use and they burn out fast, apparently. So now the fence is fixed, and in the spring we’ll start again.
    We do have to lock them in the coop at night – raccoons are absolute death on chickens. You would have to set up a Fort Knox for a chicken run – something with chain-link fencing all the way around and over the top as well.