A hill of a post

My annual summer solstice post is being written days after the solstice. A wildfire broke out near the hill I write from, and the sky was too smoky and cloudy for an effective sunset to provide inspiration. Then, Lori and I were in Colorado for five days for my niece's wedding. We got back but I was slammed with work that invaded my evenings.

I finally moderately caught up to come out to my hillside tonight, but another problem awaited — I have no idea what to write about.

The last year has been good and bad. Freelance work has been hit or miss — enough to sustain (helped by my severance and unemployment insurance) but not as full as I hoped. I applied for more than 100 jobs in the last year and got three total interviews. Most of the jobs I didn't want anyway because I want to make the freelance thing thrive, but it was nonetheless not encouraging.

That said, I haven't been unhappy or stressed out. I'm sleeping at night. I've lost a nice chunk of weight (after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes), and I'm in the best shape I've been in decades, running a lot and even swimming 1-2 times a week. Besides Colorado, we have excursioned to Costa Rica and North Carolina, and I've put my feet in both the Atlantic and Pacific. I may not be the paradigm of success right now, but nothing is crushing me, which in the aftermath of work stress in my 30s and 40s, I couldn't say.

So what should I write about then? How about looking ahead to the solstice blog post in 2027 (yikes, typing that out is humbling) — what do I want to do in the next, doesn't-need-to-go-fast 356 days.

Well ...

  • I want to say in a year that the freelancing goals really took off. It feels like I'm close — my business partner and I are closing in on two more clients, my main gig is giving me more work, and I am about to start a side gig technical editing/writing, which won't pay anything impressive but will keep me busy when the other freelancing is slow.
  • I want to say in a year that I've read more books, played more board games, wrote more (both in this blog and on another project I've languished on for years), listened to more records, even played more video games.
  • I want productive time outside of work and leisure, attending to the house, increasing life's organization (the picture scanning project that has been ongoing I'd love to finish), and not accepting laziness for any other reason than accepting laziness.
  • I have a target weight in mind, and I'm not that far away from it, but I've fallen off the wagon a little chasing it. I don't want to be too skinny, but being under 200 pounds for the first time since maybe 1999  would be nice. 
  • I want to say I was a better person in the preceding year than I am today.

I think those our reasonable goals for a solstice-plus-nine. The sun just set. Until next summer ...

PAST SOLSTICE POSTS

  

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