A day of starts

 Do you ever start things and not finish them? I was raised to think that was a sign of laziness at best or of moral weakness at worst. Once you started a task, you finished it. But today I decided maybe it’s a bit of wisdom. I started several things: first I started the dreaded task of d-Christmasing the house. According to Jordan’s directions, I put miscellaneous little things (felt Santas, small gift-wrapped packages, etc.) into a large baggie; in another I collected all the little red apples that we spread throughout greenery; pine cones (I have an enormous supply, some gilded one year when I was feeling crafty) went into a paper sack; I put two folk creches in a baggie but am baffled how to fit the arch that stands for the barn into the baggie—I’d show a picture, but it’s already wrapped up. It came from a village in South American where women have tremendously improved the economy by making and selling these; one year I gave lots of them as gifts. The other crèche is also, I believe, from South America, a large hinged shell (not quite a coconut but like that) which reveals carved figures of the Nativity when you open it. Tomorrow I will collect all the artificial greens and put them in a bin that Jordan has provided. She wants everything in order for next year when she’s mistress of the castle, and I agree her method is better than my haphazard one which has relied on grocery sacks for years—often recycling the same sacks.

Then I started assembling information for my 2015 taxes. I was driven to this by the need to make room for 2016 receipts, etc. I didn’t do much but I gathered all the paid bills and the two folders I’d labeled “business” and “general” taxes and dumped them—yes—into a grocery sack. I purposely didn’t take my reusable bags to the store Friday because I knew I’d need brown paper sacks.

Something I did finish today: the book I was reading—Guilty as Cinnamon, by Leslie Budewitz. And I’ll start another one tonight—had the distinct pleasure of finding a Julie Hyzy White House chef book on my iPad that I hadn’t read. But that’s another start. I won’t finish it tonight.

Starting is good. The question is whether or not you finish whatever it is.