Guindon Responds with a New Year Greeting

After I published the blog on getting organized I received a lovely greeting from Richard Guindon himself and he has given me permission to share with you. If only we can construct a great new year. As for my getting back to work - so far so good.

Best to you all,
Helene

Guindon Encourages Me to Get Organized!

     It’s January and I’m trying to “get organized”, You know what that means: determination, frustration, dawdling. Where to start, of course and that is with the priorities. I think about a cartoon by the Detroit cartoon artist, Guindon, called something like, “The Task”. In four small panels he began The Task as a little lump in the corner of the room, while his funny little character procrastinated. As the panels progressed so did The Task until it turned into a full grown monster filling the room and terrorizing the character. I get it. Getting Organized means getting at that annoying task before it becomes unmanageable and even something that could consume the procrastinating character living inside me.

     The presence of a new year with its goals and resolutions can be helpful – new clean calendars, new files for all the business of our new year, and hopefully for us who live in the cold slow northern winter, Time to accomplish the task of organizing.

     It starts with tax receipts and gathering the important papers for taxes. But we still haven’t cleaned the corners and surfaces and behind the faucets and the floors all trashed from a busy holiday season. Okay that done, let’s set up the tax table and start in. Wait, just a moment, the seed catalogs have come in. We have to spend a little time dreaming . . . sigh . . . lovely flowers, clever vegetable stands for very very small gardens. I do miss the big garden of our crunchy granola days.

     As garden dreams begin to fade I find myself staring at the little black folding table that I put near the computer about two hours ago. What’s that for? I ask myself briefly, uh-oh The Task is growing. And so it goes. All the data from our income will be organized and sent to our able tax accountant, but maybe one more cup of coffee, one more granola bar, one more moment to linger on garden days.

Wishing you a great new year and smooth path through your ominous tasks.

Helene

Author of A Homestead Decade - How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life