seasons

Waiting

/ Alyxander James / 1 Comment

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to another Thursday. I hope you’re hanging in there, wherever you are in the world. Here in Minnesota it is cold, autumn nosing its way toward winter. We had early morning snow flurries on Monday, though none of it stuck around. The air smells like snow is coming, and if we forget to add layers before taking the dog out we regret it pretty quickly.

This is a week of waiting for me. I’ve been hinting for the last few weeks that I had some big plans in the works, and now that I’m done with my part and waiting on the official answer, I think it’s time to spill the beans: I applied for seminary!

I know this is probably really weird to read. I am not exactly the first person most would expect to be interested in going to seminary. But one of the local, more progressive seminaries in the area has a program that I’m really interested in – a master’s program with a spiritual direction focus – and I decided now was a good time to take the plunge.

Assuming I get in, it’s going to take about four years of part time classes. I don’t intend to make a career shift out of this (now that I’ve experienced being valued for my work and paid accordingly, I don’t think I have it in me to go back into nonprofits), but this is something I’m passionate about and deeply interested in and I’m excited to learn more.

My application materials were all officially submitted on Monday; I’ve been told I should hear a decision in the next week or two. I am doing my best to be patient.

I will leave you with some festive photos of Nova in the Halloween costumes I went overboard ordering from Chewy:

  • Super Grova
  • Rainbow Doggo
  • Nova the Donut

Running Late

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

It’s Thursday morning, and I’m running late. Again. This has been a common theme of the past few weeks. I don’t know if it’s the changing weather or allergies fogging my brain or a general dissatisfaction with my job or all of the above, but it’s been a struggle to get up and get moving most mornings that I need to go to work.

We have entered the season of Jewish high holidays, so I get a bunch of extra days off from work for most of October. This helps. I had Monday and Tuesday off this week, and while I wasn’t as productive as I’d intended to be, it still felt good.

Over the weekend we did a very adult thing: we bought a couch, and it didn’t come from IKEA! It’ll be delivered in 4-6 weeks, and we’re excited at the prospect of finally figuring out our living room setup. My partner did a lot of work around the apartment the other night after I went to bed, and it’s looking much more put together now.

Getting Organized

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

I’m still struggling a bit to get back into the swing of things post-vacation, but I’m finding that I’m in an organizing sort of mood. Back in the spring I definitely felt a strong spring cleaning urge (which has not always been the case in past years), but I’m feeling a similar urge now that fall is approaching. Which is probably a good thing, because there’s a lot of junk (both physically and mentally) that can build up in half a year.

Personally, I find the changing of the seasons at the solstices and equinoxes good times to check in with myself about how the year is going. We’re not quite at the autumn equinox yet, but it’s fast approaching, and I’m thinking about how I want to get my life in order heading into the cooler months.

One of the classes I took at Song School was about time management for creative people. I need to pull my notes back out and find other ways to integrate what I learned, but a couple of the big takeaways were to use a physical, paper planner (which I was sort of doing, but inconsistently), and color-coding it (which I had not tried before, and which I think will be a big improvement). I’m still going to be using my Google calendar, too (I would often be lost without those reminders coming up on my phone), but the physical act of writing things in my planner by hand means that they stick in my head a lot better.

Another thing that was stressed in that class was the importance of scheduling creative time. I have never been great at this, and it’s something I want to get better at. Next week I start a new guitar class at the Old Town School of Folk Music, so sometime this weekend I want to sit down and figure out a practice schedule for that, as well as slotting in some time for writing. I’m resistant to structure, but I know in the end it’s better for me.

I’m also starting to think more about knitting projects, after not knitting much all summer (which is pretty normal for me). I have a few sweater and vest projects lined up, and I’m starting to look at my yarn stash with a more critical eye. I have a lot of yarn, much of which was inherited from a friend who passed away a handful of years ago, so it has a lot of sentimental value…but I’m aware of the fact that the yarn I have doesn’t often line up with the projects I want to knit. So that’s something I’m going to need to deal with soon, too.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to spend a fair amount of time in the next few weeks getting my mental space in order, which will set me up to get my physical space in order, as well. I am finally in a place where I feel like I can start making some plans for what I want my life to look like in three to five years, instead of focusing so hard on the next handful of months.