Adlevy, thanks for the great suggestion. I've recently been going through a goal clarifying exercise in my life to manage some level of frustration around progress in these areas, so this dovetails surprisingly well. As is plain to see, I've been absent from here for sometime, so I enjoyed returning to see this posted just yesterday.
The first goal I have is to get an idea I've had incubating for too long off the ground in a meaningful way and launch a new website before the New Year. This is the most important goal I have, as the idea behind the website revolves around documenting projects I'm undertaking around our house and property to improve my family's resilience and make our home a producing asset versus a consuming liability. I believe this will improve my progress as it will clarify the next actions I need to take, provide external accountability (similar to this exercise), as well as provide me with a way to track the progress I have made to date. The latter point is important as it is easy to see the things you could be doing and feel disappointment in spite of other things that you have accomplished.
Next would be to prepare a blackout procedures manual, consolidate those supplies in a single box and educate my family members about the contents (maybe add a thing or two...). When Sandy rolled through, I realized that I had most of the pieces to deal with a short-midterm power outage, but I had to scramble to set things up and pull everything together in a single place so it would be easy to access if the power went out (I realized setting up a generator I had never used in the pitch black of the middle of the night would not be a straightforward exercise, and storing water from the well in advance of losing the pump would be much easier). Furthermore, had I been unavailable, or not at home, there is no way my wife (god love her) would be able to manage a 3-year old and a 6-month old and realize that flashlights were in the camping gear box in the loft of the garage...
Finally, I need to review resources on fruit tree pruning and prune various fruit trees I planted this year in the coming weeks. I was very disappointed at my gardening efforts this year, mainly due to not getting my new front yard garden off the ground early enough in the spring. I've gone a bit over the top in making a fenced in area that will be rabbit/mole/vole proof, a big issue around here...lost some good cantaloupes last year, and the rabbits got all the seedlings that went in this spring. So being on top of the mini orchard will mean some successes and progress along building that important skill.
My bonus will be finding some spare cash at the end of the month to bolster the core PM position I secured last year. Easier said than done trying to raise a young family on a single income today...as anyone who has spent money in a grocery store will attest to these days.
If anyone has any suggestions for items they have consolidated in a single blackout kit, or knows something about pruning fruit trees, or any other useful tidbits on the above, feel free to let me know.
MC
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