The List

I've been catching quite a bit of heat lately for what appears to be child abandonment. The child is this journal, and I've been a neglectful parent. This post is about offering myself a clean slate and hopefully clearing my conscience.

Catching up on all the things about which I'd like to write would take months. Catching up, simply isn't going to happen. There's no comfort in knowing that I'm not alone in my tendency to abandon the overwhelming. I must do better.

I think it was Einstein that talked about how it takes a deeper level of thinking to get out of a problem than the level of thinking that got you into it in the first place. (Why do we always feel obligated to say "I'm no Einstein" after quoting Einstein?) It is time to think my way out.

My immediate problem could be simply defined as a life overflowing with possibilities, most of which I mismanage. I'm trying to avoid saying I have too much to do. The truth is, I could pull the plug and drain the swamp, alligators and all, but it would immediately fill up again. Swamps do that. I must leave the swamp. I have to first identify and correct the unnatural desire drawing me back in up to my neck.

It's right about now where this journal entry could get out of hand. Don't worry. I'll spare you the self-indulgent, self-awareness psychobabble - and its counterpart catch all.- "God solved all my problems and I don't have any problems anymore."

I'm an entrepreneurial dulcimer enthusiast/dealer/performer/composer/magazine publisher/writer/studio engineer, not a doctor/chaplain. I hope you see the irony in that previous sentence. Maybe I should become a doctor/chaplain.

It is time to clean the slate.

Moving on to The List

Look at this list as my way of tossing alligators out of the way as I exit the swamp. Alligators aren't evil. They just do what alligators do and they're in my way right now.

If I had been writing about what I would have liked to write about over the past several months the topics would have included:

The nature preserve in my front yard
Lots of funny gig stories
Missing Missy
Missing Jeremy
Where's Yanni and why I don't miss him
Goodbye Hershey, my friend
It hurts even more than I thought it would
Where did THAT accent come from?
My Granny is approaching 97
Old computers
Huge studio upgrade
Where are my muscles when I need them
Approaching 50
Butch and Christie's house and the state of the trades
Dulcimers sometimes hurt my ears
Things you can learn from the "Moolight Feels Right" xylophone solo
On letting down a friend and customer
Sweet What?
CS3 Suite - wow, I have a lot to learn
Delays make you be on time
Yes, yes I know. You have a studio too.
The Entrepreneur and the Flop-Eared Mule

What lies ahead?

That headline is full of double meaning. The answer is I don't know. Today however I must find time to mow the yard, continue laying out the July issue of Dulcimer Players News and get a few hours editing done on the Signal Mountain Presbyterian "How Great is Our God" CD project which I'm engineering and co-producing with Steve Phillips. This recording project shares a hard deadline with the July issue of DPN. Both must be complete by the first week in June. After that, my daughter Missy comes home after being gone nearly a year. We're all taking a much needed vacation together.

It feels good to have gotten a few words back up on this website. Here's to many more.




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