I spent some time this week working on the chapter I’m writing about my year-long projects. I still have not figured out exactly what my project will be next year. However, I do think I will “re-up” on writing sonnets at the pace of 2 lines a day, so one 14-line poem each week. I’m having fun with this, and if two years means 104 sonnets, three years will mean 156 and change. Listening to Bach has also been just such a wonderful soundtrack to the year. I will reach the end of the 1080 BWV numbers next week. There are others, but if a work is lost, I can’t really listen to it…
Yesterday we had a crew here installing lights on the trees. I’d decided to do professional Christmas lights installation this year, and so it will be festive to look out the window and see the trees all wrapped in lights. I forgot to take a picture last night so unfortunately that isn’t an accompanying photo for this post, but hey. We’ve started working on scheduling in parts of the holiday fun list. It’s going to be a tight year because Thanksgiving is so late. We did buy 7 tickets to the Rockettes! And the breakfast-with-Santa tickets are purchased. Still trying to figure out when the Nutcracker and Longwood Gardens are happening…
(I’ll probably publish that list next week.)
In the meantime, here’s this week’s content round-up.
The Before Breakfast podcast interview featured Charles Duhigg, author of Supercommunicators, and The Power of Habit. We talked having better conversations and his own productivity tips. In the shorter episodes, I suggested that we “Don’t consent and resent” (it might be better to just say no!) and I asked “What’s on your holiday fun list?”
The Vanderhacks newsletter suggested that people “Set relationship goals” and “Reduce chores, don’t reschedule them.” I suggested that we can serve the people around us by being a calming force — “Be the eye of the storm.” Behind the paywall, I suggested “A little way to take your reading up a notch.” The Vanderhacks newsletter turns one later this month. I’ve had a lot of fun doing it, and hope to grow this newsletter over the next year. Please consider a free or paid subscription!
The Best of Both Worlds podcast featured an interview with Gabrielle Blair (the Design Mom). Over at our Patreon community, we’ve been discussing suggestions for filling the time from 5-8 p.m. when it’s dark and cold outside. We also — believe it or not — had a camp question already. Is it better to put kids in one day camp for the whole summer, or to curate different camps on different topics? There are arguments for both. Please come join the discussion! Membership is $9/month. We’ll have our next Zoom meet-up on November 26th to discuss holiday planning.
Finally, a sonnet, called “The coat.”
A London park, October, and the leaves
are bright amid the city’s settled gray.
Two people walk, our narrator perceives
that they are lovers, new ones, as they stray
from sidewalks we take notice of her coat:
a brilliant white, as shiny as their bond.
Would travel mar its luster? She might float
that thought, but then her roommate might respond
that no, you need to wear it — on this trip.
This is the girl that fell short on the rent.
Another mindset, but, my friends, we skip
two decades forward, care cannot prevent
a coat from turning beige. But memory’s true —
that coat is London, all still bright and new.
Love the idea of professional light installation. That sounds like money well-spent.
The sonnet was beautiful.
@Sarah K – they take the lights down too! Very exciting. It’s fun to see the trees come on at night.
I did notice that you wrote another blog post “Choosing next year’s year-long project” where you allowed readers to give suggestions for your next year’s year-long project, Ms. Laura Vanderkam. There are already more than a dozen suggestions in the comments of that blog post. I actually don’t think I have any suggestions for your next year’s year-long project since I don’t even have a year-long project myself.
We also want to consider whether or not we require this project to deliver specific, concrete results. I’m referring to projects such as “Publishing a book the next year” or “Growing a tree the next year” as projects that have specific, concrete results. On the other hand, we expect projects such as “writing sonnets at the pace of 2 lines a day” or “listening to Bach” to be done on a regular basis, but – I presume – we don’t care whether or not they deliver specific, concrete results. If you do not require your next year’s year-long project to be the type of project that delivers specific, concrete results, Ms. Laura Vanderkam, then I actually do have my own examples to share.
I’ve put the sonnet “The coat” into my collection now. Yes, I do think you have fulfilled your goal of writing 2 lines of sonnets a da, Ms. Laura Vanderkam.
@Yukun – the year-long project doesn’t have to deliver particular results – more it’s a way to nudge myself to read/listen/etc. to something important. But I need to be excited about it. Not quite sure what it will be yet! But I will keep writing the sonnets. I’ve really enjoyed doing that.
Now for the year 2024, I actually have done one project that is close to a year-long project that has to do with designing 3D models and making them reality using 3D Printers. That project is, of course, more career-oriented. I’m going to have similar projects again in 2025, which are also going to be career-oriented. I have established an online store called “Mr. Wu’s 3D Printer Corner” years ago, but I don’t think that that counts as my 2024 project. Let’s now think about the books that I read over 2024. Now actually, I read much more non-fiction books than I read fiction nowadays, Ms. Laura Vanderkam. Over the years, I have become familiar with a dozen of authors whose books I’ve read. I think that you know more authors than I do, Ms. Laura Vanderkam. Maybe that can be where you get the next year’s year-long project.
When it comes to the books that you wrote, I think that many of them are already translated into languages other than English. Speaking of speaking other languages, I myself speak Chinese as well as English. In fact, my daily job is about translating documents between Chinese and English for clients. However, I have never learned a 3rd language, and I’ve definitely not studied any languages in 2024, so nothing to suggest there.
I view searching for music online for myself to listen to as a whole lot of fun. That is, too much fun. As a result, and paradoxically, searching for music online for myself to listen to became one of those activities that I will only allow myself to do during either the holiday season at the end of the year or the Lunar New Year.
I also work out throughout the year. My primary forms of workouts are running up and down the stairs and lifting dumbbells. After I’ve lifted dumbbells with the same mass for several months, I actually always require myself to lift dumbbells that have even more mass. I don’t care about the specific quantity of the growth in the mass of the dumbbells that I can lift that took place throughout the year though. This growth in the mass of dumbbells has, indeed, continued in 2024 and will continue in 2025.
I’ve also had other projects in 2024, but I noticed that my comment has already exceeded 300 words, and I’ll stop here.