Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

We're getting into that bizarre fall weather that we get this time of year. Yesterday, it was warm enough I could wear shorts while walking the dog. This morning, I had to wear long pants, a hoodie and a light jacket.

Usually I warm up a little while I'm walking, but wind like we had this morning doesn't help.

Just as the weather changes gradually, I'm gradually tackling some large projects by taking them one step at a time.

One of the projects is getting out the next issue of Wild Violet, which is running into the usual production delays. I'm trying to get a little bit done every day.

Then, of course, there's weight loss. My goal is to lose the last 15 pounds and make my long-range goal, getting in shape for my wedding next year. I've been making slow but steady progress at a rate of about half a pound to a pound a week. It might not sound like much, but it adds up eventually.

As far as my writing career is concerned, for a couple weeks now, I've been perusing the online version of the Writer's Market every day, looking for places to send my poetry manuscript.

Another task is to organize our apartment. Now that we've lived there for more than a year, we have a pretty good idea of which items we need to keep and which we don't. So I've started going through our place, looking for items that can be sold, given away or discarded.

I began yesterday with the bedroom closet, where I put up some shelves and went through all the linens and other items that had been stacked in there, taking space away from The Gryphon's clothing storage.

A major task right now is wedding planning, which is going along well. At this stage we're ahead of the game, so I'm just trying to keep us that way. The next big task, according to our wedding planning book, is to confirm major contractors such as the florist, baker, photographer and DJ.

We already have a photographer, our friend The Photographer. We've spoken to him about what we want, and he's supposed to get us a quote.

The venue where we'll hold the wedding already has relationships with a baker and florist, so I got their contact information so we can touch base with them and make certain we want to go with them.

We have a line on a DJ, a friend of a friend, who should be able to help us out.

Any of these large tasks alone would seem intimidating, and certainly when put together, it can seem almost insurmountable. But I've been making a daily list of things to do, trying to do a little bit for each of these large projects, so that ultimately, I can manage them all.

I'm reminded of the saying, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Or, to put it another way, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

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