Sylvia's Journal

The income generating activities planned for January are not happening as planned, thanks to our president. This will thus be my first month without any income. It’s not affecting my spending pattern tough. Inspired by my ukulele lessons and the joy I get from making music, however clumsy, I have decided to pick up my violin again, and take lessons – for the first time in 4 decades. The violin needs some work, and a new case. The case arrived today, so now I can take the instrument to be repaired and fixed up – a new bridge, new strings and new hair on my bow. It’s a costly operation, but the urge to play the violin again after all these years is strong. The money will have to come out of my retirement fund, which appears to be recovering from a steep drop late last year. 

As part of my effort to avoid getting stale in my coaching skills I registered for peer coaching, organized by the International Coach Federation of which I am a member and by which I am accredited (albeit at the lowest level).  I coach someone in Wisconsin and am being coached by someone in Vancouver. My Vancouver coach asked me about my transition from full time employment to self-employed. After having been FT employed for more than 30 years it was a transition. She asked me what I was transitioning to. I didn’t know and have thought much about it. Over the last 4 sessions with her things have become clearer: a physical move to my new office cut ties with my ‘work-from-home-MSH office.’ I am literally in a new place and it is entirely mine: the computer and printers, the office equipment, the printing paper, the paperclips, the licenses, the pens and pencils and of course the income. 

My priorities have shifted as well: more time with family (a ski vacation with everyone next month), more time with art (hence the investment in fixing my violin) and, as a combination of both family and art, I just registered us for a three-day course at the Snow Farm Craft Center in Williamsburg (MA) in May. Axel will be learning about Japanese lock printing and I will perfect my glass bead making skills. It was Sita’s idea who told us about the place and gave us a gift certificate for Christmas.

The clarity also included a choice to stay in our house as long as we can by moving the bedroom down into my old office. It will be a major and no doubt costly project – but better done now than when all my joints are creaky and failing (some already are).  And it’s kind of exciting during those dreary winter months, to think about possibilities and new vistas.