Updates March on

Six weeks ago, I resurrected update posts, which are blog posts in which I update older blog posts. I had no specific plans or schedule for doing more updates, but I think I’ll try once a month, and the first of the month is as good a time as any. And so, here we are.

First, an update about these updates.

These posts aren’t exactly easy to do. First, because I didn’t do them very often, there have always been a lot of posts that could use an update, most of which never got one. Life happens, and all that. The bigger issue is about how I do these: Every update includes a link back to the earlier post I’m talking about, of course, but then I add an update to that older post with a link to the specific part of the new update that talks about it. Linking to previous posts is something I do all the time, but not everyone sees posts in chronological order, so and update to that older post is needed. It’s mainly for the convenience of those out-of-sequence readers that I provide a link to the specific part of an update, but it also helps me when I’m doing a new post on that topic—it’s a quicker way for me to get the updated information. Yeah, sure, but it’s really just the sort of unimportant blogging mechanics I do all the time, but seldom mention. And probably a bit anal.

The best part of this? In a blog post providing updates, I forgot to give it the “Updates” tag, something I only found out when I started this post. Oddly enough, it’s not the first time I’ve fixed a mistake in an earlier post. Hard to believe, I know.

I am Mister Clean

A week ago today, I had a Solatube skylight installed in my kitchen, as I wrote about last Saturday. I said in that post, “Unfortunately, all this brightness has allowed me to see how poorly I’d been cleaning my kitchen up until now—I missed a lot because I simply couldn’t see it.” On Sunday (because I was busy before then…), I started the cleaning job, and it was a job: There was a bit of fine dust on the bench and everything on it from cutting the ceiling to put in the skylight lens. And, I had too much on my benchtop.

So, I put what I could into the dishwasher, wiped off or hand washed what I couldn’t, and then wiped down the benchtop in sections. This also allowed me to clear stuff away, mostly by putting things “somewhere” (most of the stuff was out in the first place because I didn’t have a “somewhere” for it to go, so I had to finesse things a bit). It took me a couple days (because I only worked on it when I felt like it had time). That job’s done now, and it turns out I was right in my post last Saturday: Being able to actually see the kitchen, and the cleaning I needed to do, actually was a sort of benefit.

Leo’s ritual

Early last month, I wrote about hanging Sunny’s collar so Leo could sniff it, and there’s been a change since then. I said in my post, “I plan on leaving [the collar] there until he stops sniffing it, and I have no idea how long that will be…” At the time I was thinking maybe a week or two. After all, Sunny’s ashes and collar had been home for nearly a month at that point, and Leo had sniffed it (at first, with my help).

Not long after that post, Leo developed a ritual: Every morning he wakes up when I stir, stretches a lot, yawns, then hops down on the floor—and walks right over to Sunny’s collar to give it a brief sniff. To me, it’s as if he’s saying a little “good morning” to her, but it could be as simple as making sure it’s still there, and/or that he’s not smelling her without seeing her. Whatever the truth is, he clearly still wants to sniff the collar (Jake sniffed it this morning, too, when I went back there for my shower), and I’ll leave it there until he stops. Looks like that may be awhile, and that’s okay. I’m trying to make sure he’s okay, after all.

Error: My success not found

In the middle of March, I published a post, “To err is human, the choice is mine” in which I talked about needing to try to do things, and even fail at them, in order to find out what my limits truly are. I said in that post that, “I’ve already made several” mistakes. When I wrote that, I was thinking about several, but especially a recent thing that I was beginning to think of of as another mistake: A garden shed I bought at the end of February, but that had a frustrating delayed delivery in early March. I began to feel that it was too small for my needs, and I considered sending it back. There’d be a cost, of course, but what held me back was more indecision, this time, of “what if it is okay?” I had to move the box when we brought back the stuff from my storage unit later that month. The box, it was clear, had never been properly sealed, and it started to fall apart when I moved it.

By then, I’d already begun to feel that I needed to own my mistake and put the shed up, anyway (though I’m fairly certain there’s great doubt that I can do it). I could try to sell the unassembled shed, but I know I’d never get anywhere near the (too high) price I paid for it (especially without the original box), so keeping it is probably the best option. I’m now taking this as a learning opportunity—a reminder to not be so damn impatient/impetuous. I absolutely sometimes take far too long to decide things because the fear of making mistakes, as I said in the post that began this update, paralyses me. I should have remained paralysed just a little bit longer. Live and learn—and err. It’s all okay.

• • •

Maybe I’ll do this again on May 1. Maybe I won’t. Either way, there will be changes to things I say on this blog, just as there have been from its very beginning. Change itself is one thing that doesn’t change.