THE List

Kids are back to work, grandchildren going back to school and daycare, gifts distributed, decorations down and now:  THE List!

Some call THE List their "New Year's resolutions".  I don't do resolutions, never have, just not my thing.  I consider New Year's resolutions similar to party games; something to talk about when having fun and forget the rest of the year.

Considering the fact that I'm a tend to organize to the point I've been called "Monk" by those less than generous, it may seem odd I don't organize my thoughts on gardening every January 1st.  Garden book authors tell us we must.  Internet sites, educators, friends and perfect strangers tell us we must. 

I think my reasoning is:  (1) I think about changes and improvements to my gardens throughout the year. and (2) I've never been into self imposed garden deadlines, restrictions and rules.  I suppose that has the implications of an undisciplined, impulsive and immature mind.  I prefer to think of it as creative.

Most of us can point to persons whose success in a favored field included personality traits we ourselves possess.  We tend to ignore those with those personality traits who have failed miserably.  Aw, human nature, we are but a repeat process. 

I am fortunate to have grown up in a era where they didn't tag kids with personality disorders and use those tags to push them into a box of conformity.  My flaws and tendencies were not labeled as wrong, although at times, they might have incurred some strong parental "direction".

I come from a family with quite a lot of artists and engineers - polar opposites although both must be creative.  Sooner or later, one of the off spring had to be a bit unique on the organizational side.   

And that little bit of self disclosure brings me back to "New Year's resolutions".  I never look at my gardens (even in passing) that my mind doesn't do a little analyzing and changing.  Sometimes they're discarded when another glimpse offers another idea.  Other times they may go into the mental list for quite some time until they are either accomplished, revised or discarded.

Putting ideas into a "resolution" list means they are either accomplished perfectly in the next year or I have failed.  Seriously, who wants to set themselves up for that kind of self imposed black or white resolution?  Life has enough negative things going on, I don't need to purposely make something in gardening one of them.

Even when I don't get a garden something accomplished or an idea doesn't turn out well, I seldom consider it a gardening failure.  I usually consider it a learning experience. 

I'm not preaching that goal setting is bad, striving for your best is pointless and planning for the future isn't necessary.  I do all those things.  I just don't consider "failure" the flip side of not achieving everything exactly as I thought was important on January 1st.

And now, on January 2nd, I take my cup of hot coffee and a leftover Christmas cookie and watch the house finch in his red attire while a few lacy snowflakes drift from the sky.  This might be the best resolution for January 2nd I've come up with today!