So what I done lately?
Well, I used to have Small Success Thursday, so I thought I’d start that up again except I didnt’ have time on Thursday to write it up, I was so busy. It’s been a crazy June thus far.
As such, here’s my small successes from the past week.
1) I got published for the first time in 2025. The link to the story is here: You Have the Gifts of Pentecost.
2) We finished the second semester! I graded over 75 essays.
3) Datenight –we went to Gordon Ramsay’s Fish and Chips restaurant in DC at the harbor, and to the opening premier of “A Wrinkle in Time.” Enjoyed it. I remember it being one of my favorite books growing up. The costumes, set design and imagination of how to convey Aunt Beast, as well as the casting of Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatzit, and Mrs. Which excelled, but the whole musical needs editing and at least one banger song that people come back humming.
4) Got my crown fixed –it has been eight weeks. It’s a small victory but a victory none the less.
5) Learned how to make Sour Dough and Focacia. Not well, but I did make them.
6) Closed out classroom for the summer.
7) Started reading a book. I swear my brain grew smooth in the past two weeks just owing to all the things that needed to get done. I’d privately planned to read a book a month and I’ve kept to it, except that this month, I picked “Lord of the Rings,” which for those who don’t know, is over 1, 042 pages long. If I do finish it, I’ll still get to hear Gimli say…
8) I scheduled a physical for me, three of my girls and my youngest son, and five dental appointments –same group.
9) Got the tires checked for one car.
10) Ordered new shoes –which in the age of the internet doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment but anything I can take off of the to do list to get to the to done list, is a small success.
11) Signed up daughter for DMV learner’s permit test.
12) Made Paella for the first time.
The thing about making lists is we define or are tempted to define ourselves by what we did and thus define ourselves as less than if we don’t get to everything. Lists always expand outward, they do not diminish. As such, while making a daily itinerary helps make sure all the stuff gets done, it needs to be a means and not the end. My daughter was lamenting she’d not made a list and I explained, there is no prize for making or completing the list, not in life, not because of what was done. What we should measure ourselves by, is how we treat those around us. Her visible relief at this reframing of the standards, meant she now understood –the list is a tool, not the objective.
That realization, for her and reminder for me, also counts as a larger than expected, Small Success.
Hope your week was filled with victories great and small.
–take care.
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