Winter

Winter has arrived in the Ozarks of Southwest Missouri!
There is a light layer of snow covering the ground and it is cold out there -- 16f (-9c)!
Brrrr

It is said that if you let the winter weather steal your joy, you'll still have the cold weather, but you'll have less joy.
Today I am grateful and joyful about my warm fireplace and good coffee as I quietly type away on the Chromebook keyboard. I have what I need without having to venture out into the cold for today and I plan to enjoy staying in. I am extremely grateful that I no longer have to go into work every day and have been doing this retired thing long enough that I really don't remember what that routine was like. 

Today, like most days, will be quiet and pretty unproductive. I'll do some reading, maybe complete a Spanish lesson, spend a little time exercising, and might get some of the Christmas decorations packed away. 

After writing this post about who I am or who others perceive me to be, I've been thinking about it -- perhaps more than I need to be. 
Truthfully, I really don't care what most people think of me. Certainly, there are people that I don't want to disappoint and would enjoy having their admiration, but those are a very select few. I am really most interested in the personal assessment of who I am and I find that there are definitely areas that I need to work on. 

While I am genuinely grateful for and content with many areas of life, I know that I have been negligent when it comes to my health. Although I currently only take medication for high blood pressure, I know that being 100 lbs (45.4 kg) overweight is not a good thing and there are probably other health maladies in my near future. 
I'm working on it.

There are also other areas that I need to pay more attention to and some things that I just need to get around to doing. Procrastination has always been a problem for me. 
It seems that most of the problem areas of life are consequences of poor choices in our past and need to be dealt with as they are since undoing them isn't really possible.

One day at a time.
73 days until spring.

John