Forever and a day…A Day Anyway
Here I am batching again.  My goal is to have you feel sorry for me.  I know I am up against it as it is only one night.  The last time this happened I was telling someone about it, and they said they were all set to feel sorry for me until I said it was only one night.  From then on it was like “suck it up sunshine.”  So I know the approach I took does not work. 
Merril is out seeing her mum.  She got a call yesterday.  I would say secret women’s business except it is not.  Her mum is looking at downsizing.  Not as in going from a size 22 to a size 18. (I am trying to talk the talk here.  She is none of those sizes).  It seems so many ladies keep dress sizes they fitted into when they were 20, in the hope there will come  a time when they will fit into them in later life.
It seems ladies have more of an issue with that than guys.  Sure, I would like to have rippling muscles and cause hearts to flutter when I appear, but that is not the case.  I am what I am.  I am loved this way.  I may have aspirations to be different, but it is not a case of being loved when I am a certain way, but being loved as I am.  Maybe I will be different but that is just a part of the journey and not the reason for love. (Just as well really as I fail miserably in the “tall, dark and handsome” stakes.)  I am what I am, and others are what they are.
But I digress.  Here I am having to hunt and gather.  Then after a hard days work I need to cook and tidy up as well!  (The microwave may get a flogging). I may have more than enough in the fridge and pantry and take away joints may be close at hand.  I also may just be able to phone in a feed. 
But is that enough?  Do I really not need to sit at the end of the driveway howling?  Actually I probably don’t need to sit at the end of the driveway howling.  Hmmm it is more likely “blessed is me” rather than “woe is me.”   I will always miss her when she is not here but in the meantime I am pretty comfortable really.
I have things to do, places to go and people to see today.  I think I will be gainfully employed for the day and a bit while Merril is at her mum’s.  But don’t tell Merril that.  I miss her already and will be glad for her return.

The first part of what we are getting done around the home starts next week.  We are converting our former garage into a granny flat.  An individual or couple will be able to stay there totally sperate from Merril and I.
I guess it is just a fact of life that as one grows older less space is sought and what is needed is reassessed.  Often the conclusion is that less is required.
It is interesting to me that worlds become smaller.  There is a natural resistance to such a thing, but that either ends in acceptance or bitterness.  I know from what I experience I do not like growing older and often my body lets me know that what I once did is now out of reach.  Often I find that out by trying what was once common place, and paying an unexpected consequence for it.
So what Merril and I are attempting is to set ourselves up for the inevitable.  There are two things at work.  We want to get the place nice for us and downsize now while we can.  We also want to set the place up for others who are experiencing the same.  Our aim is to have a place ready.  In the meantime, we are happy to put family and friends and visitors up for short stays.
Having said that we know that we do not know what the future holds.  We feel the best we can do is go by advice we trust and look around at trends.  Right now the trends do not appear to be good.  There seems to be a great promotion of rescue coming from certain quarters, yet what is often promoted is untried.  It also seems to me the scale of things that happen that require immediate finance is growing to such an extent that there will be nothing left for other worthy causes.
That is why now, as best we can, we set up for a possible day when hand outs are not forth coming, and what we have is self-generated - and the haves assist the have nots.
Anyway that is what we are doing on one level.  On another more obvious level we are getting a granny flat.  We are very much looking for to the time we have it, rather than are looking forward to having it.

As per usual I find food for thought in the weekly James Clear email.
"Before you worry about how to win the game, figure out whether the game is worth winning."
I do have an issue with one word in this and that is “worry”.  If I look up the meaning of worry it is “feel or cause to feel anxious or troubled about actual or potential problems.”  I think the word anxious is why I have a problem with worry.  When I consider synonyms for worry “unease” and “fear” come up.  To me neither in this context is healthy.
I do not pretend worry is an easy one to dismiss.  Yet I do contend that worry is never a helpful emotion.  Worry to me implies anxiety, unease, and fear.  It may seem to be just saying the same thing a different way but to me the word focus is better.  In this context “focus on.”
(This has got to be some sort of record.  I started this then had to go out.  Then someone came over.  Then I cleared a room in preparation for it being gutted.  Then I had lunch.  Then a rest and that was when I remembered this had not been posted.  So back again!!)
It is all about is the game worth playing.  My experience is there are sometimes things I am involved in for a time.  They are not the main game as it were but fill in or tide over games.
I think as liog as whatever I may do does not stand in the way of the “main game” for me, it is worth learning, playing and winning.  One thing I would really not like is in ..(I was going to say forty years time, but I would be 106 at that point and I do not know the future but I doubt I will be around then).  So really in any length of time I would not like to say I could not do what I really felt I should do, because I was doing something else.  To me the something else needs to be dealt with so I can learn, play, and win the main game.
So regarding the situation posed, some games are definitely not worth learning.  Others are a tide over and have something to teach, while some are the main game.  To me the main game is worth learning and winning.  The main game is the one I feel I was born for.