Rolling closer to spring

The wattle trees are in bloom again, and they are gorgeous. And they smell heavenly.

They start blooming around late July. They stay in bloom through August, and then the weaker non-native flowering trees join them with flowers in September.

Wattle trees are a good reminder that spring is coming.

Sunshine also is a good indication of spring. There is sunlight during the morning walk to school, and the afternoon walk home, although still no sunlight for the evening walk around the park.

***

I signed up to be in Germany next week, but I canceled a few weeks ago. My latest jetlag was just too painful to endure another thirty hours of travel for a week of meetings and a thirty hour flight home. I promised I would spend the week working on a related paper instead. So work on that paper starts ... now.

Next time I'll decide the conference is less painful.

Machine

I am a machine.

You input to-do lists, and I output tasks.

Laundry.

Groceries.

Email Carolina.

Revise section five.

At the beginning of the year, I got myself a beautiful book with hundreds of empty lined pages, in which I would write down all the deep thoughts that occurred to me each day, for three-hundred and sixty five days.

I have been writing in my new journal every day. I take it with me to and from work. More than half way through the year, it is now full more than half full -- of to-do lists.

There is a to-do list for nearly every single day of the year.


26 June 2019 (Wednesday)
Send copyright form
Mark honours reports
Need to submit rejoinder today --
9am Christine
11am Dan
12:30 seminar lunch
2pm Seminar 


But very few deep thoughts. Occasionally I have written a thought:
25 Mary 2019 (Monday) (in the margin): "Project C: Should we drop it? I don't think it is adding much".

2 April 2019 (Tuesday) "Should celebrate submitting book. Maybe discuss over lunch tomorrow?"

I never did celebrate submitting the book. Because it didn't make it into a to-do list.

Today's deep thoughts: send seven emails. Change Jonathan's sheets. Return library books. And maybe give the machine a break from to-do lists for a while. It wants to sit on the couch and watch TV.