Lumber run this evening. Another weekend of moving out of one storage into combination shop/storage. Chainsaws serviced and retired for the winter - hooray!
Too many commitments: Media creation, desktop publishing, shop-work for job, job, remodeling part of one house, moving tools/setting up, likely relocation for prospective new job, hiding from toxic social situations, balancing precarious health conditions... Paring down the schedule, no choice. Full retirement would involve a disappearing act. Could happen, but not necessarily the optimum way to go - isolation. Don't actually believe in that, for now.
Oh, such a will to live to this flesh seems, oh such a contradiction to the glory we'll receive. Yet God hath created us thusly, For His Greater Glory...
I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body~~ Paul, to his friends in Philippi So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. Thanatopsis,~~ William Cullen Bryant
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. Romans 7 and Paul's dumbfounding query...
βIt doesn't really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist's chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on.β β C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
I've been making primitive crosses out of recovered pallet wood. It's a hard wood and it's all slightly warped and twisted, which means the blade of my table saw typically chars it at least somewhere. I push it through the blade at varying speeds and sometimes pause it, specifically to get some extra charring effect. Then I cut dadoes, glue it all together, stain and lacquer. My wife and I managed to get an indoor spot at our local flea market, which means we can sell bits and pieces there without having to haul our canopy and tables around. It's handy because the building is locked during the week, so we can leave at least some stuff there and not have to haul it every week. If the crosses from pallet wood sell I'll make some more with nicer wood, maybe some bigger ones, and see what happens from there. I also plan to make cutting boards, I just need a little time to get them sorted out. So we'll have a few different things to sell, and see what happens. The only commitment we have is week to week so if we give it a few weeks and figure we're wasting our time we can just pack up and take it all home again.