Yesterday was a great day for family, snow (at least here in Vermont), gigabytes of pictures taken with newly unwrapped cameras and iPhones, along with way too much food. Just what Christmas is supposed to be. I could have done without the 350 mile rotation to “therealworld” commuting from "vermontwinterfantasyland”, however, other than that, it was all good.
When I first started living here-the second time-friends would call beginning on Wednesdays to ask the proverbial question of… “Is it snowing up there?”. In a world before the Internet and constant RSS and app feeds, we actually relied on boots on the ground and talking over land lines to learn about the weather…how quaint. My proverbial answer to the weekly proverbial question was always the same… “It always snows here-every day, every night”. Those were the years of 10 feet on the ground by mid-January and plowed drifts blocking out the light to the bottom floor windows. As the winter dragged on, and the unnatural rhythm of the daily tasks of shoveling (both leaving to and coming back from work) set in, there was a directly correlation between the sharpness of my responses to the “Is it snowing?” question and the length of the season to the point where around Groundhog Day, I just stopped answering the phone at night. Of course, that might also have had to do with not seeing the sun for a couple of months. You gotta love living in Vermont, or else, they’ll find you in the spring walking around in the woods talking to yourself mumbling something about 11 months of winta'.
Today, even though I’m a six generation Vermonter, I’m now regarded by the boys on the bench down at the general store as a "damn-weekend-commuting-flatlander" having moved to the NH beach a couple of years ago. The Vermont house is the same although it’s no longer warmly referred to as “the Derby House out on Kendall Farm”; it's just blandly now relegated to its 911 location. I guess, it could be worse...I could be grouped into the dreaded class of "those-people-from New York".
Since my Vermonter identity has now become a bit watered down, it's just one more reason that I need to efficiently deal with the winter seasonal tasks of living here...even if it's part time. As we wind down 2012 over the next couple of days and charge headlong into the complexities of January, think about taking a couple of hours between now and next Wednesday to plan out exactly how you can more efficiently deal with the daily tasks of your own over-packed and over-stuffed world.
Take the pressure off by creating your own email rules for 2013.
Then I can download directly from my Amazon Wish List whenever I'm planning my next Acela trip.
That's enough for now since, even though it's almost the end of the week, there are still three more days to go until we close out 2012. Plus I need to get out on the hill at dawn for an hour of "field research" before buckling down back at the office. After all, there need to be at least one or two perks for having to live in Vermont in the winta'.
Good Selling...and have a safe Happy New Year's Eve!!!