When I was six, my family was driving on a highway late at night. Streaks of headlights and taillights painted the dark. For the first time, I realized that each car held people living lives as important to them as mine was to me.

I wanted to know what those lives were, and to share my own.

Last August, while pondering all the things I keep wanting to do and the way I don’t ever seem to get around to it, I conceived the ideas of 33 Round Tuits. 33 is an arbitrary number I just happen to love, and it seemed like it could give me a lot of variety without being hugely overwhelming.

I didn’t put an timeframe on the list; it’s just meant to be there, in the back of my mind, so that those things don’t just get forgotten. I updated it once, in December…

And today, I want to look again, as spring morphs into summer, and see where I am on the Round Tuit 33…are you ready?

OK, then, off we go!

I “got a round tuit”:

• Delete files from old computer (Sweet L’il Lenovo), reset to factory default, and give to Declan, a young friend looking for an XP machine for gaming.

• Write a blogpost about my long-lost friend, Barbara Leonard, whom I would LOVE to reconnect with.

• Contact Kristen Lamb and collect my WANACon Social Media Prize.

• Return embarrassingly overdue library books.

• Buy a new pair of workout sneakers.

Public domain image; courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

I’m “getting a round tuit”:

• Scan all old photos, organize files, and begin sharing them digitally. I’ve done some scanning, some organizing, some editing that wasn’t part of the goal, and some sharing.

• Reread and organize all my old story notebooks. I did some organizing and some reading in the winter.

• Read all nine books currently in my bedroom To Be Read stack. Oops! Shifted stacks, and lost track. Three books in my room, but I’m sure there used to be more.

• Complete all the items in my Play Jar. Did a couple, then forgot again.

• Finish resetting the family room, playroom, and kitchen. Progressing, sometimes upstream, and not consistently, but progressing.

• Rehome wandering game pieces. As I find them, I’m moving them to containment on the games shelves.

• Update my bio and my blog sidebar – it’s outdated and jumbled. Sllooowwwllyyyy…..

• Finish organizing my study. Progressing, in fits and starts.

• Buy a wheeled storage footstool. I looked; but might not choose to do this; I’ve got another idea.

• Buy a set of Corelle dishes. Not yet. Haven’t seen ones I love.

• Read all old writing practice notebooks and mine for usable materials. Some; not remotely all.

• Begin submitting Trek fan fiction to a fan fiction site (this will require a bit of experimentation to find the right “home”. Moving through revisions for “Slow Jazz Awakening”, the first story.

• Complete rough drafts of all novels in the Trueborn series (I think there are between 3-5 waiting to be developed and drafted. Preparing to draft 2 this year, the first in July.

• Complete the first revision pass of Chameleon’s Dish. A bit stalled, but returning in August.

• Reclaim the flower beds, and begin growing cutting flowers, herbs and vegetables. In progress, now that spring is well underway.
• Complete revisions of 3 short stories: “Morning Coffee”, “A Splash of Red”, and “Peach Liqueur Love”; submit to L.S. Engler‘s World Unknown Review. Two completed and submitted, one published! Third currently in revision.
• Write 31 new poems for OctPoWriMo; revise the ones written in 2012. All new poems written; no real progress on revisions…planning to deal with that in the late summer/early fall.

• Watch all of Star Trek in chronological order. In Season 2 of Enterprise, the first (and my favorite) series, chronologically speaking.

• Create rough outlines for the Kifo Island Chronicles novella series. Set up character lists for ten volumes (more likely to be 60K novels than novellas); drafted Transitions (KIC#1). Generations (KIC#2) in progress; outlining beginning for Sea Changes (KIC#3).

Fragmentarry Progress….Photo by Shan Jeniah Burton.

I haven’t “gotten a round tuit” yet:

• Blog about The Star Trek Chronology Project.
• Go get a professional massage.
• Buy an Irish cloak.
• Learn how to thread my sewing machine.
• Buy wireless television headphones.
• Create a visual timeline for my Trueborn series.

• Go as a family to the Museum of the Adirondacks W!ld Center.
• Go to The Cloisters, perhaps all by myself.
• Contact the high school teacher who changed my life.

Wow. That’s actually more progress than I thought I’d made!

How about you? Are there things you’ve been meaning to do, “when you get a round tuit”, too? Inspired to make a list? What would you put on it?

Join in the conversation, and I’ll get you a fresh beverage while I listen!

And onward we go…Willamette Valley Sunset from Rt. 1-5….Photo by Shan Jeniah Burton.