Today is the last day of Christmas--oops! excuse me--Winter Break. While most people, I expect, ruminate on the past and plan for the future during the time before New Year's Day, I usually find myself in reflective mode in this day before Monday after the yearly winter hiatus.

I accomplished my Christmas resolution, which was to clean and make beautiful my personal space, wherein reside my computer, my desk, and my reading chair/lamp/table cluster. (This room is my refuge and of all the rooms in the house most accurately reflects who I am.)

This I accomplished and I'm feeling very good about it. Now it's a place to come and truly relax. Of course, as I sorted and cleaned and put things away, I found little stuff, some of which has been done and some which is still pending (like sending my grandson his Starbucks Gift Card which I just found).

But in the main, it is now clean and bright and comfortable. I know I can keep it this way, because this time I worked smart as well as hard--I have set up procedures to handle incoming stuff, instead of just having to dump it on the nearest horizontal surface and sort it out later.

I also found a buried book borrowed from a friend; I've been fretting about it ever since it went missing, even though she told me not to worry. I uncovered scads of pens, thus putting to an end the scurrying around process every time I want to write something down.

Need to sort through the pens and toss the dead ones.

So you see, bits and pieces still need to be done, but for the most part, mission accomplished. (yes, I know that phrase has been degraded in the past decade, but it's useful when true.)

When the vacuum cleaner bags arrive in the mail, I'll be able to attend to the floor. The vacuum cleaner is nearly 30 years old and bags for it aren't available in stores. The carpet needs vacuuming again. Cats, you know--cat hair, leaf trophies, dirt, captured/deceased insects....

The past? Being cleaned up. The future? Taking it one day at a time, still trying to live up to our first principle: respect for the inherent worth and dignity of all beings.