Checking in for April for my "Designing a Well-Lived Life" blogging. This is about making small changes during the year to make larger changes.

This was the first month of my "retirement" so most of it went into readjusting my routines and dealing with a modicum of grief over the whole process. It was also a time for me to get a bit overwhelmed with the possibilities of things that have been waiting in the wings for a while. I'm starting to gain my stride but it's going to take some time. One does not simply steer the battleship into Mordor, or something.

• Release a storyworld into the wild: Didn't work on this at all. I'm still floundering for an idea. It'll come though. Patience.

• Learn more programming for the Atari machines to get more comfortable creating for them: Did a small bit on this but nothing major.

• Finish up or hand-off the Pepper&Carrot RPG: No progress here.

• Update the Pepper&Carrot Wiki: This is likely going to be the focus for May. The wiki is woefully out of date and I can use this to jump-start some of my other projects.

• Work through the disability requirements to go on disability: I'm on disability now. All that's left is to wait for the process to continue forward.

• Write / Blog more about what's going on: Been blogging my little ass off. Mission accomplished here.

• Work on getting more healthy and as cancer-free as possible: Health has taken a bit of a back-seat. I'm doing what I can as far as eating healthy and ensuring that I don't poop myself into a Klein Bottle-shape, but that's been the extent of it. Need to give this some attention (especially in the "drink more water, you dehydrated noodle" department).

• Meditate: No progress here.

• Declutter, simplify, and focus on the essential: Been making more progress here. I'm finding the simplification process actually cathartic. Things that I don't need anymore are getting released back into the wild or shredded. Still practicing with this.

• Relax my frustrations and be more accepting of things as they are: Boy howdy I'm not good at this. I've found that my first reaction to everything that's slightly uncomfortable is anger. Need to reflect on that and determine why that is (I have my suspicions that it's because I don't want things to disrupt me or make me feel uncomfortable.)

• Continue removing debt: Still making progress.

• Hang up my hangups - allow myself to be more creative and playful: Need to give this more focus. Finding myself mentally blocked on that whole "fun" thing.

It's taking some time to get things situated but I'm making progress. I actually upgraded most of my machines to a more recent version of Ubuntu (which was a bit scary) and gave myself some space when it was required. Things have definitely changed in my life and I couldn't be happier to embrace them and tackle them as needed. May is going to be an interesting month.