My beloved projects. None of them are great feats of human endeavor but they make my world go ’round and bring me great happiness. So leap is meant in the joyful sense, more so than any other.

First, I bake. As often as I can, often for the most trumped-up of reasons.

Contentment doesn’t even begin to cover it. I just love to bake. Tell me your favorite baked good, and I will make it. I don’t mess around anymore with considering what a person’s favorites say about him or her. I just bake.

Second, but gaining, I make things with my hands, things that are far from edible. Use ’em or lose ’em, so the saying goes for those of us on the chronic inflammation-induced path to eventual rheumatoid arthritis – hands and knees are the first joints to go.

The ability of my hands to do everything except sweat profusely continues to delight me, more than ten years on, and I revel in my good fortune every day.

If it weren’t for a trailblazing surgeon and my own stubborn determination to brave the trade-offs of ETS, I would not be in a position to wrap strands of fibers around my fingers and expect to come up with anything but mangled scraps of felt.

But blankets, hats, scarves and more lately, wee sweaters are what I get out of my hours crocheting, knitting and otherwise tying knots strategically, going from 2- to 3-d with no more effort than anyone else would have to put in.

It means more to me than I imagine it does to most people, because it didn’t come naturally and I know it won’t always. I enjoy it while I can, so much.

Third, I write. Mostly emails and letters, though who has time for old-fashioned correspondence, even when it’s electronic, in this day and age. So it’s starting to be more than writing to people, and I’m beginning to allow myself that.

I still fool myself with the encouragingly limited dimensions of a compose window – that shouldn’t work, since I’m aware that I’m doing it on purpose, but somehow it manages to.