I’m excited to start a fresh decade, especially after the old one turned so spectacularly to shit in the last few years. I’ve avoided getting political here, but as we’re coming into the election of our lifetimes, I may have to change that a bit. But right now I’m focusing on improving my own life – that whole, “put on your own oxygen mask” thing is very real. I need to fix myself before I dare risk my brain again.
And on that note, I have plans! With no further ado, my plans for kicking off 2020:
Yoga with Adriene. I haven’t done yoga regularly for months, and none at all since Gidget came home. (At first it was because of constant mopping to keep up with the appearances of small, stealthy puddles, but that issue appears to be nearly resolved.) Now it’s just me, being lazy. I miss yoga. Yoga makes me feel great, and why I stop doing things that make me feel great is a subject for years of therapy, I’m sure.
Adriene always starts a one month special practice at the start of the year, and this year, I’m all in on Home. AS GAWD IS MAH WITNUSS, I’m going to do the entire program, and complete it within 35 days. I’m giving myself 5 days for the unexpected, but my real goal is to do it in 30, as designed.
Bullet Journaling. I still do it; it’s perhaps the longest running habit, next to drinking wine, that I’ve stuck with in the last decade. I don’t do a fancy, Instagrammable book, but I do have some small things that have worked for me over the years and I’ll have to share them one of these days.
WW Because I need structure to keep me honest, and – I know this is shocking – when I stick to it, it works.
And I need to get started on preparing for the Star Wars 5K in April. Yes, that’s a long way off, but I’ve been on my ass for months so I’m basically starting from zero here. I have a deeply held delusion that I’m still 35 and somehow trapped in this 61 year old body. I treasure this delusion, but yeah, it’s going to bite me in the ass.
And as part of all this healthy diet and exercise, I’m kicking off the year tomorrow with Dryuary. They had me at better sleep; but I also know wine (and stress, insomnia and overall laziness) is not good for me at this stage of my life. I’m 15-ish pounds from my goal weight (still), and that weight is largely in the form of chardonnay calories. A month off wine seems like a good place to start, so before the entire innerwebs and my 12 faithful readers, I do hereby declare January No Wining Month.
I don’t plan to stay up to see the new decade arrive, I trust it will start just fine without me. I do plan to get up tomorrow and go for a 5k walk sans dogs, do a dab of yoga, and assess my starting point. Grandma’s fitness kickoff begins January 1.
And maybe, just maybe, I’ll blog about it. It could happen!
I was delighted, some time ago with your re-appearance, Catherine. Now I can re-emerge from the shadows. After 10 years of watching Alzheimer’s take over my dear Ernst, the last three years being increasingly difficult, and the last six months just damned awful, Ernst passed in his sleep, in his own bed, two days after Christmas.
And what a circus that triggered – four enormous Paramedics, and two police officers, just to make sure there was no need to ‘report to the coroner’. Everyone of them as kind and considerate as you could possibly wish. Between sorrow and a feeling of release, I am slowly adjusting. Nearly 54 years together. Family and friends all being very supportive.
Down to one Italian Greyhound, supplemented by ‘babysitting’ my daughter’s Mystery Mix, while she settles into her new circumstances, and relationships.
Our eldest grandchild has achieved her Masters in Pharmacy, her brother has completed two years of his Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering, and the two younger grandkids are doing well. The boy is about to start his third year of high school, and the youngest will start high school at the end of January.
Gae! How wonderful to hear from you again! I think of you every time I see an update on the awful fires. I’m very sorry about Ernst; Alzheimer’s is so awful, and the caregiving takes its toll. Take care of yourself. It sounds like your grandchildren are doing wonderfully well! I keep saying I’m going to get myself together and update this sorry little blog more often, but the new job leaves me too freaking tired to look at another computer screen when I get home.
The fires passed us by, I did evacuate to my son’s home for two days, more to avoid smoke than anything, precautionary for this well controlled asthmatic! Not to diminish the fires in any way, they have been appalling. But we had 12 mm in the rain gauge this morning, and more steady rain tonight. It won’t break the drought, and it won’t extinguish all of the fires, but it will definitely slow them down. As the folk in the bush say: Send it down, Hughie!
The fires in NSW are officially extinguished! Just for an amusing change, we have floods instead! I do love this bloody minded continent, but it’s never a dull moment. Where I am is safe from flooding.
There is a poem by Dorothea Mackellar that sums it up nicely – “I Love a Sunburnt Country”.