New Year's Resolutions for 2017??

Do you have any? Are you good at sticking to them until they are completed?

I rarely make resolutions, maybe I will this year. We shall see.
Losing weight and exercising more would definitely be on the list, so would eating healthier.
Being more serious and dedicating more time to my... household business affairs, we'll call them.
Taking more pictures, organizing undeveloped film from years ago; those things could be on the list as well.

Happy (almost) New Year.

 

January 10, 2017
Tuesday

So, as I just said over on my "Christmas" thread, I wanted to mosey on over here and do some writing on this thread as well.
I love it. Simply Love. It.

I think I really need to put myself to task (or is it put myself to the task?) of making a few New Year resolutions. I mean, the New Year is a great time to make resolutions for yourself, even though one could decide to make a New Day resolution every single day. But the New Year is usually theee time for that type of thing.

Resolution Number One- and these are in no particular order, but let's start here, shall we?
Resolution number one, I'd like to exercise more. I'd like to work out, dance, do some light weight lifting.

I'd like to get in much better shape than I'm presently in right now. Summer is coming, and I want to look and feel fit in some cute summer dresses and shorts.

I blame my lack of exercise these days on a city move that my son and I made several years ago. My consistent exercise of choice has always been walking. Well, we moved from a city that had a 'walk score' of probably about 95, to a city that had a very low walk score. On top of that, buses/bus stops were scarce, so the over-all atmosphere wasn't really all that walker friendly, not in my opinion anyway.

I don't really like walking where there is not an abundance of bus stops along the way, because to me, those bus stops represent a friendly safety net. Even if I don't want to catch a bus, I like knowing that one is there should I chose to catch it.

I guess I could liken it to a trapeze artist performing at a circus, the difference between performing with a safety net beneath you, and performing without one.

Seems to me like the safety net being there would help a person relax and perform and not even need the safety net, whereas, if one is not present, it takes all the fun out of things. One wrong move, and the fun is over. However, with the net there, one wrong move, no big deal, you fall into the net, get back up, and start over. Easy.
Even if you never need it, the net just being there changes the mindset... I mean, I'm guessing the net being there would change the mindset for most people.

Anyway, same thing with the bus system. My son and I would walk for miles and miles, and pass by hundreds of bus stops, but we rarely ever stopped at a bus stop and got on a bus. But it was just nice to know that if we decided, for whatever reason, that we wanted to hop on a bus and stop walking, we could.

In our 'old city', there was a bus stop practically on every corner, and the buses ran every 10 to 15 minutes. As soon as one bus left, another one was soon on the way.
In the city we moved to, buses ran about once every 30 minutes to an hour. For me, that made walking a challenge, just knowing that if I wanted to, I could not catch a bus on every other block. And might have to wait 30, 45 minutes for a bus? No, thank you. That changed my mindset about walking around a neighborhood.

The change of mindset, of course, changed our whole walking routine up completely. I went from walking a couple of hours a day, 5 days a week, to walking about 5 or 10 minutes a day because I was driving every where.

Don't get me wrong, I wanted to move, and loved 'the move', even though it changed up our lifestyle a bit, as far as the walking is concerned. As with most things, there's a give and take. When we moved from the high walk-score city, we moved into a much nicer neighborhood, into a place that was at least twice as big. Also, we moved from an apartment to a house.

But one thing is for sure, if you stop one form of exercise, it's a good thing to replace it with something else.
So, that's one of my resolutions, to exercise!

 

January 11, 2017
Wednesday

Another New Year resolution:
Something I discovered the other day; I definitely need to "dust" more around my house.
I love all aspects of homemaking and housekeeping, but sometimes I get really lax about the 'dusting' part.
Gotta make more dusting happen in twenty-seventeen!

 

You teach that pesky dust who's boss!

Most of my new Year resolutions consist on carrying over the goals from last year, so I don't really try to seriously define them. I can see Jan is a good time to reevaluate them but I don't feel it like a huge deal about what I am going to do.

I enjoy walking but I don't walk nearly enough since I moved to my last location. A lot of that is that the suburb doesn't have a safe reputation. Even being given a ride home from work I once had a dodgy guy getting closer to us to lend him our mobile. The townhouse crossing the street and the police station just at the end of street. When I told him that I'd do it after my housemate came out to meet me, he disagreed quite fast that it just didn't sit well to me. I always hear about stuff happening in the train station next to where we live so I pretty much keep to myself. I don't have a driving license so I move mostly by bus and I find it as a safe spot mostly for the other people waiting for their bus. Fortunately, here the bus stops are often and the buses also tend to pass quite often.

In exercise more than exercising more I am trying to tackle the issue child-like so I can shake off the idea that it is a chore. I want to find activities I enjoy doing. Bicycle, swimming, playing with a ball... whatever I can do and lose track of time.

 

Lol, when you say it that way, about me teaching the dust who's boss, that makes me look at cleaning up in whole new light.
I really DO have to show the dust who is boss, lol. Never thought about it that way before.
Right now, the dust is telling me that IT is the boss... and has been the boss for quite some time.
Housework, you gotta love it.

It's too bad that your suburb doesn't have a safe reputation, that sucks when you want to go out for a walk.

Some guy wanted to use your cell phone? That seems kind of odd. Who doesn't have a cell phone in 2017?
Maybe he left it at home and needed to borrow yours? I don't know, I agree with you, that sounds strange and doesn't sit well with me either.

It's good to keep to yourself, but may I ask kind of a personal question?? Why don't you have a driver's license? If your reason is really personal you can just tell me that it's none of my business .
(I'll still want to know though, lol.)

I think it is a great idea to approach exercising in a child-like way, I might try that myself.
I used to work in a daycare center, and those kids would wear me out everyday, playing with dolls and Lego's and building blocks.

 

About the mobile incident: He was on a bicycle and his excuse was that he and a friend (which I couldn't see) were going to be picked up by friend, but the friend was taking longer than expected so he was really worried. Like I said, the police station was at the end of the block. Asking him to wait for my partner a few more minutes in exchange for me making the call he wanted sounds pretty reasonable if your motivation is to know what's going on, so his hurried loud "no" just rang the bells for me. He tried then to see if he could talk with my friend who was still in the car trying to figure out if I knew the bloke talking to me. I closed my door before he could peek inside, knocked on the side of her car and crossed the street while saying to forget it.

My driver license is purely circumstantial. I moved countries before I got a proper license and where I live only this year I'll have someone that meets the requirements to be legally allowed to give driving lessons. I also kind of chickened out when I just moved as I learned to drive on the right side and where I moved is the other way around. I didn't have any chance to learn but I wasn't particularly keen at the time, haha.

Kids sure give you a run for your money. Get it?
Seriously though, sounds both fun and exhausting. I can barely take care of one or two cousins at the time and I end exhausted.

 

More resolutions! 2018 this time. Let's see if I have better luck with these than I did with the goals that I set for myself in 2017, shall we? To be fair they weren't really goals so much as they were "prelims" to goals. That's my story and ...

I'm going to keep things simple this year.
1. Read more.
2. Drink more water.
3. Work smarter.
4. Exercise.
5. Take better care of myself and my family.
6. Sing.
7. Journal.

 

I didn't even made resolutions this year. Carrying on.
1. Exercising at least a bit every morning, especally on my days off.
2. Indulge in creative outlests more
3. Learn to do a little very day instead of tring to binge do everything on my days off.

Not sure if this counts but since you mentioned journal. I am trying to keep an online one, the idea is to write daily but I am very bad at it, still, I am doing this to join another community's activity and as a way to work with my second and third goals.

 

I like your resolutions list. Same as you though, I really didn't make any resolutions this year, but I need to. Daily goals are good for the spirit.
I really like your number three, do a little every day.

I really like that, it's something that I definitely need to do as well. What goes hand in hand with that for me is I need to focus. Focus on what I need to do to help myself and my family, and let all the other stuff fall by the wayside. If I focus on my business, then things that I need to do wouldn't pile up, then I wouldn't feel the need to binge do everything.

And journaling. Ugh! One of my favorite things in the entire world. I adore it so much.

Even if you're bad at it as you say, just write even one word a day, just to be consistent. Something like, hello, or a few words like, "just checking in."

I'm older than you (according to your profile page... I won't tell you how old I am because I read somewhere that a woman who will tell you her age will tell you anything! I'm proud of my age though, let me say that. Especially with how rough things can get for a sista out here in these streets these days, but I digress...)

Journaling! By the time I was your age, in my mid-30's, I had enough journals to open up a small library.

One lesson I had to learn though, anything personal, I only use the first letter.

I lost a bunch of my journals when I had some storage sold, and I was mortified, because I used to write down all my personal details.

I'm sure Ken Brace wants us to keep it PG13 here... but since you're a grown man you can let your mind wander as to where I might have taken it in some of my very personal journal entries , only for them to be sold at auction to the highest bidder.

Again, needing to keep it PG13... My journal entries used to say, "... and then he put his ... in my ... and he did that for about an hour ... And then I put my ... and then we..."

Ahem. Yeah.

So, now a days my entries are first letter only of certain things ie, "athphtimvspahdtfaahatIpmantw aifRg! AIstysomfDt!!"

 

In keeping with one of my resolutions, I'm currently reading a book. It has 37o pages, and I'm on page 12. Good a place as any to keep track.
So...
Current book: 12/370.

 

Yup. Pretty much my case. I want to regain my motivation to make it easier to stay focused. Doing a bit every morning rather than hurrying and going to bed late. I need to take better care of my body. Hahaha.

I have no clue what I'd do if something like that happened to me! I have been journaling since Middle school. It helped me figuring out myself back in those hormonal days. I used to be pretty naive back then so I pretty much would lay everything out the way I was feeling it. Hahaha. I didn't even made an effort to hide it until my father told me how disappointed he felt on me because of an entry he read. I am definitely taking the advice of just keeping the first letter. I am still stupidly open when writing a journal, it is just too easy but I do try to refrain from *ahem* jumping the PG13.

When I moved out, I took my journals with me. Not nearly as many as you, but probably more than most of my mates ever wrote. Not that we ever shared the fact we had journals. I have no clue if they indulged in such things. I definitely will make entries even if I post "I have no clue what to say here". Might as well use honesty in my favour. Knowing me it will turn into a rant anyway.

Hurray! Hopefully it will be a pretty enjoyable one.

 

Your dad read your journal???

Oh my gosh, I think I would have had a fit if my parents ever read my journals. They might have when I was younger, I don't know. Maybe that's why my mother was always so strict with me .

You're so right, it's easy to pour your heart out into a journal. It takes some time to be able to just write the first letter only as opposed to writing out all the words, and get used to writing like that, but I've been doing it for years now, so it's easy to me and I don't have to be concerned about anyone reading what I've written.

As far as my book goes, I have not even read any more of it since my initial post about it, I'm still on page 12! That was three weeks ago, I need to get back into reading that book.