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Happy New Year!
I used to to a meme at the end of every year, but when I went back to look for it, I found it no longer really applied to my life enough that I'd want to re-use it. So I guess I'm on the lookout for a new one (maybe shorter than the one I was using before, too).
The New Year seems like as good an arbitrary time as any to take stock of one's life and see about making changes. It helps that my birthday falls close to the beginning of January, so it gives me another excuse to revamp my life a bit every year, and see about living in a way that's more in line with my values. 2016 was a year of up and downs (so many downs, what the hell), but it helped cement one thing in my mind: there is work to be done. So, this year, I'm taking a page out of Jillian Holtzmann's book:
On a personal front, I think I'm already on the right track, and just need to keep going in the same direction. I've been overall doing better in terms of taking care of myself, though I still have work to do. I'm going to carry on making efforts at going to bed at a decent and mostly regular hour (work schedule permitting), eating as well as I can without getting punitive about it, and exercising. I've been slacking off on the latter because I dislike exercising indoors, and we've had so much snow that I've found it hard to go running. I need to get back out there, even if I walk and don't run, if nothing else. This year is also the year I plan to write my letter of intent to join the Quakers. I still have no idea how I'm going to do that. Darling Quakers and their "There's no wrong way to do it!" approach to this. It's very stressful. ;) I had planned on doing it last year, but I ended up not being able to go to Meeting for several months because of the classes I was taking, and it felt a little weird to apply for membership and then fall off the face of the planet for a quarter of the year or more. So this year it will be.
I have a long list of personal projects I want to pick up, too, but those are less resolutions and more "Wow, it would be so cool to do X!" kind of things. I think two very concrete resolutions I can make to keep myself balanced is to a) write one LJ entry per day, no matter how short or how boring I may think it is, and b) update my bullet journal every day, to help me keep on top of things. I'm still working on my bullet journal, to streamline it so that it's a mix of useful and happy things without becoming overwhelming (which is what happened in December), but I'm optimistic that it will become the reliable tool that it's meant to be if I work at it a little.
On a more social front, well, I need to get myself into gear. The good folks to the South of here look like they're about to have a fascist regime take over, so if that happens I am determined not to be a bystander, not to let the tank of oppression crush everyone under it without at the very least trying to do something. I've been trying to find LGBTQIA activist groups in Ottawa, but I must not be looking in the right places, because all the websites and information I've found have been defunct or obsolete or at the very least not updated in months. I don't suppose any of my local friends know where I could find an active group? In Montreal I always knew where to go and who to talk to if I wanted to get involved, but I will confess that in Ottawa I am all at sea when it comes to this, even after living here for two years. Basically, I think I've done the bystander thing long enough, time to get myself more actively involved.
In short, I'm trying to find a balance between making changes and continuing on with the changes that are already in progress, all without burning out. In an effort to keep posting here, I may pick one project to talk about per day (with some repeats as I progress--or fail to progress--on said projects).
:::ETA::: Hm. Not sure why that gif isn't working. All my tests indicate it should be. Oh, well. I'll see if I can link to it in the comments.
The New Year seems like as good an arbitrary time as any to take stock of one's life and see about making changes. It helps that my birthday falls close to the beginning of January, so it gives me another excuse to revamp my life a bit every year, and see about living in a way that's more in line with my values. 2016 was a year of up and downs (so many downs, what the hell), but it helped cement one thing in my mind: there is work to be done. So, this year, I'm taking a page out of Jillian Holtzmann's book:
On a personal front, I think I'm already on the right track, and just need to keep going in the same direction. I've been overall doing better in terms of taking care of myself, though I still have work to do. I'm going to carry on making efforts at going to bed at a decent and mostly regular hour (work schedule permitting), eating as well as I can without getting punitive about it, and exercising. I've been slacking off on the latter because I dislike exercising indoors, and we've had so much snow that I've found it hard to go running. I need to get back out there, even if I walk and don't run, if nothing else. This year is also the year I plan to write my letter of intent to join the Quakers. I still have no idea how I'm going to do that. Darling Quakers and their "There's no wrong way to do it!" approach to this. It's very stressful. ;) I had planned on doing it last year, but I ended up not being able to go to Meeting for several months because of the classes I was taking, and it felt a little weird to apply for membership and then fall off the face of the planet for a quarter of the year or more. So this year it will be.
I have a long list of personal projects I want to pick up, too, but those are less resolutions and more "Wow, it would be so cool to do X!" kind of things. I think two very concrete resolutions I can make to keep myself balanced is to a) write one LJ entry per day, no matter how short or how boring I may think it is, and b) update my bullet journal every day, to help me keep on top of things. I'm still working on my bullet journal, to streamline it so that it's a mix of useful and happy things without becoming overwhelming (which is what happened in December), but I'm optimistic that it will become the reliable tool that it's meant to be if I work at it a little.
On a more social front, well, I need to get myself into gear. The good folks to the South of here look like they're about to have a fascist regime take over, so if that happens I am determined not to be a bystander, not to let the tank of oppression crush everyone under it without at the very least trying to do something. I've been trying to find LGBTQIA activist groups in Ottawa, but I must not be looking in the right places, because all the websites and information I've found have been defunct or obsolete or at the very least not updated in months. I don't suppose any of my local friends know where I could find an active group? In Montreal I always knew where to go and who to talk to if I wanted to get involved, but I will confess that in Ottawa I am all at sea when it comes to this, even after living here for two years. Basically, I think I've done the bystander thing long enough, time to get myself more actively involved.
In short, I'm trying to find a balance between making changes and continuing on with the changes that are already in progress, all without burning out. In an effort to keep posting here, I may pick one project to talk about per day (with some repeats as I progress--or fail to progress--on said projects).
:::ETA::: Hm. Not sure why that gif isn't working. All my tests indicate it should be. Oh, well. I'll see if I can link to it in the comments.