New Year, New Calendar

One of the great things about a new year is filling out a new calendar. I love adding all the things in- work, faire, activities, etc. 

Another great thing about a new calendar is how it can help you achieve goals you have for the year (see previous post about goals). 

One of my goals, for example, is to dance more. There are several local swing dance groups and one studio that I've visited. In my calendar, I've added events for Dallas Swing Dance Syndicate and Studio 22 so that I don't have to wonder when events are happening. 

This can be done for anything from quitting bad habits to starting new ones. Need to read everyday? Great! Put it down on your calendar. New to eat healthy? Great! Add recipes or shopping trips. 

It's amazing to look ahead and be ready to meet my goals. I know I can't do everything, but knowing I can try and get closer keeps me excited!

New Year, New Goals

Another new year has begun. A new time to go, do, try, change, and more.

We all make goals or resolutions through the year- "I'll start that new diet plan on Monday," "I'll join that new gym at the beginning of the month," etc. But, somehow, we seem to all do it together- or not in some cases- when the new year starts.

Why?

Maybe it's a tabula rosa- a clean slate. It's not just another Monday or start of a new month. It's a start of a whole new thing. It's full of hope and wonder. The old year is a cocoon that we've thrown off and shed in favour of something new and exciting. There are so many possibilities. There are 565,00 minutes of new, amazing, and wonderful.

What are your goals for the year? I prefer to say goals because resolutions are just so- resolute. I end up wanting to quote Nicolas Cage movies or something. Goals have an end. Goals have steps and ways to get from point A to point B and all the way to point Z and further. Just saying something like "I'm going to quit smoking" or "I'm going to lose weight" don't have as much clout as saying "I'm going to cut down to x number of cigarettes or packs a day by the end of January" or "I'm going to lose 5 pounds by Valentine's Day and going to join Weight Watchers."

Some of my goals include:
More crafting
Learn more crochet techniques
Learn more knitting techniques
Dance more
Find a new place to live by July
Find a new job that includes less late nights and weekends
Find a new job that allows me to live on my own
Declutter (Gilmore Girls fans can laugh about Marie Kondo with me right here)
Read 30 books (I'm going the Goodreads Challenge)
Go on at least 1 date
Finish at least 12 seasons of ER
Finish at least 12 seasons of CSI
Finish Classic Who
Get caught up on podcasts
Give Gilmore Guys another try

So, that's about it that I have for right now. I'll probably add more, though this will keep me pretty busy. I know watching TV is a little crazy, but I'm kind of a TV person and want to catch up on a few shows that have long since ended. Watching roughly a season a month is about an episode a day or watching several at one time.

Butterfly Effect

Time has moved weird this year and I don't know why. 

It hasn't changed. It hasn't moved faster or slower. It's held the same 525,600 minutes most years hold. 

Yet, somehow, this year has felt different. 

It's gone fast, yet slow. It doesn't seem like both Black Panther and the Winter Olympics happened back in February. They seem like events of years past and not 2018. 

Has it been drama of local and national levels? Has it been the confusion of media of all sorts? Has it been all of us just trying to hold on in a world spiraling towards a dystopian novel we really don't want to live in?

I don't have the answers. 

But, I have song lyrics. It feels like the 'winds of change' from the song "Gorky Park." I feel something changing, blowing in the wind. I can feel it coming in the air tonight. 

Alright, I know, cheesy. But it's true. I've started humming old song from the 90's again and feeling like I did back then. Maybe I'm going towards what I want to be; what I've always supposed to become. Maybe you are too. 

We're all caterpillars. 

We've been in our cocoons. 

We're about to emerge. 

In 2019, we become butterflies fluttering by, effecting everything. 

In 2019, we strive, we fight, we become. 

Happy 2018!

Here we are at the start of another new year. New resolutions. New beginnings. Same old us.

My goals for this year are simple:
downsize

And that's kind of it. My plan on downsizing is to not just do the regular bits of getting rid of stuff. But, I also want to do other things.

For starters, go through my books. I have tons of them. I was an English Literature major back in undergrad so I know books. My goal with them is to read and/or get rid of the ones I don't want. I'd love to get to just the books I want to keep. I'm hoping to get very little this year. Most likely, I'd get books in various series that I'm reading.

Next is crafts. I have tons of yarn and crafty materials plus loads of books. For this, I plan to create from what I have and spend as little as possible. Obviously, I may need to get things off and on throughout the  year and that's fine. I'm also giving away yarn to various people for projects they have. Usually, this is single skeins that cam from somewhere and I probably wouldn't be able to find anymore. So off they go to be used by someone who isn't me. See more over at my Lonestar Girl Craft blog.

Then there's everything else. Clothes mostly and small stuff. I plan to go through and get rid of things that don't fit or I don't want.

I'm trying to make small steps. My deadline is when the current lease is up. Does that mean I'm moving? No. Just a good deadline between life, faire, and everything else. Plus, it's a full nine months and at my birthday. So just general good goals.

I'm sure I'll figure out more. But I'll do that later.

A Little Night Musing

Tonight, I'm on youtube and listening to music from the 90's to the early 2000's- basically, my growing up music from high school and early college. It's this whole playlist of over 200 songs and I know most of them. Plus a few more playlists and single song searches that yielded more songs and playlists since searches yield more songs.

It's amazing some of the memories but mostly the feelings. Just the way the songs make me feel even now. A little lonely, a little sad, a little I don't know what I want or where I'm going but I'm on my way. It's the feeling of so much in front of you and aching to get out.

And it's the way it makes me feel now. Like wanting to dance when I hear "Mr. Jones." Or be a little sad with "Round Here." Live's Throwing Copper album wants me to just up and leave in the middle of the night and go- anywhere but here. "Breakfast at Tiffany's" will just always make me feel happy and I have to roll down the windows of the car, turn it up, and just belt it out. The magic of "Return to Innocence" and that one dance in 8th grade where we ended up singing "Basket Case" out in the parking lot because of a bomb threat and being cold. This was 1995, so Dookie had just come out and I'd only started school in that district that year. A few years later, I graduated high school at the other end of the road from where we were. Our class song? "(Good Riddance) Time of Your Life"- also by Green Day.

Then there's the memories of buses. A lot of songs that remind me of buses- band, drum corps, driving on trips, getting stuck in New Mexico, driving somewhere in the middle of the night and I've no idea where I am or when I'll get there.

Sometimes things don't change; but sometimes they do. We grow up and move on. But the music's still there. Those old feelings come and go and the music's there to remind us.

Maybe I'm making no sense as it's 12:19 am as I'm writing this and ten hours ago I was leaving Waco. Maybe it's because on the way back, I went to a town I lived on over 25 years ago- which is crazy- and it was the first move I ever had and still I remembered how to get to the house where we lived- the back way. Maybe I'm just having wishful thinking and wished for different things. Maybe I'm just having a night where I feel a little lost and I'm trying to reclaim who I wanted to be when I was 10 or 15 or whatever age so long ago.

Maybe I just don't know. Until I do, I figure I'll just keep listening.

You're never alone cause you can put on the phones
And let the drummer tell your heart what to do
Keep on believing 
And you'll discover baby

There's always something magic
There's always something new
And when you really, really need it the most
That's when rock and roll dreams come through

For you

~Meat Loaf, "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through"

It's a little ironic (maybe, I have no sense of irony and I don't get people saying "I'm ironic;" like are you ironic all the time? What? I don't get it so please explain. But, I digress) that I've been thinking about what I really what to do with my life and what and where and now, here I am, faced with all the options of doing just what I want.

It's also more than just a little scary. I worry about finances. I worry about paying my phone bill and paying the new phone off. I worry about having enough for possible classes so I can be a better massage therapists.

I don't, however, worry about yarn. I hit up a few sales and have more than enough for a few blankets or loads of smaller things- bags, scarves, dish cloths, etc. It's not as organized as I'd like, but I know that will happen and it's already getting better.

I do wonder how many blankets and bags and scarves and non-wintry things I could make and sell though. I wonder often if I could really make a living do that. Or at least enough to cover at least a few basics like the phone and my upkeep in Dr Pepper.

Oh well. I have an interview tomorrow which is rather exciting. It's at a chiropractor.

Another Suitcase in Another Hall

Yesterday I lost my job. Yes, there are reasons, but they're neither here nor there; just know it happened. I'm moving on. I don't know how this will effect future things; I'll just have to see.

I should get one more paycheck on Tuesday. I'll pay a bill or two and get my oil changed. I'll probably buy some Dr Pepper cause- Dr Pepper.

I have options. I've thought about various different things before yesterday and lots more since. as well as being given options from other. I just need a couple of days to sort through emotions. Then, I'll sit down and start going through all the other things- applications, excel spreadsheets, all the choices and option, etc. and figure out what to do next. Over the past few months, I've been given to what/if/then thoughts. If I had the time/availability/money/whatever, could/would I be able to do certain things? Guess I do now.

But tonight, I'm going to chill. Later, I'll turn off the lights and stare at the glow in the dark stuff on the ceiling and listen to the 1976 Broadway Evita- the one with Mandy Patikin as Che. That musical always gets me through times like these.

Call in three months time and I'll be fine, I know
Well maybe not that fine, but I'll survive anyhow
I won't recall the names and places of each sad occasion
But that's no consolation here and now.

So what happens now?
Another suitcase in another hall
So what happens now?
Take your picture off another wall
So what happens now?
You'll get by you always have before
Where am I going to?....
Don't ask any more.