New Year's Plans

"New Year's Resolutions" conjures images of solemn vows made to do this or that BETTER, or quit doing this or that at ALL, only to be abandoned by January 31.

I've decided to make no resolutions, but to make Plans. Plans are fun. Plans are positive. Plans are not bound to Unbreakable Resolutions, but are flexible and work with reality.

My plans:

Yoga starts Monday night.

Thursday nights, my neighbor has started a prayer group - I'm invited, though I think I may be kinda like Whoopi Goldberg in the convent. It's largely the same group from the art thing I attended at her studio months ago, plus more people from the neighborhood. We'll see how that goes, it could be very interesting.

My philosophy for 2005 is to turn down no invitation that has any appeal at all - because networking always leads to more friendships/relationships.

The plan is to get out of the house at least 2 nights a week, to help the dog adjust to the idea that Mommy has a life and friends with fewer than four legs. Also to help Mommy adjust to the same idea. That is probably the single hardest change to adapt to in my new life - I am so imprinted with decades as a working mom raising kids and then a conscripted caregiver, the idea that I can do whatever the hell I want in the evenings is totally alien to me. I say that I have no energy, but I think it's more like I'm just out of practice.

On that note, I'm going to send out an APB on Knitter's Review for knitters on the Northwest side of Orlanduh. I'd love to start a stitch n' bitch on this side of town on a weeknight. The NOT SO LYS has a standing thing on Thursday evenings, but since I'm on a yarn fast and therefore not a customer, and I'd feel tacky showing up to drink her tea and take up a space at the table and buy nothing for the next how many months, and it takes me a good freaking 45 minutes to an hour to get there in rush hour traffic anyway, I'm not inclined to check it out. I will scout out locations that are more traffic-friendly, if anyone is interested. If you happen to be lurking and are somewhere in the Longwood/Altamonte/Maitland/Apopka area and are interested, speak up. If you're anywhere else in town and are more traffic-tolerant than I, also speak up.

And no, I'm not only interested in meeting other women - but you meet people through other people, and the larger the web of friends, the better. Network, network! It's the key to career advancement, finding a roofer or a reliable car repair shop, a good hairstylist, or hey, maybe a man worth dating? It could happen.

I'm buying clothes. I'm watching my diet. I'm exercising. I'm seeing results from that collagen-enhanced lip stuff already. At some point, being girly and picky about my wardrobe stopped being something I had to do for my own good and started being something I really enjoy.

Same with other things - the yoga class isn't something I wanted because it would be good for me, but because it sounded like fun.

I talked to my friend L the other day - her father died shortly before Christmas. It was a long, slow, painful end and she took it very hard - she lost her mother years ago. She asked how I've been able to do what I do. Hell if I know, really. I had to think about it a bit - I said I was just going through the motions of normal life, because it was what I knew I had to do, with the hope that at some point the motions would start feeling real. You know, the funny thing is, it worked? At least it did for me. I look back at this year and I can certainly see things I could have improved on, like, say, sticking to my diet and losing the final 15, or sticking to an exercise program instead of doing it in fits and starts, or whatever, but overall, it was a damn good year.

My kitchen still thrills me. I am so proud of that kitchen - it's the first time I've ever spent that kind of money or made that high-stakes level of design decisions entirely solo. My husband had excellent taste and we always agreed on stuff, but there was always that thing of "We both have to be happy with it" so compromises were made, and though I was always pleased with the results, it wasn't entirely mine, you know? This time it was all me, I picked the wood, the cabinet style and maker, the countertop, the lighting, right down to fishing all the hardware from the bins at Lowe's and just knowing it'd work, and damn it ALL works and everybody who sees it raves. (Yeah, with another 2,000 I'd have gone for stainless steel appliances, but it's quite hot the way it is.)

It was a good year for me, even with getting smacked with three hurricanes and needing to buy a roof before the next predicted round - apparently we are on a new hurricane cycle, or something, and the path that the last storms took may be more common in the next, uh, couple of decades. Oh, joy. Must reinforce the sagging fence, replace the roof, and buy some serious camping lanterns and a bigass cooler before we do THAT again. Maybe even a generator. But we all came through okay, and even the friends who had real damage are dealing with it just fine.

Even with adjusting to a new life in the Cube Farm, in the Underpaid and Over-Audited Dilbert World of my current employer. Yes, I still miss my window office and real furniture and secretary and a door, oh, my God, how I miss that Blessed DOOR! But the Boss and I laugh and bitch and plot and rant at each other at will all day, and when it gets too loud I can walk into his not-much-bigger-than-a-cube windowless cell and say, "I can't fucking think, I have to read this in here," whenever I must. Working with him again has saved my sanity more than a thousand therapists. And the cases are fun, and the clients are nice, and it beats the shit outta flyspecking closing docs for a land transaction.

Even with the frickin' political idiocy that has enveloped our nation. We can put one foot in front of the other, and know this crap too shall pass.

Putting one foot in front of the other for the past year has paid off. At some point, when I wasn't looking, I stopped feeling like I'm adjusting to a new life and started feeling like I'm living one. And this is good.
Blogging has been an amazing blessing - and I'm still shocked that anybody reads my ranting.

Happy New Year, My Few and Faithful Readers!

Edited to change "more than four legs" to "fewer than." I don't actually hang with spiders. I guess I was originally trying to say "other than four legs..." but it didn't actually leave my fingers that way.

I will not be awake at midnight. I did make two nice bracelets this evening, as NYE souvenirs. Photos eventually. Right now Murphy is crying because he wants to go see the neighbors' fireworks. Nobody told him he should be afraid of them.