So the second half of 2012 went by in a blur as I did two community theater productions and switched day jobs TWICE in that time frame (for a grand total of THREE unique jobs this year! I must be nuts. That is the only explanation for this behavior). My cat also got terribly sick this past month and we had to have her put to sleep a couple days ago, which combined with some interesting news my husband received about a long standing issue explains the Scary Ten of Swords card I got in last year’s tarot reading. I mean, really. Good riddance to another completely whacked year. Usually at the end of the year, I like to kind of go back and review…make note of a couple really great things that came into my life–goals met, problems solved, fun times, etc, but at the moment I’m just really grateful for the little things. Which in reality ARE really big things, aren’t they? A not so great year can really put that in perspective. SO, I’m going to focus on the little but good stuff.
While I completely slacked off on blogging about my Adios in 2012 thread, I actually did keep up the idea of getting rid of things that aren’t serving us for much of the year, but it was more of a challenge than I expected. It became more of a problem-solving adventure than a simple decision to toss things.
Problem #1: I have a lot of clothes. Two wardrobes actually, because sadly, I have a hard time maintaining my weight. It fluctuates about thirty pounds, which is a LOT. I do a decent job of tossing trendy things that go out of style before packing them away, but alas, I will probably always have tubs of basics in storage. Ditto for my husband, because while he is not a yo-yo dieter, he is a bit of a clothes horse. (Where did that saying come from anyway? Clothes horse. It makes no sense.) On the bright side, looking through the closet, I do still see items that I can and should part with. So a little at a time.
Problem #2: My kids have a lot of clothes. Things the kids have outgrown, things the kids have not grown into, and things I do not know WTF is the deal with. I clearly need to fine tune my strategy for dealing with this stuff.
Problem #3: I have a lot of books…we began working on this one. We bought two new bookcases this summer and filled them with books off the floor, off the end tables, off the coffee table. But there are still more books in boxes upstairs. Holy crap. I have a lot of books. I know the library is free, but I take forever these days to finish a novel. And maybe I’ve always had a fantasy of having a secret library, but they are definitely not ALL keepers. Time to find a good used book store, weed, and donate.
Problem #4: I have a hard time tossing things my kids made for me. Wow, it’s crazy, but I have little doo-dads stashed EVERYWHERE in my house. I was just realizing it this week as I attempted to clean off my dresser top. I definitely need to pick some favorites, maybe limit it to a small box for each kid, and stow the rest.
So there it is, my Adios in 2012 project has become a Life Challenge, but watching old episodes of Hoarders should help keep me motivated 😉
Other things that I’m humbly grateful for year:
-I did NOT gain any holiday weight
-I realized that many friendships do run their course, and letting them go is not only okay, it is GOOD for you, AND that doesn’t mean you don’t like each other anymore, it just means you move on
-I fell on my face professionally and managed to get back up. (I left a secure job to try something new and was very surprised to find that I was VERY unhappy with my shiny new job…but luckily sometimes you CAN go back)
-I did take a little bit of a break from writing, which was both a blessing and a curse. The curse is that I have nothing fresh on submission right now, but the blessing is that I feel like my creative well has been refreshed and I’m really eager to get moving on one of the projects I’ve outlined.
So onward to 2013! Last years idea of not setting concrete goals left me feeling kind of aimless to tell you the truth, so I’m going to set a dozen goals this year, some of which are small, all of which are completely reasonable, and none of which I’m doing right now, which might be why 2012 sucked so bad. You’ll notice most of them are writing related, because when I look back on 2012, that is what is most noticeably missing from my life:
1) Draft Secret Project and pitch it
2) Read every day–I have really gotten out of the habit of daily reading and you can’t be a good writer if you don’t read
3) Read one work of fiction a month–most of what I do read lately is non-fiction
4) Get plugged into a writing group
5) Attend a writing conference or retreat
6) Have author photos taken
7) Clean out and organize the bedroom closet
8) Clean out The Dreaded Filing Cabinet
9) Walk daily–I don’t take advantage of my breaks at work–15 minutes is better than no minutes for sure
10) Eat less meat, more veggies–Yeah, I somehow became a carnivore this year…not cool because this was more about giving up being a vegetarian because it was too much effort than liking meat…there must be a better solution to the struggle of living with meat-lovers.
11) Reinstate Family Game Night
12) Go hiking and camping with the family
If I can manage to do most of that, I’ll be feeling swell next December. And as soon as I do my yearly tarot reading, I’ll post a pic of that.
