Showing posts with label New Years resolutions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Years resolutions. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 05, 2022

New Years reflections

I'll start this first blog of 2022 with a wish for a speedy, complication-free recovery to my fellow bloggers, their families, and everyone else who's been affected by Covid, which as you know, unless you've been completely unplugged, is absolutely rampaging across the globe. These are unnerving times and not what we'd hoped for as we enter the third year of this plague.

Welcome to 2022 indeed. Bah.

The next point I want to make is about the meaning of New Years and all this talk about accompanying resolutions. As Douglas said, New Years is supposed to be about new beginnings and endless possibilities. But it has never felt like the right time of year to celebrate new beginnings. New life. New hope. For us Canadians, and for much of the far northern world, January 1st means staring down the two darkest, coldest, and bleakest months of the year before the warmth and light of March. I love winter. I love getting out to play in the snow. Ottawa where I live has plenty of exciting activities. Tobogganing with your kids, cross-country and downhill skiing, skating on the canal, snowshoeing or hiking the crisp, white trails through forests of maple and pine. I have done all of them, and still enjoy cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and hiking.

Snowshoeing up a mountain

But there are often about three good hours in the day during which to enjoy them. This morning it is -17 C outside, which will warm up to -11 by two o'clock. The sun sets at 4:30. The day, indeed the week, is planned around weather forecasts, which fluctuate wildly. Most times, it takes about fifteen minutes to get dressed up to take the dogs for a walk, let alone go skiing. It's hard work. So much of my day is spent inside, even before the long, dark evenings. During the pandemic, with its isolation and restrictions, even cinema, theatre, shopping, and dining out have often been off limits. January 1st as the promise of new beginning? It doesn't feel like a time to be starting afresh with new resolutions and new determination.

February view from my TV room

The Jewish New Year falls in September. Although that might herald new beginnings in the southern hemisphere, it is the start of the end in the north. Crops ripen, daylight wanes, temperatures begin to drop. It's a beautiful time of year, but it's the culmination of what has been, not a celebration of what's to come.

To me, the perfect time to mark the new year is spring. Maybe the spring equinox. That is truly the time when spirits feel renewed and hope rises. In my case I watch the snow melt at the fringes of the garden and the first spring crocuses poke up. Days become longer than nights, and neighbours come out from behind their snowbanks to greet each other. Smiles everywhere. My thoughts begin to turn to the cottage. 

My morning coffee place

This year it feels especially sensible to put off hopeful thoughts of 2022 for a couple of months. The virus has us by the throat again, exhausting essential workers, stressing business owners, and once again confining to quarters many of us, especially seniors like me. All my hopes of seeing friends and family are on hold with the words "let's see how the case count is in a month". So I limp along with social chats and books events with Zoom and What's App. I read, I write, I watch TV, and try to keep the dogs and myself exercised and entertained. It's a time for small pleasures. 

The time to think big will come.

Tuesday, January 04, 2022

Looking forward with hope

By Rick Blechta

Some folks are energized by a fresh new year. Some find themselves fighting off depression.

I belong in the former camp, and much like Mssr. Skelton, I always make resolutions for the new year. Sometime I even keep them!

This year, it’s tougher. My family’s recent brush with covid and the ongoing issues — Ontario where I live is going into a limited lockdown again tomorrow (this should have been done before Christmas, but our government decided not to heed the warnings, sigh) — it’s harder to see a clear path ahead.

I’ve found the trick with resolutions is to not make them too tough. How many times have I made the exercise one into “I’m going to walk 5 miles every day” and then fail by the end of the month?

So considering what we’re currently facing and how the way ahead is more clouded than ever, I’m being particularly modest this year.

Here in no particular order is my list of resolutions for 2022:
  • Go out for a walk 4 times a week (as long as it’s not slippery. I don’t need another fall!)
  • Write at least 1000 words per day — even if I throw them all out the next day
  • Make the bed every day (I’m four for four on that, in fact I even started before the new year!)
  • Weigh less on December 31, 2022 than I did the previous New Year’s Eve
  • Contact at least one old friend per week for no reason other than to hear their voice
  • Keep at least four of the above resolutions.
I know my list sounds uninspiring, but it is carefully-crafted and doable, I believe. If I keep to it, I will leave 2022 behind feeling satisfied with my progress.

Three years ago, one of my resolutions was to practise every day. That one has been a great success. In 2021, for example, I at least warmed up on 349 days, and on five of the empty days, I was sick.

Six years ago, my resolution was to reorganize our kitchen, making sure everything was in a logical place, and then sticking to the reorganization by putting everything back in its place when I was done with it. That too worked really well. Now I don’t even think about it. I just put everything away.

Two big, although modest wins.

That’s what I aim to do this year. Go into 2023 feeling good about myself because I stuck to it.

And in these dark times, isn’t that a big plus?

Thursday, December 28, 2017

My 2018 Wish for You

Wishing you the best for 2018, from my house to yours 

Donis here. Boy, 2017 was something, wasn’t it? I’m not saying what. I don’t use that kind of language (much). But it is almost over now, and we can at least look forward to a new start. Perhaps some comfort, maybe some healing. I hope.

Since my birthday falls between Christmas and New Year, the end of the year is the literal end of another year of life for me. At the beginning of this year I find myself toggling between anticipation and a certain amount of dread. My husband will be having another operation on January 9. This will be his ninth operation in nine years. It should be a relatively minor operation, as these things go, but Don has had so many health problems over the last decade that minor procedures tend to be a little more complicated for him. Still, the surgeon says things should go well, so I keep a good attitude and try not to borrow trouble beforehand. My tenth mystery novel, Forty Dead Men, will launch in February and thus far, the early reviews have been very good. That is something to feel good about. If all goes as planned there are some upcoming trips to which I look forward, so all in all I hold out hope for a pleasant 2018.

I used to make New Year’s resolutions. I vowed to strive for improvement, to become a better person in the upcoming year, to write more. But I gave it up some years ago. Not because I suddenly am without flaw, but because after living through a substantial chunk of my life, it dawned on me that I can resolve to do all kinds of things, but none of my resolutions are going to make any difference in the end. Now, I'm not suggesting that we never make plans or set goals, I'm only saying that we shouldn't be disappointed if things don't go the way we want them to. Because as one Allen Saunders said back in the 1950s, "Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans."

You just don't know. Have you ever been walking along on a winter's day and slipped on the ice? You find yourself on you back gazing up at the sky thinking, "What just happened?" Thirteen years ago, I called my mother in Tulsa to wish her a happy New Year and had a nice long conversation that ended with "I love you and will talk to you tomorrow." The next morning my sister-in-law called to tell me between sobs that she had gone to my mother's house and found that she'd passed away in her sleep. The longer you live the more of those moments you get to have.

The future is out of my hands. I'll go ahead and make my plans, but the only thing I can actually control is this very moment. Yet that is something quite powerful. Hemingway knew it, too. "Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be," he said. "But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today."

So here is my Ultimate New Year's Resolution, the only resolution I have made for the last several years and the only one I expect I'll ever make again:

I will try to live this moment well.

And to all you Dear Readers, I wish the same.

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Here's to 2017

Barbara here. I'm late, I'm late! My Wednesday post was due at midnight, and is now twelve hours late. Blame it on the surfeit of wine, turkey, latkes, company, and activities of the past week. When Hanukah and Christmas festivities come at the same time, my usual quiet life is turned upside down. There were six of us staying in my little house that I normally share with just two dogs. There were bodies (live) in every room, bed, sofa and chair, and the din of chatter from morning until bed. At every new sound, my big baby dog barked, prompting the other to add her trademark scream.

There were fourteen people and four dogs crowded into my cozy living room and around my dining room table (well, the dogs were underneath) for latkes and turkey at "Christmakah", and to give you a visual image of under the table, Eva was the smallest of the dogs at 40 pounds. The largest was a Golden the size of a polar bear.

It's been a chaotic week but in our busy day to day lives, it's wonderful to have this time to reconnect with family, to put aside the pressures and demands of our regular work and to spend time taking walks, going to movies and out to dinner, and catching up on the news and adventures of those we love.

My Work-in-Progress sat on the bookshelf in my bedroom completely ignored, although the occasional pang of guilt flitted through me as I bustled past it. It sits there still, but its beckoning call grows a little louder. Maybe tomorrow I will pick it up. I will have forgotten my place in it and my train of thought, but I hope this forced separation will usher in some new insights, a brilliant new plot twist or a fascinating character. All that wine and plum pudding should be good for something, right?

In his post yesterday, Rick did a good job of saying good bye and good riddance to 2016. Not humankind's finest year, and with climate denying billionaires in charge who are interested only in power and profits, with little professed concern for the public good or the health of the planet we all share, 2017 is not looking great. I won't add to the doomsaying, but will merely urge everyone to think of one or two small things they can do - a couple of reasonable, achievable resolutions they can keep - to try to stem the tide if not turn it. Many good deeds cost nothing. Smile at clerks and waiters and strangers in the street. Shovel an elderly neighbour's driveway. Carry a harried mother's grocery bags.

Donate to a charity or two. There are many trying to alleviate the suffering around the world. Even modest donations can add up to a real difference. Many of them allow you to pay a small monthly amount instead of a bigger lump sum.  Check the provenance of the goods and food you buy, and try to avoid companies that exploit workers, use forced labour, or damage the environment.

I could go on, but I need to get this blog up on the site. So I will end with one last resolution that I will try to keep. To remember my Wednesday blog before the actual day is half over, and to be as entertaining and informative as possible. Here's to good intentions!