The Fresh Start of a New Year

Whoa. January 7 already? A whole week of this brand spanking new year gone? Man - this time flying stuff is catching me off guard.

Not that the year hasn't started off in an interesting way nor that there aren't some major events up ahead. Some of them any day now. woo woo lucky TheQueen!

It's just that I don't feel the familiar verve to put word to paper - even virtual paper. I do feel a sort of nagging guilt to do so - because:
a. I like to blog
b. I have always talked to much anyway
c. I have a secret yen to be a writer - as in, ya' know, a real writer.

But even a real writer has to have something to say. And, perhaps, right now I am all about the experiencing, not the saying.

In an effort to stimulate my writer-self, I looked back over some previous January 1 posts here and in the original LikeTheQueen blog. At first it was hard because the past few Januaries have been full of missing Mama and while it was fun to see old photos of her - OUCH - there was also that pinch. Lawsie I miss that woman. The "missing" is sliding into the good pain zone - where the missing of Pop and Grandma lives - but it's still a little raw.

The older posts are all about knitting and not buying so much durn yarn and trying to lose weight and declutter and oh - be more cool. And all sorts of cryptic things about werk because - well - one does NOT blog about one's job. At least, not about the trials of it -even if it's the looming monster waiting to devour; the banshee outside your bedroom door (there is a story to that, btw).  I can promise there will be more cryptic posts in the future because - still werkin' ya' know.

So - nothing in the past prompted my creativity. And my present is all about the snow. As in - it's snowing today and we're promised 7 inches. That makes today just right for this




and this:

I could post about my New Year's Resolutions, but I think I'll let Calvin say it for me:

Perfect as I am, though - I think I shall make this commitment: I shall blog at least twice a month. And to help me find something to say I have bought a pretty little journal of writing prompts. I'm supposed to write in that but I know I won't. I already have enough pretty journals to hand write about the Life-0-TheQueen. These are "make your life better" journals and it doesn't matter if I mix up all the letters that are circles with tails in these. One is for cooking. One is for more personal stuff.

But to practice wrapping my thoughts up in beautiful words I'll be blogging about oh - you know - My Favorite Piece of Art and Why. (of course who could have a real favorite piece of art - do you love that hunky David more than the Boating Party? Yeah. I'd have a hard time picking too.

 

Still and all - I'm gonna give it a try. After 3 months I'll revisit this idea and decide if I want to continue. So. Stay tuned. (I used to think they were saying state tuned when the TV announcer said that - like whatever I was watching was specific to Virginia.) And stay warm. 

Poor New Year's Resolution - It Gets Such A Bad Rap

And do you know what a RAP is? It stands for Record of Arrests and Prosecutions so it's already a bad thing to get. So a bad rap could be a good thing - when viewed as a double negative. Or perhaps a bad rap is a false record of arrests and prosecutions and should really be called a bum rap, which is slang from prohibition times - and in gangster movies staring Edward G Robinson.

Sic semper ENFP

I was really prompted to write about resolutions - because the media is chockablock full of chatter about them - why they are bad, why they don't work, how to make ones that do - yada yada yada. Me? I love 'em.

btw - chockablock didn't originally mean full - it just meant things were pulled so tight they couldn't move any more - while full to the brim-edness was expressed by the Middle English chokkefull  which I have always mispronounced as chock-full, as in the coffee Chock full o'Nuts - which I used to swear by but which now doesn't seem to taste the same.

Look! A bird!

LEFT BRAIN:  (snickering) I'm the one messin' with her. Just feelin' silly

RIGHT BRAIN: (whispering) and I'm the one coming up with all the definitions

Is that brain chatter I hear?

LEFT BRAIN:& RIGHT BRAIN: (more giggles)

Okay - sorry - to get back to resolutions. I love resolutions. I loved them the first time I heard about them - somewhere around age 9. My dad told me about them. He said you wrote down a list of things you wanted to do, or do better, in the coming year. You did this on New Year's Day. It was probably the first time it ever occurred to me that I had a say in what things I could do better. That growth and progress and improvement and achievement belonged to ME. Up to that point I just did what I was told because the consequences of not obeying parents was pretty dramatic.  Not only had I personally experienced those consequences, but as a good little Virgo daughter, a second daughter, following in the footsteps of a roaring, fighting, angry lion of a Leo big sister, I had witnessed even more dire consequences, second hand. Being a good girl, following the rules - hey - not just second nature to this September baby but proof that life, at least the life of a child, was all about the obedience.

Suddenly the chief executioner was telling me about personal choice? Man - this was treasure! This was a glimpse into the Aladin's Cave of Adulthood.

"You decide what you want to improve"

I decide? Me? Not parents, teachers, policemen, presidents? ME? How cool is that?

Which just goes to show you that no matter how carefully you try to explain and demonstrate and map things out for your kids, they're always going to pluck from your wisdom, the thing they are looking for. You might get lucky. They might get the gist of your message. But they might not. You'll never know - till they're 40 and are reminiscing over a drink on the back porch. Like when you find out your kid broke his nose when he was 14, jumping off a highway bridge. Ask me about that, sometime.

For that matter - don't we always find the thing we are looking for? The thing that bolsters our beliefs? You know this is true.

Anyway - from that day on I would write down lists of Things That Could Be Better! At the peak of my resolution writing history I probably wrote down 40 New Year's Resolutions a year. Now I tend to just examine parts of my life and see what New Things I'd like to try. What sorts of experiments might be fun.

And therein lies the difference between me and all the authors of WhyYourNewYearsResolutionsFail articles. They have made the mistake of seeing the resolution as a punitive thing intended to eradicate your bad behavior - or at best, as a goal - which always means there is the threat of failure, which, because you're such a looser anyway you'll probably succumb to, so why write a resolution anyway? Besides, statistics show that you won't lose weight. You'll get heavier because hey - you probably live in America and drive past 14 hamburger joints before you get home from werk.

Me? I see the New Years Resolution (s) as all the cool stuff up ahead. All the things I might want to try. Every experiment that might bring about interesting change. Everything that looks like fun.

I love me some resolutions. I feel sorry for people who feel burdened by them. I wish they'd just embrace the Power of Choice and go out and .... have some fun.

LEFT BRAIN:& RIGHT BRAIN:  we think so too!

Don't Let Guilt Eat Those Cookies .....

Eat them yourself!

At least, if you ARE going to eat them, tell guilt to beat it, sit down, look at the beautiful cookie, cake, bowl of ice cream, piece of candy - sniff it, admire it, take a little nibble and let it tickle your tongue, let its flavor fill your mouth. Take a real bite. Chew it slowly. Notice the first flavor, the main flavor and the aftertaste. Swallow the whole bite. Think about how good it is. Think about how lucky you are to be rich enough to have this treat. Imagine a time before there even was sugar. Imagine a time when salt was so expensive that a whole bevy of folk lore grew up around it. Say thanks for the treat. Say thanks for your personal wealth. Say thanks for the wealth of our society. And then ... take your second bite.

Because if you can't do that with your treat - is it even a treat?

I'm thinking of all the treats and goodies and sweets and cheeses that I consumed over Christmas - the ones that added 4 extra pounds to my not-too-delicate frame. And I can't remember the pleasure of any of them except Christmas Dinner - when I really DID eat like that.  And Christmas Dinner was a real treat!

ALL the other treats were consumed rapidly, with Guilt at my side, whispering the lie that "If you eat it fast enough the calories wouldn't have time to linger on your belly." or "Hurry, hurry. If nobody sees you eat this, did you really eat it?"  So instead of admitting that that Ferrero Rocher was the chocolaty delight it was and honoring it with true eating respect, I popped it into my mouth, bit down once, chewed rapidly and poof! It was gone. All the pleasure was gone but Guilt hung around like a school bully, smirking at me, double dog daring me, TRIPPLE dog daring me to do it again. And I did.

And you know ... that sucks. And now that it's January and I'm trying to resist all kinds of Other Treats because - hey. I'm rich. (and you don't have to be much richer than to have $1.98 in your pocket) The stores are full. (and the Valentine's Day candy is already out on the shelves)  - I keep trying to remember any of those bites, licks and tastes and I am so mad that I can't. Except the Roast Beef Dinner - which I can remember with that slightly swoony feeling. I don't need another Roast Beef Dinner - with Yorkshire Pudding - any time soon, because I can still go back and remember how good the one I had 2 weeks ago was.  

Huh. Well. That does it. I vow - as one of my 2016 New Year's Resolutions – From now on I will eat all the  treats I want just so long as I'm willing to give them the attention they deserve. From this day forward, I intend to get 100% of the pleasure out of any treat I eat and Guilt will get none. I will never again let Guilt get all the pleasure while I have all the shame. By golly, if I'm going to pack on 4 pounds it's going to have been so worth it.

My Mesopotamian New Year

The earliest recording of a new year celebration is believed to have been in Mesopotamia, c. 2000 B.C. and was celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox, in mid-March.

Read more: A History of the New Year 

I believe I want to channel my inner Mesopotamian and start celebrating New Year in mid-March. I will still clean out the detritus of Christmas and probably even buy me that new journal that always seems to hold such promise, but as for the New Year's Resolutions and the Goal Setting - well - this is the second year I haven't been able to get around to it no matter how many snow days I ended up with. Since I'm all about living a HAPPY life first - and since the pressure of setting goals and sticking to them is not giving me the Martha Beck Rat Park feeling - I hereby give myself permission to select March 21st as my New Year Goal Setting Resolution Get Your Act Together time.

Until that no longer feels like fun either.

Besides, I reached my goal weight about mid-March 2 years ago and the idea of being at goal each March does feel like a visit Rat Park.  (btw, Rat Park was an actual lab setting she described where rats who had been addicted to heroin were placed in an environment with every thing a rat could want, along with the option to stay on heroin and what do you know - they all quit lapping up the water with the narcotic in it and just drank fresh water. She recommends you only do things that give you that Rat Park Feeling.  I concur.)

So let's get down to goal setting.

Right now I am 1.8 lbs away from the top of Weight Watcher's range for being at goal. They give you a 2 lb wiggle space and for me that is 152 lbs. The number one goal then, for the month of March is to drop that 1.8 lbs. You would think that would be easy ... but it is not. It's extremely difficult because at 153.8 my clothes fit well, I like the way I look in the mirror and I feel great.

So what's the big deal about a measly 1.8 lbs?  A couple of things.

1.  Each measly 1.8 lbs I ignore pushes me deeper into weight gain territory. I know that at 155 I do not like how I look. I want more space between where I am and looking and feeling dumpy.

2. At my current weight my body mass index is greater than 25 and did you know that a BMI greater than that is one of the indicators for dementia?  Not something this 62 year old wants to toy with.

3. I truly value the WW meeting opportunity but those measly 1.8 pounds mean I have to pay to go - and that's getting old. Do the math.  I would much rather have the $700 each year to oh, say, buy a clothes dryer for Pete's sake, Bess!

(ooops. a little subject bleed there - the dryer is a different goal)

4. deep in my secret little heart I believe I ought to weigh less than 150 lbs.  I know, I know. but I really do believe I should weigh 145 lbs because I really am an inch shorter than I was when I set that original goal.

Okay - so. Goal #1 is to lose the 1.8 lbs by March 21.

Action steps to take:

1. Make 5 days out of the week 26 point days. This is good because to do that I have to be really careful about the food I chose to eat - it has to be nutritionally dense or I will be hungry and eat more calories.

   a.  Plan out and shop for 5 nutritionally dense daily menus each week

2.  Get in enough activity to make my activity monitor do it's sparkly thing every day. To reach the daily goal, 4 out of the 6 lights have to blink

   a. do the aerobic DVD for at least 20 minutes every morning at 7 o'clock
   b. Check my activity monitor at lunch time. If the third light hasn't begun to glow, take a walk at lunch
   c. check my activity monitor before dinner and if all 4 lights aren't lit up - walk the dogs before dinner.

3. Remember, and say out loud, at least twice a day, the following:

The healthy food choice is a REWARD. yay!

 psst psst - what about the camera?

  And the clothes dryer?

Oh. Yes. right. TheBrains remind me that I have two other goals that I must act upon.   Left Brain, I have told BH to smack me up side the head if I don't have a dryer by April 1. You know the road is a frozen mess of mud and ice so we can't get a delivery truck down here for a couple more weeks but I swear I will go down to Lowe's and order a freakin' dryer.

  When?

How about Sunday?

  Ok.


 And the camera?

I'll make my decision on Sunday too, Right Brain. A camera will have been ordered by Monday.

  Promise?

Promise.

  I'll remind her. I've got it on my calendar now.

  Okay. But you have to come back here and blog about it then, and over on the other blog too.

It's a deal, Brains. It's March. My Mesopotamian New Year. I'll get these things done in honor of the ancient vernal shift.

   YAY!

April's New Year's Resolution

April at last. At last. Spring spring spring. So happy it's not winter any more.

Mind now, Spring is taking her own sweet time. The poplar tree has yet to unfurl the tiniest leaf - so it's not officially spring. Maybe today it will be. Surely by the end of this weekend that harbinger tree will have it's mist of gold clouding it's branches.  But 3 days without having to wear a coat is spring enough for me.

We're back from a Birthday Visit with LD and PD in South Carolina. It was a perfect trip - easy driving, no bad traffic, and of course - mountains of happy love from the moment we got there till the moment we drove off. The young darlings took us to the most magical place: Forty Acre Rock 

It's really 14 acres - but what a place - surrounded by several thousand forested acres that we trekked through - complete with caves and waterfalls!

And of course - there's no trip to South Carolina without hunting down Haile landmarks. Here I am, looking like a bobble head ...Lord - that man just can not take a good photo of me.

Here's the Birthday Boy himself - with his second cake. 

I took knitting and actually got a few rows done on my Fiona Ellis sweater but the knitting mojo just hasn't been there this winter. (not much else has either) I did get in some practice sketching though and am getting more confident about putting pencil to paper.

 But I know you all came here to read about my April Resolution, right? It took me a while to decide just what I wanted it to be but then fate - in the guise of an HVAC crew stepped in and made the decision for me. The Guys With Tools are here putting in a Mitsubishi Ductless Heat Pump system here at TheCastle. Here is Unit 1 and though it does feel big - and does feel different - honestly, that wall is so cluttered already - it hardly matters, now. Does it? And warm in winter, cool in summer does have to come at a cost. One aesthetic will just have to move over to accommodate another.

As for the Resolution? Well - first the back story. On the second floor there is a 4 foot knee wall, accessible by 6 cabinet doors. Perfect spaces to cram STUFF and over the years I have done some serious cramming. And for more years than I like to admit I have started my New Years Resolution list with Clean Out The Knee Wall Closets. Three of them have been done. Three are disasters. The Guys With Tools had to get into one of the disaster areas and now all of that stuff is dumped on the guest bed - so no. Nobody is invited to spend the night till I get that put away. So April's resolution will be to restore order to at least one gutted knee wall closet and also the other disaster area that must be shifted in the spare room. That spot where I have dumped yarn bins, family photos, Unfinished Knitting Projects, and who knows what else. The Guys With Tools have to get behind that mess too so, duh. Right. Resolutions by default - but I will be so glad when they're accomplished, so relieved and so proud, that I plan to reward myself with a desk to put in that corner of the room and make it my home office.

And then I will follow Juno's example and crash on the sofa.

March Mission Accomplished

My New Year's Resolution for March was to create a Christmas Card mailing list. It's the kind of mindless fun sort of job I enjoy - but it's really so mindless it was hard to make myself sit down and actually create it. Then suddenly I realized it was almost April and I hadn't begun. And so. Sunday morning I sat down with the huge stack of old cards, envelopes, and the crusty Rolodex and began to type.

 VOILA! 

I haven't decided what I want to do for April - though we have HVAC guys coming early next month to put in a ductless heat pump. Four Mitsubishi Hyper-Heat Ductless Units, in fact. Here's what they look like.

 

So it might behoove me to clean out the corner in the spare room that is heaped with yarn bins, fiber tubs, laundry baskets full of family photos, a spinning wheel, a chair and several bags of unfinished knitting projects. That might be my April Resolution - or better yet - putting it all back in useful and accessible order might be the real resolution.  Sigh. Sounds like werk to me. 

A more fun resolution might be 

So now it's discourse between head and heart - or conscious and subconscious - or Left Brain and Right Brain. Either way - I will probably do at least some of both. And with that TheQueen will bid March adieu with this fascinating photo of the sun's reflection in a pool of water.  Juno is intrigued. Or is it Callie?

Happy New Year and Knitting Too

Time for those New Year's Resolutions.

Huh? What's that? It's March? Well? So? Who says you can't make resolutions as the world is beginning to emerge from the misery that was the past 2 months? Heck. It was all TheQueen could do to put on shoes and go to work every day. There wasn't anything left to help her Make Plans for Better Times.



But that was then and this is now. This morning I woke up with this old Lovin' Spoonfull song playing in my head. Something about the light, the angle of the sun, the sounds outdoors, seems to have magically opened up the cobwebby windows in my head and I can see clearly enough to actually make plans. But in thinking about those plans it dawned on me that, this year, at least, I don't want to plan too far forward. Perhaps it's because, to quote Susan Miller from AstrologyZone, "Mars has been tearing through my earned income sector since December 7, and it seems I've needed to spend it as fast as it has been coming in." No duh after a heart attack at Christmas just in time to wipe out the deductible of 2013 and suck up the 2014 allotment. And things Financial don't look any better in April when: "Next month, we will have two very hard eclipses, April 15 and 29. The one that will affect you more will be the one April 15, and it will affect the source of your income." Ouch!

Oh well. C'est la vie - et c'est l'argent. Guess I won't buy any frivolous stuff for a while. Thank goodness I don't need any new clothes, either. Mental note to self "Do Not Look At Elann dot Com's March Specials".

Anyway - back to the New Year's Resolutions and planning ahead and all that stuff. It dawned on me that I don't really feel like tracking down and tackling any Big Things this year. What I have is a whole bunch of little tidying up things that need to be done, in no particular order.  So for the rest of this Has To Get Better year, I plan to tackle one small tidying-up chore a month. One irritating bit of sloppiness in my life will be eliminated.  One corner of messiness will be made into a retreat of serene and pleasurable organization. 

And No. I'm not assigning all 10 of them right now. I will pick one each month - the one who's completion would make me happiest right now. And Right Now that chore is to update the address book. We have a hideous rolo-dex that ThePrince wants to keep but I'm going to take that, the bag of Christmas cards with envelopes, and the drawer stuffed with Other Correspondence, and create my very own database. Yes. Yes. I know how to do this. I even think it's fun - it's such a Virgo thing to enjoy - like filling out forms. Just thinking about being able to print address labels for Christmas Cards makes me happy. 

Creativity? Where is the creativity in TheCastle? Well - there actually has been some and there's quite a lot more up ahead because, in fact, some of my Other Messy Corners involve Drawing and Knitting, Prayer and Writing. In the darkest days of late January I picked up a copy of Knitters Magazine and fell deeply in love with Fiona Ellis' pink cabled sweater. (Shush. Do NOT ask me about my oatmeal Aran sweater. We aren't ready to talk about that yet.)

You can see it on the web page - with the number 58 beside it - that's the page number where you'll find it in the magazine. I love and admire Ms. Ellis SO much. I feel blessed to have taken a class from her and have longed to knit at least one of her designs ... which is a rare desire for TheQueen, who tends to only knit stuff she's made up herself. Of course, with finances hijacked by Mars and, even in the wretched month of January, the budding desire to tidy up the clutter in TheCastle, I didn't want to buy any new yarn. Diving into the stash, though, I found a bag of, now discontinued, Louisa Harding Jasmine - in this pretty coral color. It's a blend of cotton, bamboo, silk and polyester and there is probably only enough to knit this sweater with short sleeves - but it knits to gauge and will make the best warm weather sweater to throw on in chilly air conditioned offices come this summer. 

In an effort to cheer up his deeply depressed queen, ThePrince has been reading Tolkien out loud and this has proved to be a wonderful project to knit while listening. I almost never knit flat pieces but I'm following the directions on this project. Slow going,  a little sloppy with guttered purl rows, but I'm okay with it and definitely not in any hurry. Here is what I've done so far.

And here's where I'm going to end up. (back view) I'm just about ready to start the decreases and to knit that little flourish of a cable at the top.

There has also been drawing - for pencils and pens have called out to me in a sad lament. Well - they did a few weeks ago and I responded.  Though creaky - my hands are starting to feel more confident with each day's practice. Yes. Lots of faerie stuff - and we can just pretend it's inspired by Tolkien. If there is more to say later - it will be said. 

Mostly it's just fun. 

So. That's the state of things here in TheCastle. TheQueen is moving forward into 2014 at last, with a lighter heart and sunnier outlook than the cold drear of January would have predicted. It is now Tomorrow - and we are all At Tara. 

12 in 12 Reviewed - and What's On for 2013

Whew! that's how the cram-packed insistently demanding days of January have left me - slightly wiped out. Thank goodness for this 3 day weekend, coming after all the January deadlines, to rest up and get my groove back.

The past 3 weeks have held introductions, deadlines, trips and guests - all great opportunities to shove my New Years Resolutions to the back burner - not where they'd be forgotten, but where they could simmer gently till I was ready to serve them up. Of course, the operative word in New Year's Resolutions is New and since the are new, I'm not sure they're quite ready to lay out in print, but if I don't do this now, I may not do it at all and I know for sure, if I don't write them down, I'll feel bad all year. So. Here goes. 

First off - the recap of 2012 and its 12 new habits. I loved doing these. I loved them so much I was tempted to say I will just do the same 12 in 12 in 13 and leave it at that. In fact - I will do that - with some tweaks and modifications. Another reason for addressing these on a daily basis is that they aren't firmly enough established to ignore them. I don't want to lose ground and I do want to forge ahead in each of those areas of my life. Those habits centered around 4 core areas: 

1. MY PHYSICAL LIFE (food tracking, exercise and water)

I'm very pleased with the end results. These 3 actions are at least habitual enough to make me uncomfortable when i don't do them. I intend to keep on concentrating on these good habits. And though I'm not at my goal weight, I did lose 10 lbs last year and kept them off. I started lifting weights and am twice as strong now as I was a year ago. And in a whole year I did not once talk myself out of going to the gym! So Proud.

2. MY WORK LIFE (Charles Schwab list, 5-year plan, BigWorkGoals, Compliment Staff)

I'm pleased with how I incorporated these into my work life. I may not yet have them entrenched, but they are part of the work world. I also realized that reading the 5-year plan daily was overkill but I will do it twice a month and see that my staff does too. The BigWorkGoal and attention to my staff are not yet habits but they're on my  horizon. The Charles Schwab list is an absolute essential and keeps me so focused and yet so much more relaxed about my job that when I forget to do it - or just don't bother - I get a Smack Upside The Head feeling. Love me that CSL!

3. MY HOME ENVIRONMENT (Clean the kitchen every night)

I started doing this right off the bat - even though I didn't "claim" it as a habit till late in 2012. I found it made a huge difference in how the house looked and felt the whole year. those few minutes of tidying up before going to bed prompted thoughts of what else I want in my living environment. It pushed me to act - and we actually got the bathroom renovated - something I've been talking about for years. I got the rugs cleaned, windows washed and kept the house much tidier all year. Most important of all, those daily moments of mindless kitchen cleaning helped me find the words to start a most difficult discussion with ThePrinceConsort about building out the rest of this house. I must have a space for myself before I retire - for my toys and supplies and clutter - a space I don't have to clean up in order to serve dinner. And we have to do this while he's still young enough to oversee it. We've had several good talks about this touchy subject and there hasn't been any ugliness. Who knew a clean kitchen would do all this?

4. MY SPIRITUIAL LIFE (Pray, Draw, Read, BigLifeGoals)

Yup. Prayed and found such expansion. Drew and got lots better. Didn't read as much as I thought I would - didn't want to read as much as I thought I would - and that was a surprise. And I found that some steps towards my BigLifeGoals were happening just by because I opened up and let them in. The bathroom was renovated. I took the beach vacation with my sister, I revisited a favorite spot from Long Ago, and explored new ones. This year was a wonderful spiritual journey.

I'd say the 12 in 12 were the most interesting and fun New Year's Resolutions I've ever made and ever kept. They were so much fun that, as I said, I want to keep on doing them. But tney are neither new nor resolutions so ... what's on tap for 2013?

Ahhh. It's much more ephemeral. Much harder to describe - to put into words - one reason I've been so long spitting it out. I'm not sure I can even now - but I am going to try. If I come off as Maudlin or blasphemous or just plain weird, so be it. 

There is a power - a flow, a source, an energy - so vivid, so exciting and so magical that it can take me anywhere in a twinkling. I call it God. I do not subscribe to a particular religion but I am absolutely positively certain that God exists and God is the way. God is the source. God is the power, the energy the flow. God is the love. This is not a faith thing. This is a knowledge thing.

And nothing keeps me from this power except my own sloth, laziness and ego. I can tap into the magical flow any time I want to but I have to do the actually tapping and for 2013 I want to tap into that flow every day.

I could say I want to pray every day - but prayer can so easily turn into a Christmas Wish List. "Please God, make me thin. Please, God, help me keep my temper"  that sort of thing. Instead, I just want to tap into the flow and let it take me wherever it wants to go. I'll admit it. I'd also like to use the flow now and then for my own egotistical purposes, but mostly - I just want to open up. Let it in. Participate in its exciting energy. 

Unlike my 12 in 12, I won't have daily or weekly or monthly reports about concrete accomplishments. What I hope I'll have will be insights, revelations, ah-ha moments - some of which might be worth sharing. but that's not the point of this effort. the point is to live each day more within the flow of ... of God. 

Of course - it would not be TheQueen if there weren't some Things To Do on a List so - for concrete accomplishments to be achieved in 2013 - there will be 4. 

1. Reach my goal weight by March - and stay there the rest of the year.
2. Do something each week about my kitchen till it's finally more functional. (cabinet drawers? part with that old Wedgwood china?)
3. Carve a space for myself out of the Junk/Packing/Guest room upstairs - by Memorial Day
4. Have a conversation every month with ThePrinceConsort about the addition to the house - so that it does not drift into the realm of pipe dreams. 

So. This is a different sort of New Year's Resolution list - in fact - the big thing is more of a New Year's Revelation. But here it is, spit out in all it's ungainliness.

I sure do love a New Year.




And I promise - there will be knitting in the next post. Here is a teaser: 

12 in 12 March Update

I bet I am not the only one who is pondering the resolutions, thoughts, plans, hopes, ideas she had last January as she contemplated the richness that is a whole new year. Those of us who like NYRs don't tend to drift away from them till sometime in February or March. I know I can tell you everything that happened in just about every January of my life, since journaling and diary writing have long been a part of my January rush of Improvement. Mays and Junes are a lot foggier.

Last January, as I thought about the numerical significance of twenty twelve I decided to add 12 tiny (I hoped) habits to my daily routine - small additions that I might already be doing sporadically to which I would give special attention. Nothing monumental - not because TheQueen is already regal enough, but because I just wanted - and still want - to tweak the system a little. In January it was easy to stick to my resolution.  I wanted to journal my eating every day - and I did! In February, a month that was a little rocky, I added prayer to my daily routine and while I did not achieve a perfect score, I still made time to consciously pray more days than I forgot to.  I found that if I want to go into that quiet deep place, give thanks, accept love and ask for help every day, I really have to do it first thing in the morning. It's not that I can't carve out the time and quiet space to do that later in the day - I did. I do - and it's an amazingly productive thing to do on a workday afternoon ... to turn the lights off in my office, lower my chair and sit quietly for 5 or 10 minutes. But far too often I become totally distracted by all the rest of the world and forget - something else I did - and do.

Prayer is an important element in my sanity and my productivity. It's also something that I have done since I was fairly young. I had no formal religion till I was a teen and honestly, by that time I'd already created my own plan for spirituality. Happily, it folded into the formal Catholic Girls School practice neatly enough to go undetected. It's difficult for me to write about how important prayer is for me, not because I can't find the words, but because it touches something so very deep inside - and a public blog like this tends to have only so much information in it - and usually it's information about the physical side of life.

It's the very fact that prayer is so very important to me that I decided to give it more attention from now on. Of course I pray when I think I need to. I pray when I think I'm in trouble or when I need help. But that's just the point. It's all about I, I, I. It's all about my ego and its thoughts. It's about thinking and I know, absolutely, that thought is just part of the picture.  I need to honor prayer's rich and sterling qualities when I am not in trouble:  the giving thanks part of prayer; the joyful accepting of a love that is beyond the physical world, though still connected to it; the petitioning for help not just when I can't solve my problems, but asking for it just to live better, more connectedly, more kindly, wiser. It is a way of taking my ego out of things and uniting with something bigger than I am.

Well, what do you know. I did write about prayer - at least a little.

And now here it is March and this time I chose to add something a little more mundane to my daily routine. This month I am concentrating on drinking at least 6 glasses of water every day. It may sound like a silly habit to fold into one's life, but alas - drinking water is something I also forget to do. I like water. I have delicious tap water both at home and at work. I feel better when I drink water. I look better when I drink water. Alas, I also forget to drink water. A day will go by and I'll realize I haven't had any water all day. It's almost scary. But it's something that can be rectified by just scheduling "water breaks".

And now you know the status of my 12 in 12.

My 12 for 12 - little habits I want to fold into my days

Those who know me know I love me some New Year's Resolutions. I love making them and I love looking back to see if I kept any. Usually, during that week between Christmas and New Year, sometimes even earlier, little ideas percolate in my brain, nudging me towards that Oz of Perfection that, though I laugh and tease about it, I believe all of us are journeying towards. 

This year was a little different. For the first time in a long time I wasn't chafing with dissatisfaction about myself, my health, my body, my house, my work. Not that there isn't room for improvement or progress or movement - just that - this year I was in a really happy good place. I didn't want to make any grand changes. Who would - when standing in a really happy good place? I just wanted to make some little changes - some 'start small', baby step, trim tab shifts. And I wanted it to feel positive - to feel enriching. I wanted to add some good habits to my life.

Those infamous "They" say that it takes 21 days to create a habit and as I got to thinking about 2012 and how many good habits I might want to add it suddenly hit me - I could
add one good habit a month and I'd have 12 for 12. The cuteness of the thought - because I do realize it's a little sloganey - tickled me. Actually finding 12 things turned out to be something of a challenge since they had to be small enough to be things I'd want to do every day yet important enough to matter to my life.

The ground rules were that I could play around with any of these habits at any time, but each one was to be the star of its own month. Each one would be given a full 30 days of constant attention. And they did not have to be all about weight and health. Each month I could chose the habit that either appealed to me the most, or that seemed the most necessary to concentrate on. If - during the year - some Other Better Habit revealed itself to me I could swap it out for one still on the list.

So. Here are my 12 for 12 in no particular order:

1. Food Tracking
I know this is good for me. I know it's important. I know this is the next step I have to take to get rid of this last 12 lbs. I don't HATE tracking food - but I haven't made the effort to do it. This is the First Good Habit I'm working on.

2. Wear a pedometer and get those 10K steps
10K steps, 4 activity points, whatever you want to call it - the goal is to build into my life more movement - I move - but not enough.

3. Drink 6-8 cups of water every day
I live where the tap water is absolutely delicious. Even at work!! So tell me why I forget to do this? Idunno - but I do. Good habit to get into

4. The Charles Schwab list at work
At least he's the one credited with the idea - you list the top 5 things you need to do tomorrow. Prioritize that list. Then - do those 5 things first, every day, even if you do nothing else. If there is something on that list you did not do today, it becomes the top item on tomorrow's list. The key here is you do it every day. I've diddled with this and know it works - but - I've not been consistent with it.

5. Read my 5-year play every morning - because it is so durn easy to forget what I'd planned to do until it's review time and then I have to confess to all the things I failed to do! (a corollary to this is - have each of my staff read it at least once a week too - but that's another list)

6. Compliment someone on my staff every day
I really like the people who work for me - and they deserve to know it. Also - in order to compliment someone you have to look at what they're doing - and when you do you often notice strengths they have that could be used in other areas of the workplace. People get tired of doing the same thing all the time but they always love being asked to do what they do well. I need to take advantage of these strengths to enliven their day while also enriching the workplace!

7. Read some fiction every day. 

I love stories - I run a library for goodness sake! But I have grown so weary of what's popular in fiction these days that I have quit reading it. One more snarky woman struggling with her dysfunctional family and looser weak man ... ugh. Still and all - I don't like it that I'm so ignorant about current fiction. Time to at least dabble in the subject.

8. Draw 20 minutes a day. I will never get any better if I don't practice every day

9. Select a big life goal - a big personal thing - and take one step towards it ... every day.
I want to take a boat up a fjord in Norway? How would I go about it. What step could I take today that would get me there?

10. Ditto at work - Select something from the 5-year Plan and step one step closer to achieving it - or to realizing it's not the goal we wanted to achieve and getting it out of the plan.

11. Clean the kitchen every night. I am a morning person and am often really tired at night. It's easy to get up at 5 and clean the kitchen - but seeing a dirty kitchen first thing in the morning starts my day off with a tiny bit of ugliness. How about starting it off with something pretty instead?

12. Pray. Take a little time to step deep into myself, deliberately, and touch base with what's really important.

And there you have them. All are things I sort of do or do now and then or do once in a while. But just think how lovely 2012 would be if I made them daily habits. Mmmm Mmmm. My My My. Yes. Just think! 

Coming Up: The Gift of 365 Glorious Days - to do with what you wish

Imagine someone giving you $35,600 (or $3,650 or even $365) and telling you to spend $100 or $10 or $1 each day on making your life better, richer, more fun, more loving, more of anything you want. That's always how I feel when I put the new calendar pages in my Daytimer. Yes. I still use a paper calendar even though now I must also depend heavily on my digital computer calender that nags the hell out of me. In fact, as I type this, I am thinking of how to incorporate the money idea into 2011. But what I really want to do is natter about last year's resolutions because it's always a good idea to begin where you are and as I begin this wonderful New Year, I had to do a little assessment of where I went in 2010.

Sometimes I surprise myself at the cool ideas I come up with. Alas. I don't always follow through with them – but they're awfully good ideas. So last year, in the days leading up to 2010 I made three lists – one, of things I'm grateful for, one, of things I want to let fade out of my life and then 31 things I wanted for my body. Cool, huh?

Of course, for me, coming up with ideas and carrying them out are two different things. I'm like my favorite juvenile fiction character, Betsy Ray, (of the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud H Lovelace) who was forever making lists and coming up with adventurous ideas that her spunky friend Tip carried out. Betsy, Maud, and I admit this facet of our characters, but just because we don't always act upon our grandiose plans doesn't mean we don't ever act. In fact, many of Betsy's lists, resolutions and plans were so compatible, I adopted them for myself.

So what about all my 2010 plans and resolutions anyway? I don't know where the gratitude list is but the other two were posted on a blog I keep on Spark People, a website devoted to weight management. Of the 6 things I wanted to let flow out of my life, all of them have at least gotten closer to the door.

1.Unhealthful food - in unhealthful proportions  This one barely budged, though it was nudged slightly further away by the addition to my daily life of a yummy green drink made of juice and dark leafy greens and almonds that BD and I have become addicted to. The day doesn't feel right if we don't have our green drink.

But there is something I don't like about this particular release ... something about turning food into an enemy ... much like health food people turn food into something magic ... it's a semantical thing but definitions are extremely powerful so I need to think about how I could reword this to make it both more positive and more truthful.

2.My sedentary body and it's accompanying aches   Learned yoga – hurt my back twisting too much during yoga – had to stop doing yoga – took up swimming again - feeling far fewer aches and pains now. ALSO Realized that i CAN do yoga but I have to only turn as much as I can't feel the pull. My own extremely loose ligaments make it too easy to stretch too far. Recent unbelievably easy yoga practices have shown me that I need to be looking for something different from what other people look for in yoga.

3.Grumbling while doing housework    Ooo. I forgot I wanted to let this go. It's almost completely gone though. Cool!

4.Multi-tasking and it's evil twin...
5.Auto-piloting
6.The mother of #4 & 5 ... Frittering away my time slash Procrastinating 

I made substantial progress on these three things – especially at work. I began using a computerized calender and taking the time each month to fill in every thing I want done and the steps (and deadlines) for accomplishing them. Last year was the absolutely most productive year ever in my job. And that productivity left me in a consistently good mood that was so high I looked forward to Monday every single week!

Man. I want More of this!!

As for the 31 things I wanted for my body (since this is a weight/health/body blog) I achieved 24% ... which, in my book, is pretty durn good. This is not just leaving me proud of the previous year, but excited for the new one.

Well, well, well. So today is January 1, 2011. As per one of the very few rituals I keep, I will take down the tree, clean the house, put away my Christmas perfume, take a wonderful luxurious bubble bath, and sit down with pen and paper and a fresh new notebook and start making my new lists. I already know I'll lift some things from last year's lists but I've also begun planning the new items I want to add to this year. I love me some New Year's Resolutions.

My wish for you is that your year, whatever you resolve to do with it, is so glorious and thrilling and rewarding that you, too, look forward to every Monday – even the rainy ones.