My New Year

Part two: resolutions, or suggestions.

Niall and I did laundry on New Year’s Day. We loaded up the washers at the laundromat, went to a cafe, changed the laundry, went for a walk, and brought the dry clothes all home in a couple of duffel bags.

We have laundry day once per week, and I often find myself looking forward to it. It’s structure, and sometimes it’s the first time all week we’ve been able to take a morning to sit down together.

My past resolutions haven’t panned out. Usually I pick something with some ideal of who I could be, or I get some idea into my head for a new hobby I want to pick up, or what-have-you.

I am certain that I will choose some ill-fit resolutions this year as well, but I hope to learn a little more from them. I found myself writing a long list of “Stuff I think I want to do in 2016” at the end of New Year’s Day.

I and identified three main themes: art, work, and health. Of those, I honed in on a few good ones, and set aside the less likely or less useful ones. Sure, sculpting is fun, but I have other art to make. I could go running, but I hate running, and I work a physically active job. “Get a haircut” is more a task than a habit, and I don’t see myself being able to afford habitual haircuts.

With the winners, I made action plans. Goals that have quantities and steps (not listed here) to them. Here’s what I came up with, to be amended as I feel my way through them:

ART

• Make one crappy piece of art per week.
• Post art online once per month. Be visible.
• Goal: Complete proposal for the Dickinson project by August 1st.

WORK

• Visit a job counselor. (Still not sure about this, not sure I can afford it.)
• Continue taking nutrition courses, and apply for DPD at UMass if you like what you’re doing.
• Apply for PSLF-eligible jobs. Break the chains of student debt.
• Earn more than $1500 per month. Work less than 30 hours per week. Head above water.

HEALTH

• Social: See a friend once per month. Send a postcard once per month. Go on a date with Niall once per month.
• Volunteer! Habitat for Humanity, Friends of Manhan, Smith Botanical, Dickinson Museum, gleaning, food bank. Any of these.
• Physical: Exercise 20 minutes per day, 5 days per week.
• Plan frugal meals per grocery trip. (semi-weekly)
• Mental: log and to-do nightly.
• Clean apartment once per week.
• Be outside every day.

I’m definitely not going to do all of these. But I bet I’ll do a few of them! In addition, I have a list of wierd specific suggestions for myself this year. A small selection for your amusement.

• Sculpt something. Or carve, carving also good. Woodworking?
• Be naked often.
• Buy a big pad of newsprint and use the whole thing.
• Exhaust the notebooks and pens everyone got you for Christmas.
• Record some tape.
• Make a book.
• Capsule wardrobe.
• Cardboard set, puppet screenplay.
• Handwriting. (Hah, see last post.)
• Run through the woods sometimes.
• Sing and dance and make sound effects.
• Be fancy.