Okay, so this year I’m trying out Blogger because I didn’t like WordPress. Prior to that I was on Dreamwidth, and my first blog was on LiveJournal. Oh, and I also had a blog on Society of SARK, while that lasted. Because I am so bad at math (I buy lottery tickets), I’ll let you figure out how many blogs I’ve had (oh, and this is one of three blogs I have on Blogger).
Last year I wrote only twenty journal entries, all but one (which was typed) posted on WordPress. That is the fewest entries I wrote even including the first year I started writing in a (handwritten, which I still do but didn’t in 2015) journal – 1997 – and I began on August first of that year, so only five months of journaling. This year, I hope to do better.
Which segues quite nicely into my traditional first entry for the year: New Year’s Resolutions. I actually refer to these as the Infinite Master To Do List (IMTDL), and I’ve been making them for over twenty years. I just looked at the original list from 1996, and it has some similarities to the current list; however, the original list was only two pages and one column; the 2016 version is two columns and almost ten pages, thus the “Infinite” moniker. Rather like the lists my Mother-in-Law (more on her later) and my Mother (RIP), respectively, gave me for my wedding twenty-five years ago (again, more later).
The 2016 list in brief:
1. Family
I no longer am Catholic, so my family always is my highest priority (rather than faith, as the Catholics are taught to believe). My family simply is defined as my husband, Brian (aka the World’s Greatest Husband or WGH); our son-by-love Mekhi (more on him in this entry from my WordPress blog); our three cats Harry, Widget, and Gleep; and our two dogs Nibbler and Nina.
2. Health
Just before the new year, I tipped the home scale at 343# – the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life. I’ve been battling my weight since I was ten years old, when I probably should have been more concerned about my crush on Mark Hamill than about my weight, but that’s the society in which we live. The WGH and I have tried many diets over the years, and none of them worked permanently. However, at the beginning of the year, I read an article written about preventing childhood obesity, but had the best – and simplest – weight loss advice I ever heard: Eat more slowly and stop eating when you’re no longer hungry. This concurs with the book The Rules of “Normal” Eating by Karen Koenig, LCSW M.Ed., given to me by a registered dietitian who helped me lose more than eighty pounds (since gained back and more). Utilizing this advice, I already lost eleven pounds according to the same scale.
Now if we could just use the exercise games we bought for our PS3…
3. Finances
Both the WGH and I work for the State of Wisconsin, and because of the current political situation here, our income (which wasn’t that much to begin with anyway) has actually decreased in recent years. We have a long list of things we want to do and trips we’d like to take, so I suggested to the WGH that we sell some of the extraneous “stuff” we have to afford said list. We may not make much money, but anything is better than nothing.
4. Creativity
When I was about eleven years old, I learned that I have a gift for writing, thus I wanted to become a published author. Thirty-five years later, I still want to achieve this dream. I created a world called Hirapis as the setting for my fictional series, and I even have a first draft that I completed in 2013; however, I need to write a better draft and give it to a friend of mine, who is an agent and editor.
I also have a series of websites that unfortunately have not been updated in five years. Plus I love to craft: making candles, beaded jewelry, and crochet. After I complete the next draft of Hirapis, I’d like to craft again.
5. To Do List
Yes, I know the IMTDL is almost ten pages, and that’s outrageous; but it’s broken down into manageable, and even monthly, steps, which is the key to achieving anything.
6. Events
This particular goal involves events that I attend (with or without the WGH), and events that are scheduled at our home. The former includes visiting my wonderful in-laws (I must be one of the few women on the planet who says, “Honey, let’s go visit your parents this weekend.”), trying to meet my Best Friend Betsy RN MSN for dinner and a bookstore, going to summer festivals, going to gaming conventions, etc.
Home events include the D&D RPG that I’ve been running since 2010, which is in its final adventure (in fact, the second half of the final adventure); Curley Con, my husband’s annual birthday party; and maybe another gaming day because we cannot afford to attend Gen Con this year because of our Silver Wedding Anniversary (or because we’re geeks: Mithril Anniversary Party).
That’s right: I’ve been married to the World’s Greatest Husband for nearly 25 years, and we want a big party. Normally we have an Independence Day Party, that really is a potluck with fireworks at our house. However, I’d like something catered, with cake and maybe a tent in our big back yard. I may rent the Forester Hall, the community center next door to our house, in case of inclement weather. More in later entries…
7. House
We call our home “Castle Curley” because a man’s home is his castle (a woman’s, too). Brian is king; I am queen; and the cats, dogs, and Mekhi all are princes and princesses. The House Goal, however, deals with the physical house and not the home. It’s a Victorian house built in 1902, and we bought it in 2005, becoming the third owner of the property in its more than a century of existence, and it had a good price because the place needs work.
As Brian put it to his father, “When we bought the house, we had certain expectations that our income would go up.” This was said last summer when we had to ask the Bank of Dad for a loan to repair the roofs over the garage and the full bath on the second floor. Not a good situation.
So, realizing that an expensive renovation is out of the budget for the foreseeable future, I had a more realistic idea: organization. If we could organize the house, then maybe I could utilize my weekends and vacations for something other than housework. The WGH approved the idea, but we’ve only done a few things: cleared the kitchen food cupboards; put together a bench for the front porch that can be used to store deliveries; and bought some bins for sorting, as well as some hooks for closet and key organization. We mainly need to assemble a storage bench we bought for a “landing strip,” a place to put down items when we enter the house instead of piling them on the dining room table.
Now if I could just get Brian and Mekhi to form the habit of putting things away as they use them…
8. Delazan Enterprises (if)
I have a very little home-based business called Delazan Enterprises (DE), named after one of my great-grandfathers because I (correctly) figured the URL would be easy to register. I write, make crafts, and do indexing. The “if” is because DE is on a backburner (for another year) until I finish the next draft of Hirapis.
My Highest Priorities for 2016
1. Guardianship of Mekhi
No, we don’t plan on usurping custody of Mekhi from his biological mother, Lisa; I’d never come between a child and mother like that. But when Mekhi had a medical emergency earlier this month when I took him to karate class, I freaked. I didn’t have the authority to take him to the ER, so I drove him back to Lisa. She needs to do the paperwork that would allow us to have guardianship authority when she is unavailable, but without stepping on her rights as Mom #1 (I’m Mom #2). Plus, if the unthinkable happened to Lisa, we’d take Mekhi instead of his deadbeat bio-dad.
Each of the following are described in more detail above:
2. Weight Loss
3. Hirapis
4. Mithril Anniversary Party
5. Home Organization
Hopefully I’ll do better about posting updates in 2016, but don’t hold your breath.
Pog ma thoin! (Kiss my “bum” in Irish Gaelic)
-Lori
“Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.” - LAC
