New Year's Musings

I’ve never been one to make New Year’s resolutions. To me, if feels like setting myself up for disappointment, so I set goals instead, and take some time to look back on the year that’s just ended.

I have to say 2010 was a much better year than 2009. I began the year by finally landing a job, which I started on January 4. This term I’m teaching ESL and Grade 10, a nice low-stress combination. My father’s health scare had a positive outcome, there were no crises in Everett’s family, I got one book written and published and am closing in on finishing another. I’m playing guitar again, and making slow but steady progress on getting in shape. Officially, nine pounds and 11.5 inches down since starting at Curves. At this rate, meeting my goal of 20 pounds by mid-March seems doable.

Personal goals for 2011: To stay with my exercise and healthy eating program permanently and let my body find its natural weight. To contact friends more often, on and off-line. To remember to be grateful, each and every day, for all the good things in my life. I read somewhere once that if the only prayer a person ever says is ‘thank you’, that can be enough.

Writing goals: To finish Shattered, Home Child (my half-completed middle-grade novel), and McShannon’s Land (Nathan Munroe’s story). To become more savvy and efficient at publicity for my books (Yeah, there’s a reason why I write books set way before the computer age. I like blogging and I like playing on the ‘net, but to really USE it is another story.) To reach out more to other bloggers – there’s a lot of good stuff out there. To continue to grow my craft, in every way possible, so that each book is better than the last.

I’ve got another story brewing in my mind, about Liam Cochrane’s older brother Nolan. I’m thinking of an exotic setting, perhaps colonial India at the turn of the twentieth century. I think it would suit Nolan’s adventurous spirit. Perhaps, when I get all my WIPs off my plate, I’ll hop on a clipper ship with my black Irish sailor lad and do some traveling.

People of blogland, how are you seeing the year ahead?

Inspiration and Perspiration

Inspiration of the Poet, Nicolas Poussin. Oil on Canvas, The Louvre

I’ve always found this time of year inspiring. I’ve spent a large part of my life as either a student or a teacher, so fall has always been the real start of a new year for me. January? Forget January. Nothing starts in January except diets and Christmas bill payments.

I’m feeling inspired creatively and personally these days. I’m dabbling in writing poetry for the first time in years, I’m getting to the fun stuff in Shattered, and I’ve made a resolution to get myself into better physical shape over the next few months. OK, I’ll put a number on it – I want to lose twenty pounds by March Break.

I know how to do it. I’ve done it before. Being hypothyroid as well as vertically challenged, weight control is a life-long issue for me. It doesn’t help that all the things I love to do most – writing, reading, painting, playing guitar, cooking and eating – are either sedentary or fattening. I’ve accepted the fact that for me, exercise will always be something of a chore. Not an unpleasant chore, but a chore nonetheless.

About four years ago, it started to hit home that the big 50 was edging ever closer, and I didn’t like what I saw ahead for my health or my self-esteem. I looked in the mirror, said ‘enough’ and joined Curves. It worked. I built muscle, cut back drastically on sugar and starches, and watched the weight melt off. Six months took me from a size 14 to a size 6.

For two years I kept working out and kept the pounds at bay. Then my teaching job ended and I spent a year on the road selling insurance. Hours sitting in the car every day, stopping for junk food on top of the lunch I took with me, getting home at eight or nine o’clock at night, eating supper and falling into bed. When I wasn’t working I was writing. That year was plain hell on my body. Relentlessly the weight crept back.

For me, exercise has to be a no-brainer, a part of my routine. No fixed routine, no workouts. Now I’m teaching again, with a regular schedule, and it’s time to get back on track. This will be my third three-workout week, and I’m seeing the results already.

One of the things I appreciate about circuit training is that I don’t have to think. I change machines on cue, my muscles working hard while my mind is elsewhere. Not bad for the creative juices. Neither is having more energy and focus.
I’m taking it slower this time. Instead of dieting, I’m focusing on the exercise and trying to eat sensibly and sustainably. After all, for me, there is no life worth living without chocolate and cheesecake, or even better, chocolate cheesecake. All things in moderation, including moderation itself. I’ve lost five pounds and a size so far, so I’m moving in the right direction. I’ll update my progress here as part of Folk Friday, starting next week.

Inspiration? Right now I’ve got it.