(photo taken in Vermont last October. If you click on it you can see little bitty water droplets hiding amongst the fluff. Click on all the links for that matter! Do it! I spend a lot of time messing with the html codes, so you better click on all the links and pictures, dammit!)What???!!!! Wasn't it just, um, New Year's Eve? Wasn't it just Christmas? Wasn't it just Halloween, for that matter? Gaaaahhh!! Well, before I launch into a full-blown rant about the insidious sped-up march of time as one ages, I've got some good news for you.
This is going to be a very good year. Yes, I know I've said that a few times before and was proven wrong, but that was when Bush was president. Honestly, I have a very good feeling about the months to come. In addition to the glowing promise represented by our country's new national leader, I have had some recent personal mini-triumphs. Very mini, but it's a good beginning. Instead of continuing to float aimlessly down life's fast-moving stream, I've broken out a couple of paddles and started pushing off in my own direction. I have goals! It's amazing what a renewed thirst for life I've developed simply by making some concrete goals for myself.
And I owe it all to my employers at the brewery. Amazing, huh? If you folks didn't already know that beer is gong to save the world, consider this your first piece of evidence. Stone brought back the New Beer's Resolution this year. What this means is that all employees are not only encouraged to keep their new Year's Resolution, but given a monitored system to help accomplish them. Augmented, of course, by the possibility of winning a whole heap of cash if you keep your goals better than anyone else.
To qualify for the program, we have to make significant resolutions pertaining to a specific triad: physical health, intellectual health, and community building.
I'm posting mine here so I can get a little boost from my friends. I need your support! So here's what I need from all three of my devoted readers: if you see me or talk to me on the phone, ask me how my resolutions are going. Ask me if I've been to yoga class lately, or if I ate a healthy dinner tonight...speak to me sternly if you sense some resistance or slipping on my end. Don't be afraid to use expletives.
To help you be more specific in with your encouragement, and to help my own self by having it here staring me in the face, this is the full list of what I resolve to do:
Physical:
- Get my body fat down from its currently inflated icky 26% to 21- or 22% (can I do that in three months?)
- Go to yoga at least once per week
- Do my nebulized medication at least 5 times per week
- Eat a healthy home cooked meal at least twice per week. Lots of veggies!
- Write at least two blog posts per week
- Write at least two poems per month (this is a lot harder than it looks, people. GOOD poems.)
- Attend each and every gamelan practice every Friday and participate in the concert in April
- Only buy produce from the local farmer's market, and only organic if possible
- Buy only used clothing, or if it's new, it must be organic/recycled or fairly made/traded
- Walk, ride my bike, or take the bus for short errands
- Get political again. As in become active on a committee or in an organization
I've nebulized two days in a row, I've just written blog post #1 for this week, and I had a very tasty dinner tonight of pasta with 100% organic homemade sauce (even the spices!) made with spinach and tempeh. For dessert I had frozen organic blueberries and soy milk. I feel good! Tomorrow I have a yoga date with two friends. Oh, and I bought some new sneakers last week made with recycled tire rubber and organic cotton and water-based glue and they came in a 100% recycled cardboard box. BOO YA!!So there you have it! New improved Kathryn on the horizon. Wish me luck! And good luck to all of you in this shiny, happy new year!!
