Tag Archives: holidays

2012 New Years resolutions

As a follow up to yesterday’s post reflecting on last year’s goals, what I got done and what I let slide, today I want to share some of my desires for this year. I guess ‘resolutions’ is a slight misnomer–these are things I hope to accomplish in the year to come. Some are ongoing and some are one-time tasks. I don’t want to make unreasonable goals for myself, so I’m keeping it minimal. Here goes!

–Record Thornfield’s first album. This is a huge goal for Eric, Carrie and me. We’ve been playing and songwriting together for over a year now, and now it’s time to lay down some tracks, baby! I really want a finished product we’re all pleased with and proud of, that reflects our unique sound and conveys that folksy, intimate feeling without teetering into something overproduced or overly rough-around-the-edges. The recording process is brand new to me, so it’s bound to be a learning experience! (Gulp.)

–Make Grandma Sue’s cream pie recipe. It’s just gotta happen.

–Continue songwriting! It’s been so wonderful finding this new venue of expression and creativity, and I can’t imagine stopping now. I wrote the first song of 2012 just the other weekend, so I feel like I’m starting the year off on the right foot.

–Continue blogging–it’s also been too great a journey to stop! Sometimes I toy with the idea of quitting when I’m in a creative funk (or feeling particularly tired), and though the time to stop may yet come, for now I will forge ahead through joy, silliness, inertia, enthusiasm and the occasional writer’s block. Honestly, my office job is such an ideal situation for blogging to happen–hours with nothing to do and a big ole computer right in front of me. I have trouble thinking of a better use of my time while I’m stuck here in the office than connecting to all of you through this blogging thang!

–Move! We have loved living in our apartment, but I would really like to have space for our own washer and dryer. I’m been laundro-matting since I was 18, and after more than a decade of toting clothes there and back and there again and back again, I’d enjoy a little respite. I’d also enjoy having windows that don’t rattle and let the snow in. Floors that don’t creak with every step, and allow us to hear our neighbor every time he coughs or turns on NPR Saturday morning (bless his NPR-loving heart!). If we stay where we are I will continue to be happy and satisfied, but finding an affordable apartment that’s a little nicer and has a bathtub I don’t feel the need to apologize for when guests arrive . . . well, there’s some appeal there that you can probably understand. I’ll keep you guys informed! For now, we’ll see, and I’ll keep dwelling in the contentedness of my joy in God no matter what.

–Have a morning quiet time. This resolution was something totally unexpected, and happened quite naturally the Tuesday after New Years. I hadn’t had almost any time alone with God during our Christmas holiday, so by the time Tuesday January 3rd hit and it was time to get back into the routine of our life, I was feeling parched and desperate for him–enough to get my butt out of bed almost half an hour earlier than usual to spend that time in prayer and reading the Bible before I headed out to work. It was such a sweet time that I’ve been doing it ever since, cup of coffee in hand.

To understand the ground-breaking nature of this, you have to know that I have never been able to get up early for a quiet time. I’ve tried, and failed, and tried, and failed. Oh–and tried and failed. The first example that comes to mind is those mornings as a teenager when my Mom and I decided to get up early to read the Bible before I went to school. We were going to be real spiritual go-getters, we were. And our intentions may have been noble, but our follow through and discipline were severely lacking–these well-meant early mornings ended with both of us sleeping in the living room instead. Yup. Snuggled into a corner of the couch, gently snoozing until it was time for me to stumble out the door with my backpack. I’ve simply never been wired for mornings, and apparently, it’s slightly genetic. So the fact that, without making a decision to change my habits, I just kind of slid into this early morning devotional time–it’s huge. I love those 20 minutes, and have plans to stretch it into 30 and maybe even 40 minutes. Now that I want to do it so badly and am enjoying it so much, it seems easy! Craziness.

–Go to the dentist. It’s been since . . . well, 2004. And I’ve been slacking on that flossing resolution I made ages ago. ‘Nuff said.

How about you guys? What do you anticipate and hope for in this (almost) freshly minted 2012?

2011 New Years resolutions: a look back

I love the chance to think about the year from a big picture perspective when it comes to a close. Review the sorrows, joys, challenges, what I’ve learned, what surprises came our way–all that good stuff. I recently came across the list that I made 1 year ago. They were my goals for 2011–a big to-do list, essentially. So I decided to go through and track what happened with each of those items–what got accomplished and what got pushed aside.

So first up, here are some of the things I set out to do and DID!

–Finish writing one song. This is the one resolution I’ve blown out of the water–2011 has been a year of songwriting for me. Not only did I finish and perform my first song around April of the year (Under the Shadow), but our band Thornfield has also performed seven more of my songs. It’s been a process, but there’s nothing like sitting down with a guitar for 2-3 hours–or a number of days–and bringing a scrap of a melody that’s been echoing around in your head into full fruition.

–Overcome stage fright. It’s a work in progress, but I’ve come so far since my first gig with Carrie and Eric back in December of 2010. I’ve learned to hold my nerves at bay until the performance has actually begun (as opposed to wallowing in misery for days prior), and it’s been months since I’ve felt the whooshing, sickening “I want to die” feeling. There’s still a whooshing, and some degree of vocal instability when I first start a song, but at least there’s no longer a death wish!

–Continue blogging. Yes! And it’s all because of you lovely people who have, somehow, for whatever reason, signed up for the ride.

Some fun added things I didn’t plan on:

–The resurrection of the guitar! After studying classical guitar from age 12 all the way through my sophomore year at Indiana University, I decided I didn’t want to be a classical guitarrist. I changed my major from music to English and French, and the guitar went to the closet, where it remained for years. It came out a handful of times, but this past year–8 years after putting it away–it has come out with a vengeance. With the encouragement of my bandmates I’ve rediscovered this instrument and the joy of playing it. I’m loving it.

–My first paid photo shoots–four of them so far, to be exact, plus an almost equal amount of pro bono ones. I’ve recently changed cameras and am shooting with a Nikon D90, and I’m thrilled with the amount of progress I’ve made in the past 12 months. I can see the improvement both with my straight-outta-the-camera shots and my Photoshop processing (hopefully I’m learning about the light touch! A hard thing to master, to be sure).

And now the things I didn’t get around to:

–Making Grandma Sue’s cream pie recipe. A year ago, Aunt Laura gave me a handwritten recipe card from my husband’s favorite grandma, who died of cancer when he was a sophomore in high school. I really do need to make this, especially because the instructions read “cook until blurps.” Maybe 2012 will be the year of the blurping.

–Buy a dining room table. We decided to hold off on this and to make do with our small table–so I’m crossing this off the list with no regrets.

–Fix broken necklaces. I have two necklaces sitting around, broken and unwearable. One needs to be restrung. I even bought some wire to work on this . . . but I can’t seem to bring myself to do it. Moooooooom! Please send help in the form of your jewelry expertise and motivational abilities.

–Make biltong. That dang biltong. I think it may hang over my head forever–until my sister Heidi comes to whip my butt straight into South African culinary wonderland.

Tomorrow I’m going to set down my thoughts about this year, and what some of my hopes and plans are. How about you guys? What did you set out to do last year and get done? What got pushed aside?