New Year’s resolutions. People say not to make them but I like to. I call them goals and I thrive on crossing things off lists.

Last year I vowed to read 20 books (fiction and non-fiction) and 20 short stories. I am proud to say I exceeded my goal of 20 by 10.

Indeed, I had several lists of “resolves,” which I shall list below. I completed them last year and have them on my list for 2020:

*Watch 8 movies on my “never seen but should” list. I’m 50 and consider myself somewhat of a movie aficionado, yet I had never fully seen any of the Godfather movies. Nor had I watched Rosemary’s Baby or Bullitt, starring the dreamy Steve McQueen. This year I plan to take in eight more, including The Deer Hunter and East of Eden.

*Watch 5 documentaries. Last year I enjoyed topics on the history of the circus, Amanda Knox, the American West, and a truly sickening one – Fyre Fraud – The Greatest Party that Never Happened. This year I’ve started Murder Maps, a fascinating series on murders in 1800s England.

*Complete 5 craft projects to sell/give as gifts. I crocheted scarves and made bookmarks with beads, giving all to friends and family as gifts throughout the year.

*Complete 5 online courses. I was a member of Great Courses Plus, a wonderful online education forum in which I completed classes in native peoples of North America, forensic science history, and food gardening. I let my subscription lapse and now find free online tutorials. Currently I’m enrolled in What is Contemporary Art?, a free class put on by Coursera.

*Complete two 5Ks. Another goal exceeded – as I did three! True, my friends and I walked them and we brought our dogs on two of them (I had to carry my 2 1/2lb Yorkie) but I got awesome takeaways, including t-shirts and beer glasses. Yeah!!

*Complete 5 jigsaw puzzles. My family and I enjoy always having a puzzle to work on, with each of the four of us putting in a piece here and there. I also went to a friend’s cabin last winter with three other like-minded nerds and we put together 5 over the weekend. Later this month we are entered in a puzzle contest – fun t-shirts made by one of the gal’s – and a date with a wine bar afterwards!

*Complete 5 family events with just the four of us. I have two kids – 20 and 16 – and our schedules often don’t allow for all of us to enjoy an activity together. The caveat – trying to find a time everyone is in a good mood and no one is mad at another. My favorite times of the year were when we fished for crappies and went to watch our favorite baseball team – the Minnesota Twins.

In addition to the above again this year, I always have a list of “resolves,” such as starting Christmas shopping in August and wrap gifts as I get them. I’ve done both the past three years – it has helped me more than anything to have a stress-free and enjoyable holiday season.

What am I adding this year? To bring more flowers and plants indoors. Minnesota winters can be dreary and I envision creating space for live greenery. I’m thinking tall, leafy plants in corners and grocery store-bought bouquets in a variety of vases spread throughout the house.

Good luck to you in 2020 – may God bless and may you, as well as me, find time to enjoy crossing off your resolutions!

When I turned 40 I thought for sure I’d have that novel written by age 50. I had all the time in the world, didn’t I?

Surely my life would slow down, I thought, or I’d suddenly become motivated enough to carve out a time to write everyday. Five pages a day times 269 days a year (no weekends – I knew that about myself) and BAM! I’d have a 1345 page manuscript (albeit bloated) to start with. Of course I’d have to factor in days for research (which usually meant Pinterest) and excursions (which usually meant happy hour) for gathering material. There would also be rewrites, of course, though it wasn’t too tough to edit a blank page…

I only have four months and 25 days to meet my goal.

All negativity aside, this post is about Action. The action I’ve already taken as well as future action.

Several years ago I worked my way through “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to juice up their creative energies.  I began to write what Cameron calls Morning Pages, which are three handwritten pages a day done first thing in the morning. I do this faithfully five days a week (there’s that pesky weekend thing again).

In my early 40s I reached out to my town newspaper, asking if there was any work for a freelance writer. Turns out, there was. For six years I ended up writing articles covering everything from city council meetings to local artists, even a haunted house.

I’ve searched for and reached out to fellow (I can say that now despite this being my first one) writer and reader bloggers, liked their Facebook pages and Instagram accounts. I send emails to authors whose work I admire. Being surrounded by so much creativity inspires and motivates me to put pen to paper.

I’m learning to create for myself, and to abandon the heavy cloud of perfection that always hangs over me as I type.

I may not start that novel, let alone finish it before the Big Day, but I’ll enjoy the process.

My teen driving years occurred in the ’80s. We didn’t have no stinkin’ GPS or smartphones. We had to rely on paper maps. My dad, who loves driving almost as much as he loves Perry Mason reruns (and talking about them), would give me a thick spiral-bound book every Christmas that contained maps of the Twin Cities and surrounding areas to keep in my car. He thought it would help me get around town.

It didn’t.

I was as directionally challenged as all the clichés out there would have you believe – I was young, female, and blonde. I drove a smelly 1977 Dodge Colt sans power steering which didn’t exactly up my game at least make me look cool when I was driving in circles, but that’s beside the point.

I got lost. A lot. If it wasn’t to or from the Cities and my inner-ring suburb, forget it. Many times I just gave up and turned around and went back home. Or I’d be late (which I usually was even if I knew where I was going).

But then one day something clicked.

My dad told me our house faced north.

Seems irrelevant enough, right? But in my brain, everything became relative to that perception. Prior to this, if someone would tell me they lived west of a certain highway, it was like saying they lived on the moon. Or Iowa. But when I thought about how my parents’ house faced, I would figure it out.

As it turned out, I later grasped south, east, and west! Directions and places intersections were no longer as scary as Pet Sematary (the book, of course) was to me!

Hoping to instill this same wisdom on my kids, I’ve drawn pictures of the freeways and major highways around the Cities for them to peruse (and, it turns out, laugh at). Because, yes, even though there’s the magic of GPS and smartphones nowadays, where a simple request to Siri conveniently gets me to where Iwant to go, having a sense of where I physically am at each moment makes me feel safe and in control.

 

 

I have always been a blabber. Mostly about myself. I wouldn’t say I wear my heart on my sleeve, by any means, but I’m pretty self-effacing. I tend to downplay my accomplishments (though they are few – wait, see what I mean??) and offer information about myself to which no one has asked.

I do this because I like to connect with people. I also have many friends, many who I’ve known for decades and used to weigh them, in a sense, equally.

But there’s been some things, some very private things, that I’ve told way more people than I should have. Most of my friends I trust, however, I myself have been guilty of spilling secrets of friends to other friends (mostly amongst people who don’t know each other or aren’t close, but that’s no excuse). I should expect everyone else does the same.

You can have some great friends or a lot of good friends but not everyone needs to know everything about you.

The truth is, friends do come and go. Some peeps you stay friends with but the closeness fades. Can you really trust that every juicy detail you tell your closest friends doesn’t go any further?

Sure I still share things with friends, but I’ve learned to be comfortable keeping many thoughts to myself. And you know what? The more I do that the easier it is to not have the desire blab.

After half a century, what have I learned? What wisdom, because that’s what we all assume comes with age, isn’t it? What can I impart on the younger generations, or even someone a year or a month younger than myself? Or really any age, for that matter? Would they listen anyway? Would I have listened to someone who told me their life lessons earlier?

Reflecting on my experiences, there are realizations I’ve come to on my own as well as nuggets of insight I’ve gleaned from others. There’s action I need to take and plenty of work I still need to do.

I’d like to share some of them with you these next few months.

 

In exactly six months I will turn 50.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton