A New Year, A Month Late

Happy New Year!

Okay, I know it’s almost February, but the year is still new. Besides that, I didn’t write a January blog because Christmas vacation was so lovely and I got almost no work done on anything.

It seems I’m behind on a lot right now. I sent my sister’s family their box of Christmas gifts just a couple weeks ago. Thankfully, she hadn’t sent her gift yet either, so I am not the only late one. On the outside of the gift box, I took a hint from Charles Dickens and taped a message: “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” I thought this made my belatedness acceptable.

This brings me to the topic of resolutions, which always seem to be the New Year conversation. Why do we always think about them? I think, for me, reaching the end of something just brings out natural thoughts of what might be next. Resolution: something you want to do, but don’t ever do, so you tell everyone you’re going to do it, and then you still don’t do it. (Is this an accurate definition?)

I don’t always make resolutions, but in the Christmas vacation part of 2022, I told my husband I really wanted to start waking up earlier. I love to sleep in, but I have noticed an increasing difficulty for finding quiet. Mornings are the loveliest, so my husband started waking up at 5:30 with me to do a little yoga session and then he’d go to work and I would read and write and sip on hot, fresh coffee. On baking days, I got an early start to mixing everything up. It was so hard in the beginning, but with time, my body has realized that it could actually do this. I could be an early bird.

Waking up early wasn’t a “resolution,” but a habit I’d been wanting to instill. And here I am, a year later, in the wee hours in the morning, one cup of coffee down, a couple of chapters read from my stack of *books, and a blog draft finished. It feels great. I don’t get up early every day, always sleeping later on Saturdays and Sundays. It’s not all or nothing, but there is grace in my resolve.

How is your 2024 going? Did you make resolutions?

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*Reading more books is a continual resolution for me, and I go through phases of reading a lot to reading hardly anything. This year so far, I finished the last half of a book I started in the middle of last year, and started reading three more books:

Finished:
The Early Life of Walt Disney by Andrew Kiste

Currently Reading:
Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott (this is a re-read. I love her so much!)
Help, I’m Drowning: Weathering the Storms of Life with Grace and Hope by Sally Clarkson
Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L’Engle

Next:
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Attention Span by Gloria Mark

Photo by Jessica Mangano on Unsplash