Eleven days (already?) into the new year, so probably time to review those 2019 intentions. My original post is here and the mid-year review is here.
I was reasonably pleased with how I went overall. Much like the not-resolutions, these are things I’d like to do, but they’re prone to change and be abandoned as I change priorities, so it’s unlikely I’ll ever achieve everything. I’m in the kind of space now where I’m cool with that – Past Me would have been full of self-loathing for not ticking off every item. Present Me finds Past Me exhausting and would like to give her a hug and tell her to chill out a bit.
+ Facial 1x per month
ACHIEVED AND ABANDONED! Regular facials were an indulgence and something I’d never really been able to afford before. I loved the experience and am glad I gave it a go, but I abandoned them in July in favour of spending my hard-earned on crafting classes. I also abandoned the recommended (pretty expensive) skin care products when they ran out and tried out a significantly cheaper local alternative and my skin looks 100x better. Those wrinkles and lines are not going anywhere, but overall my face looks healthier, less puffy, there’s less redness and that intractable milia has pretty much disappeared.
+ Wear nice sleepwear
NOT ACHIEVED! What can I say? I am never going to be a fancy, elegant lady. Mangy camisoles forever!
+ Use my keep cup
ACHIEVED! I probably used my keep cup much less than intended when I set this. The overarching idea was not to use disposable coffee cups and I stuck to this with a combo of the keep cup and sitting in cafes. This was very much helped by abandoning daily afternoon coffee later in the year.
+ Don’t cross my legs when sitting
PARTIALLY ACHIEVED! I do this much less than I did, but sometimes still catch myself. Definitely improved the leg / ankle issues, which as I noted in the mid-point review are now mostly footwear related (need to rid self of a fave pair of sneakers).
+ No daily digital news
ACHIEVED! The positive impact on my mental health from withdrawing from the “breaking news” cycle was significant. This year I’ve been pulled back in by our current environmental catastrophe (bushfires). These are terrible times and constant live updates really just serve to make me feel even more helpless. So much of my identity has been bound up in being the person who had her finger on every pulse and knowing All The Things. I’ve realised the occasional retreat is essential for me. I should probably write more about this, it has been a bit of a journey.
+ No snacking post-dinner. Fruit only after work.
OH MY GOODNESS NO! I reassessed this one after reading a whole bunch on intuitive eating. Intuitive eating is still a WIP for me, but this has been quite transformative when I let it be.
+ Limit personal spending. Stop shopping for sport.
SO MUCH NOPE! It’s not like I have rooms full of stuff I don’t use, or clothes I haven’t worn and I’m not anywhere near making massive, haul-style purchases. But I do buy things I don’t need, and rather too many aspirational craft supplies that are never used. Even that is relative – for me there is probably too much and I would still like to cut back.
And from the 60before60 list:
#48 Move the blog to self-hosted wordpress
ACHIEVED! Would recommend! I still need to tidy up some of the old links and disappeared pix – this would be a decent evening “put down your phone” project.
#27 Kill my gmail account(s)
PARTIALLY ACHIEVED! This is mostly complete. I’ll wind up the last dregs in the first half of 2020. I now have different providers for different things, so a protonmail account I use just for spending, I self-hosted account for personal admin. This is so far working really well for me. And I’m ruthlessly unsubscribing from all sorts of mailing lists – very good for those not-spending goals!
#13 Read no self-help books for a year
(MOSTLY) ACHIEVED! A slight pause in the middle of the year to read a couple. The author of one of them commented on my post – surprising and delightful!
#47 Record all personal spending for a year
PARTIALLY ACHIEVED! I started on 27 June 2019 and am still at it. It’s been an interesting exercise, even if I do nothing with the data. One of my observations is that I’ll be bored at lunch, want to get out of the office and buy things I don’t necessarily need. I started taking walks instead – the bushfire smoke has hampered this a bit, so I’ve defaulted back to shopping. I should just go sit in the library and read or craft a blog post.
#41 Be more present (precisely how to do this is yet to be determined)
NOT ACHIEVED! A lesson to not make vague intentions – what did this even mean? I abandoned this one entirely and replaced by learn to pick a lock.
#51 [something] yoga
I’m going for NOT ACHIEVED! So vague. I updated to develop a home yoga practice 3x per week. Cynical Me says I’ll have replaced this with something else by 2021 (Cynical Me is a bit of a negative dickhead).
Onward to 2020!
2877-2876 days