When I lie in bed at night falling asleep, or between one and three o’clock when I suffer from insomnia, I am very motivated in my imaginings for what I will accomplish the next day. Namely, how I will wake up early when the house is quiet and dark and work out and write and pray and journal or blog.
Unfortunately, the insomnia means I do NOT wake up early because most nights I then don’t fall back asleep until four or five when I’d like to have gotten up!
That being said, I feel more accomplished on days when I work out. Yesterday, I did not work out, though I was still sore from a ballet workout I did on December 31, if I want to make an excuse. Even so, I cleaned the floors, did laundry, made a bed after having washed three sets the last day of 2020 bought snow boots for two of three children after finding out they’d been borrowing the neighbors (embarrassing) even after I asked a month ago whether or not they needed larger ones this year, went grocery shopping, and visited my dad outside his assisted living apartment window. I had tacos ready for the gang when they returned from ice fishing and got about fifty pages read in My Plain Jane. I did not write, though I worked through reformatting a couple of chapters in TWENTY-SEVEN DAISIES (in Vellum).
Today I ran about 2 3/4 miles, got two of three sons’ hair cut and made it to US Cellular with the eldest son for his and my husband’s new phones and protective cases. This last trip is what made my royal name turn out to be —
Lady Lily Bruschetta of US Cellular, less beautiful and more practical, don’t you think?
What would yours be, based on the Facebook meme (Is this really a meme?):
- Lady or Lord
- name of your pet
- last thing you ate
- last place you shopped
This morning I woke up to two emails reminding me I signed up for Fr. Mike Schmitz’s Bible in a Year Podcast. So after searching for, and finding, my mom’s egg quiche recipe, making said quiche and pancakes for the family (a belated in honor of my mom we used to do this December 26 every year meal — and that should all be hyphenated), we listened to the introduction and Jan 1 and Jan 2nd’s podcasts. Our questions for the beginning of Genesis remain: Where did all the other people besides Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, and Seth come from?
This, then, leads me to the main focus of this Jan. 2 entry: What will my resolutions for 2021 be?
My neighbor set her running mile goals for 2020 to be 1000 miles and she surpassed it. I considered 500 miles for 2021 which would mean 12-13 per week. I would’ve been able to do that easy(ish) if I were not also now including FIT ON (free workout app that I adore– You should try it.) several times a week to include cardio, STRENGTH, and workouts that are something OTHER than running since that was my focus for so many years. And, let’s face it, after forty, we need STRENGTH and FLEXIBILITY and ballet and dance and OTHER for motivation, am I right?
So. I’m still contemplating.
- 6-12 miles per week and/or 150 minutes per week, therefore 7800 minutes in 2021. This leaves me the flexibility of 15 miles ran each week and/or other workouts. At least I’ll be active!
- Writing 500-1000 words per day, five days per week. Even at 500 words for 260 days =130,000 words per year, which for me is about two novels… not enough for the two series I want to put out! 260,000 would get me about four shorter-than-80,000 word novels… Gotta go for 1k per day, five days per week.
- Listen to podcast each morning, possibly during breakfast half hour so kids can come and go from the kitchen to also catch a majority of the twenty minute faith time…
- Go to be earlier and get up to WRITE. To journal/blog here and WRITE my words (as mentioned in #2)
- There’s also an instagrammer I follow who steps outside barefoot to pray ground herself each day and I love this part of a morning routine. I might try it? Does she living in a wintry climate like WI like I do? I can’t remember and will look into this and get back to you and this goal.
What are your resolutions for this new year? I would say a very important new year for goal setting after making it through last year. I had lazy moments last year, no matter how difficult life was, I expect better from myself.
I will definitely be making it happen this year.
cecelia earl 