Zimena

First of all: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As we all know, I'm not a big fan of New Year's Eve. It's a day that tends to make me look back on the past year, and remind me of everything that didn't change this year either. As in, it's a reminder of my social awkwardness and shyness; of me wishing I had more friends and connections and meaningful things to do with other people in real life.

This year, though? I actually have more of these things than I've ever had. Ever since I started attending an exercise group late last year, I've made new friends via that place. It's not that I haven't had friends before or anything, but most of my long-time friends do not live nearby, so we cannot see each other regularly, even if we speak on the phone or do video chats regularly. I've just never had any close friends near me; near enough to visit or do things together whenever we want. But: I have that now. People from that exercise group (especially one person from there), as well as one of my neighbours, who became a much closer friend over the past year or maybe a bit more.

So, in short, my "New Year, same old me" depressive mood isn't there this year. It doesn't mean I'm not still shy as I always were, though. But the truth is still that I'm in a better place with this than I used to be.

That said, I'm still ignoring the fireworks and the New Year celebrations to the best of my ability, so I'm spending the first 20 minutes or so of the new year writing this post. The fireworks outside have already quieted down quite a bit, so I guess I might actually go to sleep at some half-decent hour tonight - which isn't such a bad thing, considering I screwed up my sleep pattern heavily during Christmas. Like, staying up until 4-5am and sleeping until noon kind of screwing up. That's not going to work in the long run, so let's see if I can sleep any earlier than that today.

So, as for 2024, I'm hoping to post a bit more actively here. I kind of fell out of DW-ing for an age, but I sort of miss it. Of course it doesn't mean posting every day, but if I could get back into a posting pattern where I actually think of posting on DW whenever something happens, then that would be a good thing.

I'm also planning to do something from the snowflake_challenge this year, so let's see how that goes.

As for other goals that I've set, here you go:
* Read one book per month
* Study language 20 minutes/day, 5 days a week.
* Make a proper home-made dinner at least once a week
(as in, actually cook something myself, not use pre-packaged "easy" solutions, microwave food etc)
* Walk the stairs 3x/week
(There are stairs in my building, I just always use the lift. I'm realising that if I don't maintain the ability of walking stairs, it'll be hard for me to do it in other places where it might be necessary. Like the cousin's stairs were hard when I was there at Christmas, for example - even though I did manage to learn them better before we left. My plan is to just go downstairs from here, and then back up. Just to do stairs, for my body to not forget how.)

Other than that, I also wish to write more regularly, but I haven't been able to formulate that into a goal yet.

Same with my music stats - I would like to get back into making those, as I fell out of it this year.

That's all for the first post of the year. Let's make 2024 a year to remember on Dreamwidth as well.

So, first of all: Happy New Year, dear friends! Thanks for being with me and caring about me this year. I hope you get to celebrate the start of the new year in the way that is best for you, and I hope 2019 will bring you all lots of happiness, joy, and success.

I'm not really a fan of this day, as it tends to make me thoughtful and somewhat sad. That, coupled with my dislike of people shooting fireworks to the sky all evening and night, usually makes me want to skip straight from December 30 to January 1. But of course that didn't work this year either. So, because I want to end the old year AND start the new one on a positive note instead of a sad one, I have some goals for the new year. (Yes, I call them goals - if I called them resolutions, I would break them within three hours anyway. I might anyway, you say? Yes, maybe, but they're still goals).

... Things I want to do (more of)

* Read regularly (books, ebooks, manga).
* Knitting (I found an old learning project I started a few years ago. I still want to learn to do this properly.)
* Eat healthy (or at least eat less junk food and/or chocolate).
* Do daily stretches.
* Get out daily (if nothing else, just go to the nearest corner.)

Those are the important and somewhat doable ones. There are also some other things I'd ideally like to do more of, like driving practice and language studies and writing, but I'm not sure I feel ready to commit to doing them regularly, for different reasons in each case. Writing, for me, depends heavily on inspiration, and also on making myself sit down to work with that inspiration. Language studies - especially getting back into practicing and studying Czech - are a problem because I'm lazy. If I study, I enjoy it, but there are countless other things I also enjoy and tend to choose instead of studying. Finally, you all know my feelings about driving practice. I wish I could drive well enough to feel safe and comfortable doing it, but I also wish I could get there without putting myself through the endless torture of doing it WITHOUT feeling good enough at it. I know, I know, that's an impossibility.

So, not putting these last three in the goals list, even though I want to do them, too.

In any case, have a safe end of 2018 and a happy, smiley hello to 2019 when it's time to welcome the new year in your part of the world.

See you next year! 🎆