It’s a new year! I always start them with a little trepidation - what good or not so good - will the new year bring?
A thread about something small - or big - to give yourself a fresh start in some aspect of your life OR the opportunity to try something new. A good, a project, a habit.
NOT a resolution. NOT a “should”. Something that would make you happy and be generally for YOU.
Ready set go January!
I’m going to try to learn Spanish ahead of a summer vacation. I’m doing an online program daily.
I’m getting a new left hip on Tuesday. I’m looking forward to talking walks again and being able to enjoy hiking around the woods in Maine this summer and dancing with our son at his wedding in June.
Sending good vibes for a successful surgery and good recovery!
I love this but will have to give this some thought. Getting through our trip was the big focus for so long. Once I get back and decompress I’ll look ahead.
I have been a caregiver for a parent with dementia for a long time. She died in late October, then a lot of work for her service and reception, clearing out her apartment and so on. Then the holidays. I have finished the hospice bereavement counseling.
As my friend , who also lost her mom recently, said, this is the start of the rest of our life. Tomorrow is January 2, no kids visiting, nothing to get ready, and the possibilities seem endless but daunting. Hoping for a good healthy year for myself and everyone I care about.
Honestly I’m doing the same! A few ideas floating around 
I’m finding my retired, post-covid life waaaaaay too quiet. None of our friends are interested in socializing anymore. (Or maybe they just don’t like me anymore.) For 2023, I’m going to try to make new friends. I’m not sure how yet, but I’m working on it.
This would be a great thread. Too bad some of us can only be online “friends” !
My small fresh start is that I took the decorations off living room tree yesterday and got them down to the storage room in basement. Disassembled tree today and put it in balcony storage closet. It doesn’t really fit in there efficiently (it was a new purchase a few months ago), so need to formulate a plan for better organization there and I need to organize downstairs storage as well. Last year, as I was planning retirement, downsizing & move, S said I would have to get rid of most of my holiday decorations. While I got rid of a significant amount of stuff, my basement storage room has afforded me the opportunity to keep many of my seasonal decorations. Thankful that while it’s a big effort to put things up and take them down, I still have the space to store things and the physical capacity to deal with the up and down of Christmas decorating. I love to organize things, so just have to figure out the right solution.
Since one of my ancient xc boots came apart, I decided it’s time to give snow shoeing a try (it’s been on my bucket list for a while). I rented a pair, and tomorrow I will take them out to the neighborhood lake trail where I usually run.
The first thing I thought of was a re-start of travel. Husband and I both had big birthdays during COVID, and we also retired. This year we’re doing one make-up birthday trip and several other trips, both “big” and small.
Yes, we are restarting travel as well. We will go on one trip to Japan and then another to Denver and NY, where S and his fiancée live. Having good masks and my ENOVID antiviral spray gives me some confidence.
Fresh starting some kitchen cupboard drawers after buying some organization trays. Purge and organize. Part of a winter task of economically refreshing the old kitchen we hope to leave behind soon…
Went to sign up today for an embroidery class - would be a “try something new” - botanical flower class - trouble was, the class was full, but I’m on the waitlist! 
Unfortunately the first something new I’m trying, not by choice, is having Covid for the first time. But I’m also going to try retirement in a couple of months and that will open up time for a whole bunch of new activities - daily exercise, learning weaving and seeing if I will follow through on my interest in writing a novel are my first plans.
Bummer sorry about the Covid!
But congrats on the impending “release from work”!
I saw praise of this line of planners and calendars, so on somewhat of a whim I ordered one for myself. It has sections for a vision statement, goals, mission statement and quote for the year, habit tracking, etc.
Let us know how you like it!
Will do. I already suspect I won’t be using all the “life coaching” sections, but I am going to try to be consistent with at least some of them!
Finally circling back around to this… I have a few…
Track my books on goodread. Many thanks to the thread that talked about this. For the past few years, I’ve just been doing a word document, but it got deleted last year which killed my motivation for the rest of my 2022 goals. I had a back-up document, but it was a few months old and not complete.
Figure out how to elevate my German to the next level. I finished my Duolingo tree late last year. I also have been watching videos and reading baby news (Nachrichtenleicht), but I wanted something else. Duolingo was so great for me learning vocabulary. I downloaded the Seedling app last fall and watch the free easy german videos, but I went ahead and became an easy german member. I think the extra content will be what I need. I also found a book of short stories I’d like to try.
Ultimately, I want to be able to watch movies and catch almost everything without using subtitles. We watched (again) Woman in Gold the other night. And while I could understand a fair amount of the easy sentences without subtitles, most I did need them. I just want to be better. I’d guess I’m A2, possibly B1 level now.