Tag Archives: resolutions

Declutter 2017: The Hamburger Pencil Holder

Emotions, Things, ,

Except for a misplaced electric wire, our basement remodel is complete. We spent this afternoon putting items back where they belong and deciding what to toss, what to donate and what to keep. It is very hard to me to get rid of things because …what if I will need it in the future even though I have not used it in two decades and it is beginning to rust? (toss) …but that was my mom’s! (keep)  …maybe someday I will find a record player that plays 78s! (keep for now).

So, apparently, there is a book that says if you hold an item and it gives you joy keep it, if not get rid of it (or something like that we have a copy of the book but I cannot find it so I have not read it yet). Some of the things I held today definitely did not bring me joy (toss), but some did (keep). One of the items that I held today was a gift from my favorite student ever whose mom is my favorite mother of a student ever. It gives me a lot of joy because of who gave it to me.

It is unique and kitschy and  full of memories and I want to keep it but since I really don’t use pencils or pens that much anymore, I really don’t use the pencil holder. It has sat, empty, for years on the shelf in the basement office but once sat on my desk at work and held extra (sharpened) pencils for my students to use. I may end up tossing it, even though it brings me joy, but not quite yet…

New Year Resolutions v.2017

Musings, , ,

I always make resolutions — usually privately — and never actually accomplish anything. One year I was going to learn Danish. Nope, didn’t happen. (nope, skete ikke). One year I was going to stop procrastinating. Again, nope, didn’t happen). Exercise? Nope.

This year I’m doing something different. I simply want to learn a new thing each month. New things like how to parallel park, how to make gnocchi, and more about our personal finances. I also want to take this year to finally organize the house — declutter, I suppose — by tackling a different part of the house each month. This month it is the basement since we are halfway there anyway with the remodel.

That’s it. I am not making any other resolutions.

We’ll see how it goes.

Promises

Musings, , , ,

I don’t make resolutions.

Well, actually that is a lie.

I do.

Sort of.

I make annual promises to myself around the first of the year and usually by the end of the first week in January I’ve broken all of my promises. Last year I decided that even if I broke promises I’d re-make them as soon as I broke them and do this all year and hopefully I’d be a better person by December 31, 2011.

Well, that didn’t work either. I was the same person on December 31, 2011 as I was on December 31, 2010.

This year I decided to set 12 goals for myself — one for each month of the year (which ends in 12 — how cute is that?). My plan was to concentrate on one thing each month — trying to make it a habit.

I started out with the goal of walking at least a mile a day.

On January 1, just after my morning coffee I put on my walking shoes, tied my hair back in a ponytail holder, put on my coat and, according to my smartphone application, walked 1.3 miles.

Monday and Tuesday's routes
Monday and Tuesday’s routes

On January 2, just before dark I put on my walking shoes, tied my hair back in a ponytail holder, put on my heavy down coat and, according to my smartphone application, walked 1 mile.

[Please note that I walked the exact same route. Interesting that on 1-1-2021 it was .3 miles longer than on 1-2-2012.]

On January 3 I suggested we go out for dinner. We walked from the parking lot to the restaurant to the movie theater and back to the parking lot. I told myself that had to be a mile. It according to Google Maps it really was less than half a mile.

On January 4 I didn’t leave the house. (that was the day the furnace quit and the temperature outside did’t get out of the low 20s)

On January 5 Clare and I went to the mall. We may or may not have walked a mile.

Today I plan on walking to the Bethesda Community Store to buy some fish for dinner. Maybe I will take the long way. I doubt it will be a mile.

Yeah, I don’t make resolutions…