Ramblings About the New Year & a Bunch of Other Stuff

My first post of the New Year is a bit of a ramble. (What else is new, right?) Are you sick of reading about New Year’s resolutions and goal setting yet? I am. Blah. Blah. Blah. Been there. Done that. Of course, if you love that sort of thing, more power to you. Really, I mean that. I’m actually envious. I suck at resolutions, well, the keeping of them part anyway. Resolutions do not motivate me. What about you?

I stopped making New Year’s resolutions years ago. More recently, I gave up on selecting three words to “live by” for the year too. I would pick them and then forget about them – just as I did with resolutions. Last year, I tried affirmations. Though not perfect, that approach worked best for me. This year, I’m ditching them all.

I figure, what’s the point?

I am not a list maker either, btw. Are you? I suspect this is why I don’t get as much done on any given day as I’d like.

This is not to say I do not have goals. I do. I have lots of goals. Daily goals. Weekly goals. Monthly goals. Sometimes hourly goals. I have goals for this blog, some of which I’ll be sharing with you, my dear readers, over the next months. But for the most part, I keep my goals to myself.

One thing I do enjoy about beginning a new year is swapping out my old wall calendars for new ones.

These days, do people even hang up wall calendars? Do you?

I do. But the number of them hanging on my walls has gone down. Way down. This year there will be two. The English Springer Spaniel wall calendar and the English Springer Spaniel wall calendar. Yeah, that’s right. I have two. Same theme. Different calendars. Oops. Sorry, Ninja. Maybe I better pick up one more.

This will be the first year in decades I haven’t bought the Minnesota Weather Guide Calendar. I bought it for my dad for years. Last year I bought it for myself because I couldn’t fathom not buying it. Not buying it seemed too sad. This year, I am feeling the opposite. Buying it feels too sad. Over the past year, I discovered walking by it every day didn’t make me feel better like I thought it would. Mostly, I avoided looking at it. Doing so made me more sad about the fact my dad was no longer here adding his two cents about anything and everything weather related. I miss you just as much this January as last January, Dad. I will miss you forever, but this year buying it makes me more sad than not buying it. So, let’s see how that goes.

Then there are desk calendars. I used to enjoy tearing off a page every day, if only for that scratch paper that naturally accumulated and was put to good use. These days, I don’t do desk calendars.

Do you? 

Many people, maybe even most, do calendar-type stuff on their phones and/or computers these days. I still like the spiral-type daily planner for plugging in appointments, writing down blog post ideas and such. Come to think of it, I don’t have one yet for this year.

I wonder if wall and desk calendars have to some extent, gone by the wayside, sort of like wearing a watch.

Do you still wear a watch? (Did I mention this one’s a ramble?)

I always did. Now. Never.

Phones have become our time keepers, too, have they not? A phone is the new watch, at least for me.

Come to think of it, I don’t even have a bedside alarm clock anymore. Actually, I do, but it’s not plugged in because Ninja sits on it sometimes and inadvertently turns on the radio and/or alarm and/or volume increase button. Yikes! My phone is within arm’s length all night anyway, so there’s no need for another clock, right? I’m not sure if all this phone dependence is a good thing. In fact, I’m pretty sure, it’s not. Oh well, that’s a post for another day…

Beginning another new year is a welcome thing for many of us, including me.

Last year was a rough year. The thing is, in Cancer Land, every year is a rough year for far too many families because cancer, regardless of stage, continues to raise havoc in countless, ongoing ways and because metastatic disease continues to steal too many women and men every single year. This year will mark ten years since my mother died from metastatic breast cancer. Ten years! Where’s the progress on decreasing the number of annual deaths?

And there is the ongoing chaos of the political sort here in the USA. No need to say more, right?

Each of us continues to deal with our own personal challenges, some of which we share about and some we choose not to. The struggles of last year don’t disappear with the changing of a calendar.

Still, no matter what our challenges might be, most of us also begin the New Year with hope and gratitude. It’s human nature to look for a brighter future and fresh starts. It’s also the perfect time (as is every day, of course) to reflect upon the people and things we are grateful for. Among other things, I am grateful for you, my dear readers. It’s lovely to know you’re out there, no matter what the new year brings.

So hello, New Year. It’s good to see you.

Two weeks nearly down. 50 more to go.

No matter where the new year takes us, let’s tackle it together, shall we?

Do you have a goal for the New Year (or for today) that you’d like to share?

What’s your favorite sort of calendar and do you wear a watch?

What will be one of your challenges this year?

Don’t miss out! Get more articles from Nancy’s Point delivered right to your inbox every week.

These two will help keep me grounded in 2018. Who or what will help you?