Tag: Kalends

Kalendae Januariae: 2014’s Goals

Dear Internet,
Last year I decided to go on a bender of self-improvement, which I called the Kalends project (and the series list is at the beginning of this piece). The idea sprang from something I had read about the history of the Kalends, which could be summed up as such:

This single day contains the whole year in it, so that what you do during those spare twenty four hours will determine the character of the remaining three hundred and sixty four.

I broke down the improvement plan over four different sections, with a follow up in November. The fifth element, the Making Happy project, could also be tied into my goals. The sixth goal, about getting fit, has been sitting in draft format since December 2012; that still needs to be written
So here we are, 2014. If the Kalends are true and what I did in the last 24 hours sets the tone, then it’ll be Sherlock and popcorn and good dark chocolate until the cows come home.
But I digress.
What I did not account for, of course, was how many setbacks I would have at the beginning of the year between my second ankle surgery, mental health issues galore, wonky work schedules, and whatever else life throws at you. I crawled up inside myself more than I had liked, I set some very necessary boundaries, and  pissed off a number of people.
[Aside: I’m tired of people stating resolutions/goals are cliche because to me, it indicates a lack of self-improvement, life long learning, and wanting to simply grow as a human being. At that point, if you’re not willing to even grow, what is the point?]
Personally, this last year has been one of much growth even if that growth has at a snail pace. The setting of boundaries, the dispensing of fraught relationships, the ability to recognize the crazy when it happens has been tremendous success in helping me define a better path for myself even if that path doesn’t make itself visible to the naked eye. It was painful, scary, and downright terrifying at times, but I did pull through. I always pull through. So even if at first blush I come off as a chaotic train wreck, when compared to how it could have possibly gone, I am positively in a great space.
I treasure that. And you, readers, of course.

Gender bending smoking kid, circa early 1900s.
Gender bending smoking kid, circa early 1900s.

So what’s ahead for 2014?
Buy Nothing 2014
To buy nothing in 2014, unless it’s necessary (food, gas, or related),
to genuinely replace, or renews an existing service (i.e. Spotify, Netflix, etc)
What prompted me to start reining in the funds was the 114 orders on Amazon (one every two days) and lord knows what else I bought in 2012. In 2013, I dropped it down to 40 orders from Amazon, much of it spent on gifts or household items rather than items of unnecessary delight. Instead of buying things outright, I asked for them for gifts for holidays/birthdays/etc, and stopped buying things I did not need unless it was to replace. I did see some financial gain from this but with not enough to make a decent savings since other financial considerations came into play later in the year. 2014 will be even more strict and I’ll start being more judicious on recording everything I spend and saving what I can.
2014 will be the year of creativity (even if it kills me)
This was one area I was not as improved on as I had hoped, but talking to my friend Amy who gave an impressive display of her own improvements in 2013, really kicked up my own notches to get going on my own projects. Cheers Amy, for the inspiration kick in the pants!
Year of the written word
Read all the books/comics I own before buying more. Surprisingly doing better with this as time goes on. In fact, I’ve been most impressed that majority of the books I’ve read for 2013 I read in November/December, of which five I finished in one week. Still plowing through the TBR pile, lots of reading being done online for research for the book as opposed to pleasure reading.
Writing
In January 2013, I said I wanted to:

  • Write 10 hours a week  (Does not include blogging)
  • Write 250 word blog entries 5x a week (Get proficient enough to knock it out in 1/2 hour).
  • Keep notes on everything
  • Write a short story a month.
  • Write a poem a month.
  • Get something published by my birthday in June

January 1 – December 31, I wrote 151K words over 171 posts / 31 pages. Beyond that, my biggest accomplishment is this post marks the 63rd day in the row I’ve written and posted in this space. What started as a simple challenge in November to complement NaNoWriMo, has become a routine. A glorious routine, I must add. In those 62 previous days, I wrote 67,5 K words (almost half my yearly count in two months!) over 63 posts (some days had two posts).  In November I said,

This does not include any notes, work done on paper, editing of pre-2013 posts, and so forth. Add another a rather conservative estimate of 25K words for over 100,000 words this year alone and for that, I’m really proud. Sure, I didn’t get a poem or prose published, but that’s also okay. I’ve got a better sense of what I want to do and what I want to write, and I know I can always do better. Produce more. Leave a mark on the world. Keep pushing forward.

Another challenge I did for an entire year was the Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes project, which tracks all the things I wrote, watched, read, listened to, and liked. What was striking about this particular project is I’m now seeing others do variations of it across the web, so even if I’m not a direct inspiration it’s still pretty cool to see others doing something similar.
The other big thing with writing is I took my fiction writing more seriously, finished a few short stories (which I’m still waiting for TheHusband to edit), and started serious research on a book series I have had mapped in my head since the summer of 2012. I had said, quite seriously, I was going to write the entire first book during my 3.5 week vacation but my mania got in the way as well as other things. But that I had researched and outlined the first six chapters was farther than before, so I feel pretty good about what I’ve accomplished. I may not have gotten anything professionally published this year, but my output, research, and strengths are increasing. Next year will be even better.
So not exactly spot on and perfect, but I’m fairly pleased with the results. Keep pushing forward.
teh interwebs
It can broken down to this:

  • Unsubscribe from unnecessary mailing lists
  • Delete unused social media accounts
  • Stop following people/services/accounts/blogs that no longer hold my interest/are not engaging
  • Get the archives back up
  • Stop buying domains
  • Stop obsessively checking social media accounts

In my November update, I was pretty sussed with how things were turning out. I was keeping with where I wanted to be with the one exception of the last one: checking social media. Also in November, I made the decision to deactivate my personal Facebook account which turned out to be a really good idea. As of January 1, I’m taking mental health break hiatus from Twitter as well, though I’ll be posting via apps over the course of the time. I need to refocus, concentrate, and work on some big deal projects that are upcoming and putting my energy into something else.
Lastly, the Making Happy and the get fit components which I hope to be writing more about in the near future.
What are you doing for 2014?
xoxo,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2011

on making happy

Medieval Angry Birds, Add MS 42130, f. 145r; via The British Library
Medieval Angry Birds, Add MS 42130, f. 145r; via The British Library

Dear Internet,
Now that my challenge for November of writing every day is over, I decided to start setting additional monthly challenges for myself to see how I will fare with those. For the month of December I decided I will attempt to spend most of my writing time on working out what it means to be happy, which I am sure you will agree, is no small feat. Philosophers have spent lifetimes decoding what the simple phrase “being happy” means and there is almost never any universal agreement. While I do not think I will have it figured out in 30 days, I do want to make an honest stab at what decoding it for myself entails with pure intent, without guile, and without a handful of snark.
That last bit will be hardest to overcome, I am sure.
Lest you be afraid of my cynical heart of getting in the way, I will have some help. I will be using Gala Darling’s DARE/DREAM/DO email seminar which I bought back in October and have not started yet. I do not remember how I found Ms. Darling, but I have been enamoured with her site for quite some time and appreciate how much she posits that to be happy means work. Hard work. She is not shy on giving you straight forward advice either, which also seduced me to her.
As DARE/DREAM/DO was designed to be a one a day thing, I will  be tackling and writing each day individually. Since I am starting this a few days after the first of December, the DARE/DREAM/DO sequence will go over into early January.
Additionally, I will also be looking at techniques from Zen Habits. If you have been following along with my posts on minimal packing, a lot of my inspiration came from Leo Babauta. Lastly, I will be also incorporating any articles, posts, or bits that I have stumbled upon along the way and adding them into the mix.
Because I fear this will be a massive month of writing, as I also plan to do other writing on top the making happy challenge, if you’re interested in following along with me, add the Making Happy feed to your RSS reader or just click on the Making Happy tag to see what is going on and where I am at. And as always, if you have any suggestions for sites, articles, books, or something else entirely you think I should read/view/hear, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
I was partially inspired to shape this challenge by a recent blog post by Theodora Goss and wholly inspired by her entry title, because it was a kick in the pants reminder happiness does not just come to you, it has to be worked for and earned.

But I believe that happiness is different: it’s a day to day, minute by minute thing. Whether I am happy at any give moment can depend quite a lot on whether or not I am eating a cupcake. If I am eating a cupcake, I am happy. (Depending on the cupcake, of course. I mean, I’m picky.) Happiness does in fact depend on things outside ourselves, so to make ourselves happy, we need to change things outside ourselves. (At least, that’s a lot easier than just trying to be happy, which I think is a very hard thing to do. Make yourself be happy, try to produce an internal state of happiness without changing anything external . . . Much easier to buy a cupcake.) Theodora Goss

She then goes on to list the things, simple things really, on what makes her happy. After reading her post, I tried to come up with a list of things off the top of my head in the same vein and found myself struggling with that list, but here it is:

  • Really good, dark chocolate. Sometimes all I need is just a bite to satiate me and make me happy
  • A fancy bubble bath with good smelling soaps and a book to read while I soak
  • Watching my stock pile of Jane Austen and related movies. Fictional, influenced, blatant rip-off – doesn’t matter. My world always seems to be brighter when I spend a few hours with Jane.
  • Wearing something from my collection of BPAL scents. I have a few non-BPAL oils but BPAL almost always wins hands down for selection, price, and smell.
  • I can listen to Elbow‘s entire catalog on repeat forever and never get tired of Guy Garvey’s voice. May I present their rendition of Beyonce’s Independent Woman, as played out by kittens.
    [iframe width=”420″ height=”315″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/zSQDR1yF3uQ?rel=0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]
  • Listening to Cabin Pressure, as defined here.

Small list, but a good start.
It should be noted when I went through Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) training for my Borderline Personality Disorder, much of the training concentrates on the purpose of self-soothing techniques for when I go into crisis, of which much of that training seems I have misplaced over the last few years. So this is a good reminder to stockpile those skills because there will be a point in the future when I am in crisis again. But it is also good to have this list of happy making readily available not for when I’m in crisis, but a reminder of what makes me whole.
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe:

Kalendae Januariae: November Update

Dear Internet,
When I started writing the Kalendae Januariae, I didn’t really have a plan in mind on when to update other than I should do it often. Scarily, I find myself  now almost an entire year gone since the first entry; since the first of the month is about renewals, it was seemed like a good time to see how I’m progressing.

Buy Nothing in 2013

In 2012, I placed 114 orders from Amazon. This did not include digital files, or orders placed with other vendors which would push that number even higher. As of November 1, 2013, I’ve placed only 29 orders via Amazon and I’ve hardly bought any t-shirts this year! A dramatic drop in spending compared to the year before and obviously I’m beyond thrilled that I could cut my spending so drastically. Am I reaping any benefits from the lack of shopping? Sadly, no. My income drops dramatically in the summer and I’ve had to pay for work conferences galore. Thus all cash saved from not spending it on me, went right into travel, lodging, and conference fees. It’s frustrating.
I do find myself being more conscientious on making instant spending decisions. The question of, “Do I need another pair of chucks?”, almost always has the answer of, “Probably not.” My biggest problem is, and has been, going out to eat since I do so many work related meetings around lunch or meeting up with friends for drinks after work.  So while I’m not spending money on frivolous things galore, I am still spending a lot of money on entertainment and food.
I decided to hook up You Need A Budget (YNAB) and start implementing the practice as soon as possible. TheHusband has said if I want to do any big trips next year, like Europe, I’ll have to come up with half the cash for the trip and he’ll match it. Right now I’ve saved approximately $92.32, which will pay for the cab to the airport. I started on/off on keeping track of what I am spending and I’d like to boost that up again to actually better track how my disposable income is being spent.

2013 will be the year of creativity (even if it kills me)

2013 has been a crazy year, emotionally, mentally, and physically.
But you know what? That’s okay.
I did not get the opportunity to do the projects I had set out to do this year for this task, but I’m not giving up hope. They are still things that interest me and still things that need to be done. Now that I’m off of Lithium again, and my moods have evened out, I’m feeling a lot better to tackle these projects.

Year of the written word

Read all the books/comics I own before buying more For the most part, this has been kept true. My book/comic buying have been reduced dramatically, but my reading for the year is still as haphazard as before. I still do not think finishing a book a week is out of the question, but again, this year has been a crazy year of emotional, mental, and physical ups and downs. While I may not be reading as many books, I AM reading our delivered newspapers and magazines regularly, so there is some comfort in that.
In January, I said I wanted to

  • Write 10 hours a week  (Does not include blogging)
  • Write 250 word blog entries 5x a week (Get proficient enough to knock it out in 1/2 hour).
  • Keep notes on everything
  • Write a short story a month.
  • Write a poem a month.
  • Get something published by my birthday in June

While I have not followed these steps exactly, again I don’t think these goals are not unreasonable, I am pretty proud of the output I did this year. According to a word stat counter, since January 1, I:

  • Wrote 82, 261 words over
  • 108 posts (average 11 posts a month) and 17 pages

This does not include any notes, work done on paper, editing of pre-2013 posts, and so forth. Add another a rather conservative estimate of 25K words for over 100,000 words this year alone and for that, I’m really proud. Sure, I didn’t get a poem or prose published, but that’s also okay. I’ve got a better sense of what I want to do and what I want to write, and I know I can always do better. Produce more. Leave a mark on the world. Keep pushing forward.
Strangely the thing I’m most proud of is I have not skipped a week of Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes. I set a goal to do something every week and I did it. It’s small, but as this is the first time I’ve ever actively worked on something to the end.

teh interwebs

Unsubscribe from unnecessary mailing lists Always ongoing, I’ve been unsubscribing left and right with the intent of getting my mail in order. But, and there is always a but, my mail is still a bloody mess. One thing I have discovered is my filters were part of the problem, so I removed filters from all incoming mail which has worked tremendously. But my mail is still a mess, but a more manageable mess.
Delete unused social media accounts Always ongoing. Like the mailing list conundrum, I’d get a random email from some company I had signed up with years ago to find out they are now active/selling their business/something and I have to go in and scrape my data. Or I discovered I am not actually using the site all that much anymore. In becoming ever vigilant in being able to control my data
Stop following people/services/accounts/blogs that no longer hold my interest/are not engaging  The mass culling is constant still. I’ve either moved companies/people/brands to separate feeds or stopped following them altogether.  I found, however, that I don’t actually follow or read the separate feeds and you know, I don’t miss it. I’m also being more aggressive in getting stuff out of my RSS feeds by reading them in a more timely basis / cleaning up uninteresting things. I stopped apologizing to myself for unfollowing people who aren’t my cup of tea anymore.
Get the archives back up  YES! I have been doing this! Anyone following the Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes knows without fail I’ve been diligent almost every week getting some of the archives up. It’s slow work, a lot slower than I had anticipated, but it is going on.
Stop buying domains No new domains were purchased in 2013. Huzzah!
Stop obsessively checking social media accounts  Not as much as a problem as it was earlier in the year, but still a problem. I’m finding myself more and more with having time on my hands, checking FB/Twitter and the like, and then having nothing else to do despite the fact I have over a 100 apps on my phone. Because this is where it becomes problematic is when I’m out and about and not always in the position of carrying a book, magazine, or something
Overall, not a bad start. Next year is going to be even better.
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012, 2011, 2011, 1998

Kalendae Januariae: Buy Nothing in 2013

Dear Internet,
When I was flip-flopping on figuring out how to celebrate the holidays with TheHusband (for if we are to truly to create our own traditions, then, we must create these traditions rather than sidestepping the old simply because we didn’t feel like making them work), I had come across an article which discussed the giving of gifts on the 1st of January that begin during the reign of King Stephen of England. For some reason which I cannot remember, when attempting to retrace my steps to get back to the article to pass on to TheHusband, I could not find the originating article I had read (and my Chrome history across all my devices was also of no help), instead I stumbled upon lots of references to an old Roman festival (of sorts), Kalendae Januariae. The Kalends, the first of each month, was the day when payment of interest was due in Rome, which then started to expand to include festivals surrounding those days. While the first of the new Roman year was in March, at some point near the end of BCE, the Kalends of January (Kalendae Januariae) became associated with the dawn of the near year along with its various rituals and festivals,  which were nothing short of Bacchanal delights (apparently after everyone paid their taxes and gave loyalty to the emperor).
Since most of my cursory research on this festival has been mainly academic (and in Latin), I really liked this summary of the Kalends of January, which sums it up pretty succinctly:

This single day contains the whole year in it, so that what you do during those spare twenty four hours will determine the character of the remaining three hundred and sixty four.

For the last several months, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make the changes I needed to make to live the life I want. The ankle surgery and starting to see my therapist were two of the major steps, but now it was time to start working on the smaller ones.
Kristin, who is going to be my support crutch as I am to hers, has written up her list of how she’s going to make 2013 more powerful than ever.  First up:

Buy nothing in 2013, unless it’s necessary (food, gas, or related),
to genuinely replace, or renews an existing service (i.e. Spotify, Netflix, etc)

 No new books, music, comics, movies, DVDs, clothes, shoes, bags, gadgets, houses, LEGOS, pens, notebooks, domains, and so on. I had over 100 orders on Amazon alone this year (not items, total orders), I own over 150 t-shirt (close to 50 were probably bought in 2012 alone), my To Be Read pile has crawled from the downstairs and worked up to my office and our bedroom, and my Kindle is bursting. I own a lot of stuff. I never use that stuff, I want to use my stuff. Since I’m the queen of side-stepping, I have to continue to clarify such that if a blue cardigan dies, I do not replace it with another cardigan in its stead as I already  own 11 cardigans in a variety of colors and patterns. The end result is to save cash, make better buying choices, and ultimately, but most importantly, use my stuff.
There are exceptions to this rule:

  • I can buy supplies to make presents for other people or buy gifts if I can’t make the present
  • Supplies for my Etsy store are allowed
  • Work related expenses are allowed (except not subtly justifying a new blue cardigan as for “work”)
  • I can’t con TheHusband to buy it for me unless it’s a present for an occasion (birthday, anniversary, etc)

Items that I desire will more than likely get thrown up on my Amazon Wish List and Pinterest for TheHusband (or anyone really) to bestow me with gifts or for ideas for later use.
x0xo,
Lisa