Wednesday, January 24, 2018

So...second post regarding Resolutions and a new Five-Year Plan:

New Year Resolutions, 2018
(1) continue to rediscover self – a permanent goal. Lifelong!
(2) continue to tick the bucket list – another lifelong goal. Who could tick them all?
(3) maintain family, friends, and professional contacts – The extended family database was passed to a nephew and a cousin. Maintain my copy and contacts for our immediate family. Organize and make better use of professional contacts.
(4) continue to travel together, alone, and in groups to new places, for interests, for fun – as we have. No plans made; exploring options. Eventually to the UK, Europe, and parts of Canada we have yet to visit; more trips to BC; and back to Australia at some point. Over several years. Possibly Nashville in the future.
(5) dance and play - ukulele, classes and practice, and BalletFit - plus French – try Rosetta Stone again! Call Boleo (6 tango classes still to do.) Major goal: play ukulele well enough to play my own songs. Perform as often as possible. Accept all opportunities.
(6) repair body as well as possible through healthy diet, exercise, and with medical help – Continue GF, eat more vegetable-based diet, exercise more often (walk 30 minutes daily plus BalletFit weekly.) Continue monthly massage, pedicure, and physio exercises. Look after teeth and eyes. Follow up skin treatments.
(7) write one hour daily minimum: blog, tweets, fb, mail, email, stories, & songs – nope! See short term goals for social media first. Be more organized in terms of what I write and when. Submit more often to songwriting competitions and literary publications. 
(8) sort one hour daily minimum - be flexible! Office bins, photos, cupboards, clothes, etc.
(9) continue weight loss with healthy diet, less booze, more exercise. Do not stress about it!
10) budget and plan for me, us, family, and future – continue to transfer surplus funds to family expenses monthly. Continue to put $ aside monthly for projects (Wild Cat 2018). Keep books up to date, prep taxes a la Gold accountants for registered business and joint tax returns. Increase revenue from cds, royalties, music, writing, performances. 

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

This will be a series of posts as I develop New Year Resolutions and Five Year Plan

First an evaluation of the resolutions I made in 2012, 6 months after I retired. I will jump off of a progress report in 2014. I definitely feel a new 5-year plan coming on. Let’s see how I'm doing now. 
(1) continue to rediscover self – yes! I created and met new challenges. Some I simply abandoned.
(2) continue to tick the bucket list – yes! I recorded some songs (Celtic Cat 2015, Cool Cat 2017) and travelled to the red centre of Australia. Other items remain or are vague, stalled, or replaced.
(3) maintain family, friends, and professional contacts for us and Mom – ah! Mom passed away in 2015 at the amazing age of 101, 4 months, and 9 days. Last year, I sent the extended family database to a nephew and a cousin for use in hosting family gatherings. However, I will maintain my copy.
(4) travel together, alone, and in groups to new places, for interests, for fun – yes, to St. Lucia, Dominican Republic, Portugal, Florida, and Australia. In June 2012, I went to France with the Jacksonville Women. I attended ASN conferences in the USA each fall. We visited BC, Ottawa and various Ontario spots.  The big trips were to Australia - 1 month in 2012, 2 ½ months in 2016.
(5) dance and play - tango and ukulele, classes and practice - plus French - get Rosetta Stone, join a bilingual MeetUp – oh, boy! Dropped tango, pilates, and dancefit due to my knees. BalletFit works! Also physiotherapy. In general, I abandon exercise unless called for. I took ukulele from Judy and loved it. Now I take a weekly class with Mark and slowly improve. But it seems I cannot practice! Just as I cannot go beyond the first Rosetta Stone disk, Started 3 times. Not bilingual, me!
(6) repair body as well as possible through healthy diet, exercise, and with medical help – yes! Replaced the knees in 2014! Learned that I am intolerant or sensitive to either wheat or gluten according to my GE, which helped explain why I lost so many symptoms and so much weight when I started eating GF in 2014. I have retained the weight loss ever since and swear by GF for my gut. 
 (7) write one hour daily minimum: blog, tweets, fb, mail, email, stories, & songs – nope! Still sporadic. But productive at times.
(8) sort house one hour daily minimum: Sun Playroom, Mon Office, Tues Gable Room, Wed Bedrooms, Thurs Bathrooms, Fri Kitchen, Sat Basement – did this for awhile during my first year of retirement. Good to reapply, but not so much room by room. I will think about this point.
(9) resume tracking WW Points Plus and weekly meetings – ack! Forget WW or other weight loss plans. Better eating, new knees, and more activity does it. 

10) budget and plan for me, us, family, and future – yes! We developed a good system for tracking family spending. I may never catch up but do contribute each month. But I also put $ aside for my music and writing projects. In 2017, I registered with an artists' accountant for my registered business (another tick!) which makes tax season tolerable and I do not miss anything.