New Year New Goals — Spin the Compass

Happy New Year!

I didn’t post an end of year summary because, frankly, I stopped tracking things in June. It was a lot of the same - political unrest, war, shootings, deaths, sports, cigars, bike trips, travel, pen shows, etc. It wasn’t a bad year overall, but it could’ve been better. And to that end, I’m focusing more on 2024 and moving forward with making MY life better, less stressed, less all-consuming, and, ultimately, happier.

Things I want to work on:

Continue to grow and deepen my relationship with God. I don’t talk about it much here, but I’ve had a shaky relationship with God most of my life. The last year or two, I’ve resisted His calling to come back into the fold, but in 2023, I began my slow walk back into His grace. In 2024, I want to continue down that path. It started last year with listening to Father Mike’s daily Bible in a Year podcast, published by Ascension Press, in which he reads the entire scriptures in one year. Hands down the best way I’ve found to get through all those boring chapters that stopped me in the past, interlaced with commentary on the day’s readings. Highly suggest you give it a listen. I plan to listen to it again this year and am adding the similarly arranged Catholic Catechism in a Year podcast to the daily listening list. I plan to continue my deeper self-paced Bible study as often as I can, utilizing tools such as commentaries, atlases, and biblical dictionaries to gain that deeper understanding of the Holy Word. Starting January 1, I began reading the Liturgy of the Hours as presented by Word on Fire. While the full Hours has something like seven readings daily, and Word on Fire’s version has three main focused readings, I am committing to at least one of the daily readings. I’m not going to stress if I miss a day, but a minimum of one a day seems doable. Last year, I started praying the rosary, although it tended to be a bit sporadic, and this year I hope to make that a more regular prayer practice. Lastly, I’ve been scouting out different churches to find a “home base”, although my varying schedule will require me to attend different churches different weeks, based on mass scheduling and other commitments. Once I’ve found a home church, I plan to have a sit down with the priest to discuss this feeling of being drawn in and what it might mean for my future plans.

Continue playing with pens. There will be lots of pens used this year. I’m being taken to one more pen show this year with Kanilea Pens, the California Pen Show, along with the other four I attended last year - BWI Pen Show, Chicago Pen Show, DC Supershow, and San Francisco Pen Show. I’d also like to personally attend the Atlanta Pen Show, if I can arrange the time off. I also want to cull the herd, if you will. I have many pens that don’t see regular use, and it’s time to sort them out, and sell them to someone who can love and use them more than I am. Those that stay, I want to use more regularly. My journaling was very sporadic last year. I’d like to get back into at least a weekly journal entry habit. I’m also planning to start a daily short snippet journal, or maybe a gratitude journal of sorts, using a 5-year journal. I need to focus on more positive aspects of daily life than I have in the past, and maybe this will be the way to get me into that mindset.

Keep on reading. I hit my mark - barely - of 100 books for 2023, finishing book #103 on December 31. I’ve completed one already this year and have three more that are probably 50-75% completed going into the New Year. I’ve once again set a 100-book goal, but this year, I also want to track PAGES read. I have no prior statistical data on how many pages I’ve read per year (I suppose I could go back and figure it out but it’s easier to do a “moving forward” tracking…) but I have a feeling that in the past two or three years my reading has taken a turn away from short books and moved into longer reads, meaning number of books won’t be “apples to apples” from previous years. Last year, specifically, I felt I read more than I had in years past, but barely matched actual number of books, so I must be reading longer books. I’d like to quantify that.

Find my camera again. While I’m always taking pictures with my cell, I’d like to get back into using my dSLR and maybe even process them up for sale at some point. Everyone is always telling me they’d like certain pics as a framed picture, I just haven’t had the time or energy to do it. Maybe 2024 will be the year… but ultimately, I miss the creativity that photography provided me, especially since my day job has stripped all creativity out of the entire thing. I find my mental health is reliant on some level of creative outlet.

Work on decluttering… well, everything. My lifestyle has too much static background noise that needs to be filtered out so my inner thoughts can be heard. My brain still has emotions and dreams that need to be sifted, marinated, and baked up to be of any use. My house still has piles and boxes from moving in that need to be sorted and discarded. I need to finish setting up furniture, and it would be glorious if I actually hung some blinds before the end of my fourth year in the house - unless the goal is to sell the house and move elsewhere. Lots in my life to declutter.

Get back on the physical fitness train. I fell off mid-year in 2023, due mostly to some drama that obfuscated and absconded nearly all my mental capacity, and I had nothing left to put into lifting or riding the Peloton. But the equipment is still there, still ready, still waiting. Santa brought me a nice heater for the garage, so even the cold can’t be an excuse now. To be clear, I never stopped walking as much as I could, because let’s face it, my knee doesn’t care if there’s drama or not in my life. I’ve already begun riding the Peloton, realizing quickly I am starting at square-one again. I will progress steadily back into my comfort levels and get it done. I’d also like to get back into longer hiking, instead of the day hikes I’ve been relegated to the past few years.

Travel more. Obviously, there will be pen show travel, and a couple trips home to see family, but I would like to get back to long weekend trips to the beach or the mountains, maybe even a full week somewhere NOT nearby and not just family time. My bucket list of places I want to visit, both domestic and international, isn’t getting any shorter, and while I have ticked off a few items in the past four years, it’s time to start working through that list with some focused determination.

As you can see, there’s lots of things to work on in the coming months. My last goal for the year is to actually take some down time for myself. Some time to breathe. Some time to think and sort through the internal clouds. Some time to recover and recharge and actually enjoy life. We all need some time for ourselves.