A new year is here, and with new years come new promises of change!
It’s 2021, and the bar is the floor in terms of standards. All 2021 has to do is be less terrible than 2020. I wonder how we as a society can either keep that bar, raise it, or lower it into the dirt. We’re two days in, so who can say?
As of now, it is looking more and more like society will be “remote” until June-late summer of this year. That gives me eight more months of isolation to actually complete the tasks I wanted to get done when this first started last March! That said, life DOES go on outside of quarantine, and there are so many things that I could do even if I had a commute five days a week and the opportunity to go wherever I wanted at any time of day. Here’s some of my biggest goals for 2021:
1. Redesign the blog. I’m thinking that this little corner that I get to manage could use a new paint job. New colors? New layout? New font? I haven’t decided yet! Along with that, I want to be more vigilant with the “Read More” feature, and adding featured images to each post. I want this site to look clean, concise, and pretty!
2. Sharpen my Spanish. I can understand Spanish well, and speak it to a degree of survival, but my ability to write an essay in Spanish is completely gone. I want to be back to near fluency by the end of the year, if not fully fluent! I have roughly six years, give or take, of school learning, and not enough real life application. Aaron speaks Spanish, as does his mother, so I’d like us all to speak Spanish more when we see each other, too!
3. Learn a new language. I would love if by the end of the year, my slightly-more-than-rudimentary understanding of Spanish can be met with a new language. I was thinking French or Italian, but I’m not opposed to Hebrew, either! I keep saying I want to learn Mandarin, too, but that’s a whole other alphabet. That might be too spicy a challenge!
4. Do Blogmas. On Youtube, vloggers will post 25 videos in December all the way up to Christmas. Hence the name, “Vlogmas!” I am eager to accomplish this challenge in December.
5. Post Consistently on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Hey, look ma! It’s Saturday!
6. Take Care of my Hair. I spent the last year focusing on my skin. It’s been very beneficial, and I will continue to keep up healthy practices! This year, I want to pay special focus to my hair. I have some patchiness that could be from weak strands, but also from stress! I want my hair to look and feel healthier, and I also want to learn how to style it without going to a salon. I’ll give updates on my hair as the year goes on each month!
7. Read the Books I Didn’t Read Last Year. I want to read the other 21 books that I wanted to read in 2020 that I didn’t get around to reading. In my next post, I’ll post my December reads, as well as a list of other books I’d like to complete by the end of 2021 that weren’t finished last year! I still have my intent on only reading books that I’ll enjoy, so if I don’t FINISH all of them, that’ll be okay, as long as I give each one a fair shot.
8. Moisturize with Sunscreen Every Day. Remember my skin resolution? This is my new practice! Now that my acne is less of an issue, I’m shifting my focus to preventing sun damage and aging effects.
9. Drink More Water. I have a brand new Yeti water bottle that keeps my water cold for hours. I want to drink two Yeti bottles worth of water each day. It’s a habit that will take developing, but water is what will make my skin better, hair better, digestion better, sleep better, mood better… you get it!
10. Play Chess Once a Week. I and the rest of the world started thinking about and playing chess after watching “The Queen’s Gambit.” I had always wanted to learn, and Aaron is quite good! I bought a chess board and had him teach me at the end of 2020, so I’d like to actually be a good player this year.
11. Finally Watch “The Crown,” “The Undoing,” “Little Fires Everywhere,” “The Undoing,” “The Haunting of Hill House,” and “The Haunting of Bly Manor.” These shows have dominated my newsfeeds for the past few months, if not a few years, for some of them. I’m in lockdown. I have no reason to not finally watch these shows. What am I doing in my time? My best. Sometimes. I don’t know. I’m just gonna burn through all of these one at a time.
12. Become a Master Listener on Audible and earn all Audible badges. In 2020, I fell in love with Audible books. I really did. They’re a great way to get some reading done with all the fun of a radio serial. The Audible app has levels of status depending on your listening time. I want to make it to the top-tier of Master Listener, along with earning their myriad of available badges. Do I get some real world prizes from this? Discounts on books? No. It’s just an arbitrary reward system that I get nothing out of except pride and accomplishment. They know me so well.
13. Run a 30 Minute 5K. Last year, as quarantine shut down the gyms, I did Couch25K, a program that aims to train even the most new to fitness to run a 5k. My best time was around forty minutes. I’d love to shave that down to thirty!
14. Actually Use my Camera. Aaron got me a lovely wedding gift in 2018: a brand new camera! I haven’t had much opportunity to use it for anything since our honeymoon. This year, I want to take photos and improve my skills behind the camera.
15. Whiten My Teeth. I have full boxes of Crest Whitening Strips. I need to use them. My smile is one of my best features! I should do more to take care of it!
16. Write More. I’ve been sitting on a handful of ideas since before quarantine started, and I even wrote down basic concepts of a few more in the past year. But as any writer/publisher will tell you, it’s one thing to say “I’m going to write a story about x” vs. actually writing it. I volunteer!
In regards to 2020 resolutions following me into 2021, I do intend to write 106 blog posts this year (minimum), keeping up my skin care routine (see 6, 8, and 9), and working out to build up the strength needed to do pull-ups and push ups. In that capacity, I will be doing a full health journey this year, incorporating different workouts, foods, and mindfulness activities. It’s not a full-fledged resolution, but you’ll still see different aspects documented this year!
Okay. Declarations over for now. Let’s execute! 2021!