As January 2022 comes to an end, I reflect on how I’ve kickstarted the new year. Honestly… I’m feeling pretty good!
Today marks the first day of February! I can’t believe that January 2022 flew by so quickly. With my many goals for this year, I really did my best to take each day by day, with purposeful intention. I made adjustments to certain resolutions to maximize efficiency. The productive side of me that jumped out at the end of 2021 stuck around for the new year! How lucky. Certainly, the month was by no means perfect. However, I feel proud of the dent I made in each goal.
Enough preamble! Time is money. Money is power. Power is pizza. Progress!
January 2022 Resolutions
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Wash dishes on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
I ended up changing this resolution to “Tuesdays and Saturdays.” Early in the month, I realized that I did more cooking over the weekend than I thought. Switching from Wednesday to Tuesday led to less build up throughout the week! I feel so satisfied looking at a clean counter, with no dishes needing washing.
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Watch 4 movies a month from “1001 Movies to See Before You Die.”
Check, check, check, check!
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Take a self-care bath weekly.
Of all the resolutions I have made in my life, I regret this one the least. The twenty, thirty, sometimes forty minutes spent in a good soaking tub bring me such peace! I have a starry night light projector, candles, and bubbles/bath bombs as far as the eye can see. Combine it all with a soothing playlist, and I float away on a cloud.
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Clean my bathroom once a month.
Surprisingly, I didn’t push this off to the last weekend of the month! However, I ended up using, um, only bleach and hot water. I misunderstood Aaron telling me to use the “blue bottle of all in one spray” as “use the all over blue bottle spray.” On the upside, my bathroom looks sparkly clean! However, the cats couldn’t access the litter-box in the bathroom for a few hours. They prefer the living room based boxes anyway, but that’s beside the point. This month I will use the correct bottle.
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Wash my bedsheets every two weeks.
So, um… I washed my bed sheets every Sunday. Did I say two weeks? Looks like I’m capable of anything! Score!
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Tidy my bedroom/closet every three days.
This resolution also received some adjustment! I don’t believe I tidied every three days. Sometimes it was three, sometimes it was four. However, all of this to say, my bedroom looks tidier!
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Start every morning (and end every workday) with 15 minutes of yoga.
I started almost every morning with 15 minutes of yoga. It awakens my body, mind, and spirit. However, I have NOT ended every workday with 15 minutes of yoga. I put in that practice to act as a decompresser from a stressful day at work. Thankfully, my workdays have not felt all that stressful! That said, I could use a bit more disconnect between the workday and my evening. Perhaps this month I’ll stick stronger to the post-workday aspect of this resolution!
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Send everyone I love a birthday card.
I sent birthday cards to my brother in law, his girlfriend, and my cousin. In addition, I sent an early one to my future sister-in-law (her birthday is next week)! To really give myself a boost, I got a box of birthday cards from Amazon, a bulk order of over 100 birthday cards. As a result, I don’t even have the excuse of “I forgot to go to the store for a card.” I’m all set!
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Call my grandparents/email my grandpa once a month.
I sent my grandfather a long email, letting him in on my most recent contentment. However, I haven’t hopped on the phone with either of them yet. I should call them this week, and email them two weeks later! To clarify, what I should actually do is book a flight and go visit them in person! I can circle back on that.
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Actually learn ASL, sharpen my Spanish, and learn conversational French.
Watch out world: I can say “Hello,” “Please,” and “Thank you,” in ASL. Last week, I laid out a plan for working on my programming experience. I ought to create a similar plan for this resolution! I like plans. Somewhere this month, I feel like I had the opportunity to interpret something in Spanish. I forget what it was, I just remember that it happened. It probably had something to do with “Encanto,” the latest Disney movie to sweep TikTok.
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Fully learn Javascript (with a focus on standard, Typescript, and Angular), PHP, AWS, and Kubernetes.
Just under the wire– I completed a PHP introductory course that focused on integration with WordPress. I can feel the knowledge growing!
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Get to my goal weight by December 1st.
Wow. Holy cannoli, cheese and rice, golly wolly, gee willikers, wow. I had an incredible start on this month! Taking on the “Veganuary” challenge helped me fall back in love with fruits and veggies. Aaron made a vegan mushroom stroganoff last week that I would consider life-changing. Thanks to City O’City in Denver (and their generous offering of the ingredient list for their incredible iteration), I have almost perfected my mac n’ “cheese” sauce. I’ve gone on nine bike rides, eight runs, and thirteen walks, not to mention the random bits of motion that have brought me to 10K daily steps almost every day in January! I started off really well, and I hope the progress carries through February… and March… and April. You get the idea!
Goal Weight: Current Weight: -
Start, and complete my writing projects.
I’m still finishing up “Save the Cat!” and have yet to start “The Anatomy of Story.” I feel like once I read these two books, I’ll be fully equipped to write each screenplay. However, I’ve made great strides in the pre-write process! I’ve created loglines for each concept I have, and I’ve actually made a full list of each idea that’s been rattling in my brain. A few days ago, I started working on a “treatment” for one concept, only to be hit in the face with a title for a story that’s been floating around for two years. Commence work on THAT treatment, too! It’s a slow moving process, but the wheels are so dang in motion, I’m about to get on the highway.
January 2022 has felt like my best foot forward so far. I remain cautiously optimistic, and I have hope. A whole franchise says that’s the strongest force in the world.