The New Year - 2012

I guess I'll join everyone else blogging about the New Year, but I must tell you, my heart isn't in it all the way yet.  Time for truth-telling.

I'm beginning my 57th year here on this planet.  I've started many things and never finished.  I have a very blunt, critical mom who reminded me of that lately.  I appreciate her for that.  I could get lost in always beginning something new.  I've grieved the last few days over my apparent shortcomings and failures.  I think a dose of that periodically is healthy.  I love the little posts on facebook by my friends far and wide, little reminders of encouragement.  Every choice I have made in my life and for you, too, results in something else not chosen.  It is only in hindsight that we can see where one choice might have been better than another, for everything chosen, something else is left behind.  It really is much healthier to see the good that has come from each choice, as there is always good in it all.  I loved this blog:  http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/12/25/30-challenges-for-30-days-of-growth/   So, my first and foremost "resolution" is to finish as many projects as I can that I've begun and left sitting for way too long.  Thanks, mom! I have to admit to a bit of jealousy whenever I see my artist friends post about their recently acquired commissions.  As I thought of unfinished projects, I realized that I have 3 outstanding commissions!  Woo hoo!  And as I complete them, the portfolio I have committed to building will grow! 

We have also started a "Biggest Loser" competition in my office building today.  My weight has been one of those "if only"s for me for a very long time.  The last time I took off 30 pounds (and kept if off!) it was due to one of these competitions.  I didn't win in the basic sense, but in the big sense, I did.  I can say I weigh less than I did several years ago, and that IS something.  Now it's time to get another big chunk (and I mean that in every sense of the words) off.  I'm shooting for 30 pounds in 13 weeks.  I'll keep you posted, maybe even pics, ugh.  As I was cleaning and organizing my studio this weekend (in anticipation of all those wonderful new projects I can finish later!) I ran across a couple of things.  One was a note to myself in 2006: "my heaviest weight ever: 250 pounds."  And a picture one of my students had taken when I first started teaching in 2004.  I'm sure I was close to that weight then.  There are a couple of other pics, along with the ones taken today at the weigh in.  I'm not too proud, because I will also post a pic of me when I was 36 and had just lost 30 pounds after many months of running (a half marathon, one of my proudest moments) and weight training.... you can even see the cuts beginning in my abs.  I don't know what I'll look like at this age when everything seems to be sagging, drooping and wrinkling... I may be a bag of wrinkles, but I'll be firm and fit underneath it all!  And, that really is what I'm going for.  I want to feel good again, and not be held back by my lack of fitness, flexibility or energy.  Hm, sounds like a pretty good purpose to me.  Hope you find yours while you are doing your New Year's whatever you want to call-ems.