Do Something Incredible in 2021! Walk 1000 Miles AND ....

 I get email updates from the View from the Teapot: Life in a Small French Town blog, and she shared how she is making the pledge to walk 1000 miles in 2021.  She lives in a beautiful part of the world so it will be fun to see the photos she shares.  I clicked to join her in making the pledge, and found the Walk 1000 Mile people have a beautiful calendar, so I ordered that.  Will be fun to dream that I'm in England....

I'll post a photo or two each week and share my walking progress here!

                      

Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays I walk and chat on the phone with a friend.  The other days I'm usually by myself, listening to a book on Audible, or checking in with family and friends.  Talking makes the walking much more fun to do. But when I have a good book to listen to that is nice too.

Here is a cool cactus in the front of a house I passed in the next neighborhood while walking.  Isn't it beautiful?  So unusual.  

Even before the pandemic I have been lucky to be able to have a consistent walking friend.  We used to meet once a week at the San Diego Zoo, or when it was hot or cold in the local Costco and walk and talk. A lot of fun.  Sometimes we would go into different neighborhoods too.  

Now we walk each in our own neighborhood and chat on our phones while we walk, three times a week!  A reason to get out of the house in the mornings.  I have asked others to fill in more days of walking while chatting with phones, but no one else wants to make the commitment for a weekly walk.  : (  

I usually walk alone for part of the time, but generally our little dog comes along for at least part of a walk too.  When the pandemic first hit Buffy would come for the entire walk, but now her health has changed, so she is preferring doing her morning exercise after I return from my longer walk.

Here is my family on New Year's Eve.  (Masks removed for the photo.) We usually walk together once every afternoon with our little dog.  These are just short walks - maybe 15-30 minutes.

Here are our Irish cousins on their Day after Christmas walk on the Leafy Loop Walk in Durrow Co Laoise Ireland - just before their new shut down was put in place. Looking forward to seeing them again, and taking walks together there.

OTHER 2021 GOALS

Meals:

BTW I'm back to keeping track of the meals we eat - putting that on my food Blog - that will be updated every week or so.  I got behind in December so didn't post all the days - but started taking photos again so it should be more fun to follow.  Tonight I made a wonderful Dutch Baby for dinner, suggested to me by a friend in Northern California.  I'll write up the recipe and post a photo on that blog soon.  I was doing a great job of eating and serving healthy food (and losing weight), but now that I have mastered several online ordering services and am not worried about being able to get food, I've been making or buying too many treats.  Guess another goal is to get back to healthy food again.

Organizing:

Carolyn from From my Carolina Home, shared she picked one area each year to really clean out in a recent post.  She has so many interests and projects going on that even though I read most of her posts, I missed that she did this annual project too.  Every January, I choose an area of the house for extensive scrutiny. Everything is pulled out, looked over, and reorganized. I have followed Flylady for some time - her method is to pick a zone in the house and work on it for a week, then the next week to move on to the next zone, and so on.  She suggests working on decluttering and area before really working on cleaning it.  She sends reminder emails, and has help for setting up a control journal to help you keep track of things.  She adapted the index card system first written up by the Sidetracked Sisters in the Happiness File.  I bought their book while on our honeymoon in New York City.  The index card were crying out to be printed with a database - the calendar reminders work much better for me.  Now one of the sisters has a website that has been interesting to see.  So now, since I have figured out how to get food, and have been working on the meals, I will take advantage of the stay at home orders, and will work on the zones - and/or will just concentrate on going thru my boxes with papers and getting them scanned or just shred them so I can have the space for a while (before starting going thru other kinds of boxes - they are never ending it seems).  I have old journals and blog posts where I document my need for going thru these boxes - but instead it seems I just get more boxes to put things in!  Well, so 2021 will be the year of the boxes for me again.  

Quilting:

Sure hope I can get in some regular sewing and quilting too.  I missed the deadline for the EBHQ Lone Robin project.  Would have been fun to post and share my top with the EBHQ members.  Many of the blocks are sewn together, but I have squares, crosses, and my choice blocks to create and add to the mix.  The blocks are still on my design wall, waiting for me to finish things up.

Friends:

The most important thing is to keep in touch with friends.  I have been trying to call people on Tuesdays or Thursdays when I'm walking on my own.  That has been nice, but it will be so much nicer to get to meet for lunch and chat in person.  

It would be really nice for more of them to call me first every once in a while too.  Sometimes, I sort of feel if I stopped calling they wouldn't miss it at all, and I'd just fall off their radar.  Hmm.  

But tonight I wrote a friend that perhaps we needed to take break when she texted (after I had texted a recipe, wished her well, and noted that it was a crummy day yesterday in DC). She wrote: Great day in DC. The whole nation got to wake up call.  I was shocked. I wrote back I didn't think it was a great day or set of events in DC. Sad you think it was.  But if you think that ok. We can take a break from each other.  My DH thought I must have misunderstood what she meant, so I ended up writing again.  DH said I must have misunderstood you.  I'm very upset and horrified at what happened in DC.  Am sorry for cutting you off.  So wonder what you meant.  She lives now hundreds of miles away so we only have contact with text or phone every other month at the most now, but it made/makes me feel so nice to know she was out there and to look forward to seeing her and chatting too.  I had enjoyed visiting her after my Berkeley quilting classes and hoped that would be an annual event forever. Fun to chat, go out to eat and to cook together too.  It was nice to see her daughters too and chat with them too.

Honestly though I have very few people who would meet for lunch on any kind of a schedule - maybe once a year at the most.  So I guess I need to somehow meet new people who would be open to doing that - along with walking and chatting and doing other things together.

Exercise:

As long as my personal trainer will do zoom, I'm doing three one hour sessions each week with her.  We made great improvements when we first started, but now that I'm not eating well - and that I'm sleeping so poorly with the political and covid situations we are just maintaining - so I'm doing the same weights and number of reps when we repeat exercises. Hoping to get to harder exercises without wimping out.  In addition to getting stronger, it would be nice to trim down a bunch too.

Family:

It has been really nice to do the almost daily evening walks together - we never did that before the shut in. Before just one of us walked with Buffy.  

We have all our meals together now.  Well, except for breakfast.  I'm the only one up for that now.  Used to be I had one lunch a week with our son - and sometimes one lunch with my husband too.  But we are all together for all the meals now.  Son did suggest we try baking once a week together after we made cookies last week.  That would be very nice indeed.

Looking forward to trips together too.  We missed our holiday trip in 2019 and of course this year too.

Master Calendar:

In addition to going thru those paper filled boxes I mentioned before, I really want to create a better master calendar to remind myself of when I need to call for insurance, pay annual memberships, etc.  I do all this myself now, but it would be good to have things set up so it's easier to go on trips and know what needs to be done before or while on the trip.

So I hope I do something incredible in 2021.

Good health and happiness.