Alone on a Saturday night!

What do you do on a rainy windy night, when your partner is at the hockey arena and no one you know wants to go to a movie?

I toasted some pecans with cayenne, dumped then into a bowl of melted chocolate and ate them with a spoon while watching Julie & Julia. I know, I know, a little over the top. I just couldn't come up with anything better to do by my self! Frankly, it was quite pleasurable.

And so, as not to destroy this feeling of bliss with a huge dose of guilt, I am committing to a session at the swimming pool tomorrow.

Resolving Resolutions

As the new year gets underway, all around me people are talking about their resolutions. I've never taken the resolution thing with any amount of seriousness. I have seasonal rituals, I have “aha” moments throughout my life, and I seem to need a life change of some sort about every 7 – 10 years. But I really don’t make new year resolutions. In fact, I just made a comment on someone’s blog about not making resolutions. This got me to thinking about things a bit.

For the past twenty years my partner John and I have talked about someday taking off on our sail boat and spending several years sailing and traveling. We had finally established ourselves a departure date of June 2010. This would be my life change of the decade.

I always knew the departure date was tentative and dependent on the financial market status. However, when we recently made the decision to push our departure out one more year, I was emotionally devastated.

I had put many aspects of my life into a holding pattern, banking them for the big sailing adventure. So when we pushed the date out, I felt emotionally a bit like the financial market that caused this delay.

What does all this have to do with new year resolutions? I have now for the first time, made what I am resistant to call (but would be by most) new year resolutions. I had to do something! I was depressed, a bit cranky, and admittedly taking it out on John. Not good!

So I resolved myself to making the most of this new year. I resolved to keep my attitude in check and be kind and loving to John, to stay connected with my friends and family (as I don’t always do good with this), to love something about each day, and to expand my knowledge and skills. I have to say, just making these resolutions has already improved my attitude.

Wow, maybe there’s something to this new year resolution thing after all!

Where to start?

Winter on board our sailboat is Southeast AK get's long. I'm always looking for ways to keep myself occupied and stimulated so as not to go stir crazy.

The Canvas http://www.canvasarts.org/index.htm, a local art studio, offers community classes and I've signed up for a jewelry making class. We made a simple wire ring last week and started on a band ring. Need a lot of practice on my soldering, but I love it already.

I've been doing my standard winter procrastinating about exercise. Perhaps it's come time to stop the procrastination and get to the pool for a swim, or lace up my running shoes and go for a run.

How do you break your winter blaaahs?