"January! You start the year off fine..."

Yes, that's a line from "Calendar Girl" by Neil Sedaka.  Yes, I know some music from the 1960's.  Although I favour country music, my taste can sometimes be labeled eclectic (if you want to be nice).

So, wow, it's 2016.  It's already the middle of February, or rather, given this month's abbreviated existence (even in a Leap Year), it's already the second half of February.  Time to review January and see what happened there.

I do believe I have found "planner peace", so far as the organisation and set-up of my Bullet Journal is concerned.  I toyed with the idea of "One Journal to Rule Them All", but decided that I enjoy compartmentalization entirely too much to want to combine into a single book everything I do so far as planning and organising my life.  Well, it was either that or admit that I do so much planning and organising that the one book would have to be hardbound and at least the size of one of those massive quire books I used to buy for a forgotten purpose at a job many moons ago.

So, for 2016, I will continue to use a multi-book set-up: an actual pre-printed weekly/monthly planner from Mead (yes, I went cheap this year) for my daily to-dos and work hours, alongside my spiral notebook from 2014 which is still going strong (I am too cheap to start a new book for the new year) for my daily log notes, and an interactive journal I bought from Chapters-Indigo (the store in Canada where I could cheerfully go bankrupt) with daily prompts to encourage a year of self-exploration.

I set myself some fairly simple goals for January, and today I took a look back through my various books and calendars and my Habit Tracker (located in my Bullet Journal) and decided maybe they were loftier than I thought (ha!).  To recap:

Financial - Start saving again using the 52 Week Money Challenge.  For the last couple of years I have managed to make it to the middle of this challenge, only to quit once the weeks/amounts started really adding up.  This year, I decided to start from the other end, working my way down the amounts, to align my goal with my income, which is higher in the winter and early spring because of my seasonal employment.  Well, I was a little slow out of the gate in January, and saved just enough to cover weeks 1-8 ($36), instead of weeks 52 and 51 ($103) as was my goal.  I have to call this one a miss.

On the win side for Financial, though, was my goal to not spend any money for at least 90% of the month, or 28 days out of 31.  I managed exactly the 28 days.  By "spending" I refer to anything no related to our needs for food, shelter and automobile expenses.  I am not even counting clothing, because I have enough in my closet to suit my various seasonal needs, and more besides, so clothing went on the chopped side of the list when I made this goal.  Similarly, although the tin of Tazo tea (Awake English Breakfast, seriously good tea) would count as food, I have more than a few varieties of tea in the kitchen, I could have kept my money in my pocket, but I didn't, so that day went on the "spending" side of the equation.

Mental/Emotional - Definitely a win here, as I continue to meditate daily with Headspace.  January saw me through to day 398, as I completed a repeat of the Self-Esteem pack, worked through the new Generosity pack, and started repeating the Pro packs (less guidance from Andy, more silence, extremely challenging for a mind that needs no encouragement to get caught up and lost in thought).

Physical - This may be a win?  The goal here was to complete a minimum of 3 workouts per week, and I actually did my 5 scheduled workouts for 3 weeks out of 4.  The off week I managed 2 workouts, but am seriously bummed that I couldn't motivate myself enough to even get on my yoga mat for 20 minutes for the one day needed to make this a certain win.  I've made some changes to my schedule for February that should hopefully make this easier this month.  You'll just have to read more rambling next month to find out how I did.

The definite miss on the physical goals was to establish a habit of going to bed by 9:30.  Read strictly, my Fitbit sleep logs tell me I managed that exactly 3 nights out of 31.  Yep, 3.  If I read more into the spirit of the goal instead of the letter, and interpret it loosely to mean "get to bed before 10:00 p.m.", I still only managed that for 16 out of 31 nights (and some of those days are rather iffy, because really, not a few of them were like 9:57 p.m.).  Again, I decided a schedule change had to happen in February, so look for that goal to come around again.

Interests/Hobbies - Anyone who knows me, and quite a few who don't, knows I read for pleasure.  To that end, it might seem strange that I decided to track my reading days in my Habit Tracker, but I decided it might be worth tracking because lately I haven't done as much as I would like.  In December, I managed 14 of 31 days, in January I brought it up to 21.  That still leaves 10 days in the month when I didn't do the one thing I enjoy more than anything else.  That's 10 days I didn't make time for what I love to do.  What was I so busy doing I didn't make time for me that way?

I also set a goal to use the calligraphy supplies I received for Christmas every day to practice my lettering, with a goal to learning the Italics alphabet to at least a competent standard by the end of the year.  I managed 15 days out of the 31 in January, this even after realising that it only takes me 15 minutes to write the entire alphabet in miniscule (common, or small letters) and majuscule (capitals).  There's another pleasurable activity that I couldn't spare 1% of the day for.  So, some work is called for here to make sure I balance the increased work hours with downtime to rejuvenate.

Well, it's been snowing all day this Family Day, the rest of my family is reposed in front of the television, so I think it's time to go and hang with them again.

My Journal System for 2016

Encouraging myself to practice

Calligraphy supplies, courtesy of G

Downtime

2015, Farewell

And just like that, another year is gone.

Something about December always makes me homesick.  I don't think it's all the winter weather, although that may be part of it, more for the lack of sunshine than anything else.  This December past, I had little time for the usual homesickness, as there was much to do at the beginning of the month.

My biggest challenge of the year came with the first weekend in December: G's sister was getting married, and I would have to drive us down to Toronto and beyond, to Brandtford and the town of Simcoe where we would stay, and beyond to Delhi (see Google Maps here) where the wedding would take place.  I was, quite frankly, terrified.  I fretted over the distance, I fretted over the route, I fretted over my inexperience driving on highways, I fretted over the weather, basically, by the time December rolled around, I was a welter of anxiety.  I think I hid it well, no-one had me committed to medical care for my own good! (Although, some Valium would have helped.)

Looking back now on the experience, I am still in awe of the fact that not only did we get there and find our way about and do all the things we wanted to do, we also did it economically, which pleases that cheap/mean part of me my mother never fails to attribute to our Scottish roots.  I call it frugal.  G calls it not having a heavy foot, as our budget for fuel came in way under my calculations, which had been based on his usage some years earlier.  Whatever it was, between my driving and his navigating, we went there, and back again, safely, and in good time.

Aside from my terror of being in charge of the vehicle whenever we had to move from Point A to Point B, a terror which stayed with me from Thursday morning around 8:30 a.m. when we left E.L. until we returned home around 6:45 p.m. on Sunday evening, I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend.  The wedding was beautiful, the couple was splendid and put on quite a party, and the venues were inspired.

In between activities, I had a chance to walk about Brantford and Simcoe a little, and see some of the rural areas of southern Ontario during our travels between venues.  In both Brantford and Simcoe, I fed my stationery addiction, there was a Staples at each location, and we hit them both.  Well, G was at the one in Brantford with me, I found the one in Simcoe on my own and "went to town" in that one on my own.  Suffice it to say, I will not run out of pens any time soon.

December 2015 was not without its excitements once we returned from down south.  It kept raining, and raining, and raining some more, and everyone started to wonder when winter would show.  Environment Canada had predicted a "milder" winter, and it seemed they were quite right.  We had a solid week of rain, followed by a mild dusting of snow on Dec 16 that then melted almost right away, and again on the 19th.  The winter solstice happened over a quite "green" landscape, but was followed by atypically heavy winds before Christmas Eve that actually downed power lines, blew away unsecured sheds, and messed up roofs.  Parts of town were out of power until Christmas Day!

We were fortunate enough not to lose power, and spent a quiet Christmas at home together with just the dogs for company, exactly as I hoped for.  The hectic busyness of December was finally winding down now that the holidays were here, and I took full advantage to have some much-needed downtime.  As the new year approached, I began looking back, so I could do my looking forward on New Year's Day, as I like to do.  There were goals to be planned, and achievements to be acknowledged, and a way forward to be forged.

I have often been able to summarise many of the standout years of my life by one word or phrase.  If 2015 will be remembered as anything, it will be as "the year of the drive".  Originally, it was meant to be the year of mindfulness, and I did make my goal of meditating for 365 days straight, but I found myself having to polish a skill I expected not to use very often but saw the wisdom of having at least the basic level of instruction, never expecting to put it to quite so rigourous a test quite so soon.  All in all, I think the year of the drive went well.

Hanging out with Mr Bell in Brantford

A very dapper G at the wedding

Yep, that was the beginning of winter

Not much happening just before Christmas

Christmas evening

Dec 28!

Hello, winter! Dec 29

"Winter is coming"

I am fairly sure than when he conceived the Starks of Winterfell, George R. R. Martin was thinking of Canadians.  Possibly, those dwelling in the Northern Ontario reaches where I find myself making my home.  That "Winter is coming" is very much part of the psyche here is unquestionable, this I judge from the year and a half I have been here.

As soon as August this year when the trees began turning, I sensed a change in the mood prevailing, even my own.  It was a queer mixture of anticipation and resignation, flavoured with glee in some cases, stark unhappiness in others.

September drifted by, with the leaves in full bloom of colour, but by October they were already on their way to falling off the trees.  Still, there were some truly fine days in both months, real autumn days in terms of colour but blessed with temperatures in the low 20s (degrees Celsius).  Altogether tolerable, those days that held a lingering whiff of the summer than never quite was.

With the coming of November, the warmth began to recede and the cold stole the march.  The daily high temperatures slipped further and further down the scale, even though no snow came.  Oh, there were one or two sallies, apologetic snowfalls I called them, because the flakes had hardly hit the ground before they disappeared.  There was no accumulation even up to the middle of the month.  Not until the final ten days of the month, when talk of American Thanksgiving and Black Friday were everywhere, and Christmas decorations and music were already making their appearance, did the snow finally come.

The first accumulated snow was brought on heavy winds over the course of last weekend.  What did follow were almost Arctic temperatures that meant outer layers for me went from tights and sweaters to ski jackets and down coats.  The first winter storm showed up today, and shed an even greater accumulation on top of that which had largely been ignored as of little consequence.  Not today though, snow plows came out, people are shoveling driveways, and I canceled a possible trip to another library sale.  Days like these give me zero incentive to stir beyond the precincts of our house.

Here are some photos I took for both weekends, past and current:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, those last photos were taken out of doors, after dark.  I felt somewhat restless, in spite of thoroughly enjoying my day off following a harrowing end to the week at work.  So, I bundled up in my snow suit, put on my Caterpillar snow boots with their surefooted tread, and put the little Nipper in his harness and clipped the leash on him, and away we went around the block.  I found it rather soothing to be out there in the light snow, thoroughly cocooned from the snow except for my face, but enjoying the gentle bite of the cold against my cheeks and eyelids.

Officially, winter is not for another three weeks, the solstice this year falls on December 21.  Clearly, though, winter is coming, and Old Man Winter has stolen the last few weeks of fall for himself.