It’s almost the end of January, but it’s not too late to report on New Year’s Resolutions, is it? Although, maybe they aren’t really *new year* resolutions – because some are short term, and at least one began back in the summer.
1) Last summer, I started learning French in Duolingo – I have a 148 day streak. At this rate, I don’t think I’ll be fluent any time soon, but I like spending a few minutes a day working on my French.
2) A few years ago, my sister talked me into one of Adriene’s 30 day yoga journeys. I’m doing it again this year: FLOW. I missed one day a couple of weeks ago – but made it up by doing two a couple of days later. I missed another earlier this week – and I’ll make it up this weekend. Adriene’s yoga classes are on demand on YouTube, and are mostly about 20 minutes long. 20 minutes of not-difficult yoga before bed has helped me sleep better.
3) In a fit of madness, I signed up for tap dancing classes. It was a bit of synchronicity – someone in my office had spread out 57 pairs of tap shoes on the same day that someone on Facebook posted a link to a class in the town next to me at a time I could actually make. So I borrowed a pair of tap shoes, and I’m working on coordinated noise.
4) Right before the end of December, I saw a Facebook post about a slow read of War & Peace, so I’m doing that too. War & Peace is approximately 360 chapters (different editions are differently chaptered), so it’s a chapter a day for a year. There’s a guy who moderates; he provides a daily prompt for a reader chat, and a weekly sum up. And yesterday we finished book one/part one.
Daily yoga, daily French, daily Tolstoy, weekly tap, and the daily puzzles* that I was already doing - all that adds up to a lot of regular tasks. But they are all enjoyable and maybe even rungs on a self-improvement ladder. Huh. I don't think I've ever done New Year's Resolutions before - but this year, not only have I done so, I've kept on keeping on.
* So many puzzles:
- New York Times Crossword (daily in pen, on the train, and usually I follow it up by checking on how Rex felt about the puzzle)
- NYT Wordle (first thing in the morning, results texted to the kid, and occasionally shared more broadly if the grid of blocks is pleasing)
- NYT Connections (also in the morning)
- WAPO Keyword
5 comments:
You inspire me. Thanks for sharing.
Ha, coordinated noise!
My son, who went to grad school in Russian literature, thinks War and Peace is the greatest novel ever. In any language. I confess that I do love the speeches and digressions--they remind me of the songs in a musical in that they don't seem out of place, but how people think.
Check out Squardle and Waffle.
I have been playing Wordle every morning with my breakfast because of you for two years now. It's my morning routine ;) I hope it's good for my brains...
That's an excellent way to deal with a huge piece of literature. I hope you keep up with it!!
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