Resolutions and Introspections

2018 is off to a great start here. I started it out watching the fireworks in SF with my family, which was just fantastic. They had a huge variety of types of bursts, some of which I’d never seen before. My favorite one was like a cloud of gold dust, full of sworls. I made a handful of resolutions, mostly around wanting to start a business, but also to keep up with my German, weight loss, and writing projects. Of course it’s only day 3 of the year, but I’m pretty happy with how I’ve done so far on them. For German, I’m using a flashcard app called Anki that I thoroughly adore. It’s free except on iOS I think, and for iOS it’s still worth it. For weight loss, the app is Noom, which is okay. I was really into it for the first several weeks, but the experience seemed to taper off after that. It was a bit pricey, so at this point I wouldn’t recommend it. But it has been good to me. For writing, I’m using a website called 750words.com, which is based on an idea called “morning pages,” where you basically just free-write a few pages every day to get the juices flowing. It was free when I joined, but I think there might be a small subscription required now.

Book-wise, my biggest news is that I’m going to do a top ten books of 2017 for my next post! I’m really looking forward to it. I’m going to be adding my books read 2017 entry to my Books Read mini-blog soon, and when I do that I’ll reflect on those books and pull the top ten together. I’m pretty excited. It hadn’t occurred to me to do that before, but now that I’ve started browsing other book blogs, it seems a lot of others do it, and it seems like a pretty good idea. Reflection and building something new? I’m down. I’ve also been reminded recently of a book I read a while ago, What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty. The woman has lost ten years of her memory, and so thinks she’s 29 when she’s actually 39. One of the sticking points in the book is where she has to host a party she scheduled before losing her memory, and she’s mortified because she thinks of herself as this really introverted person. Some social instincts kick in though that she’d picked up in the intervening years, and she hosts the party masterfully. It has me thinking about what sorts of things are innate and what can be learned. I’m starting to socialize a lot more, and things have rapidly become a lot smoother. We’ll see how this goes. It was a good book, though. Definitely one I’d recommend to women around those ages, or anyone else interested in that experience.

Well, I should wrap things up, this is already a pretty lengthy entry. I’m looking forward to sharing 2018 with you!