Happy New (School) Year!

Today is the day. The 2018-2019 school year starts for me today. In about two and a half hours, I am going to be heading into a new school year. There are 201 work days left of this contract year (my actual contract starts on July 1, but this is really the start of the new school year - it's confusing, but makes total sense to my brain, really...I'm trying to convince myself of this...). As is my tradition for the new school year, it is time to set my resolutions and get started on my program of self-awareness for this new year.

I've been thinking about my intentions this year, and I think I've come up with some good ones. The best resolutions are the ones that you can stick with, so I've been trying to focus on getting things finished. I made a list (no surprise there!), and I've attached it to my bullet journal. It has a convenient flip-out feature so I can see these goals when I am trying to figure out what to do every day. I even had a chance to color code it, so my need to order things was pretty satisfied. So, here are my new school year resolutions for the 2018-2019 school year!

1. Daily happiness: Over on some of my other social media feeds, I have a practice of finding something in my life that is a positive. During this past year, I've found that this focus on positive thoughts in the morning really helps me focus on something that is good rather than dwelling in the negative. Today's post? About the past computer problems that I've had on this day - seriously, I've had to replace my computer twice on August 13th, the internet seems to stop working on this day, and monitors blow - it's fascinating. Seems that things are going well this time around (just jinxed myself, but that's par for the course on the 13th!). I'm going to keep up this practice.
2. Eat better: This is a constant goal of mine. I do not always go for the green things that I should. So, I am working on that through the use of meal planning and a new journal to track my meals. I did this because I had a little journal that came in a new subscription box that I am trying. I wanted something to do with that little journal (separate from my bullet journal, featured above), and I think that I need some discipline when it comes to this particular goal. So, I am using this little journal to record my food intake, coordinate my shopping lists, and keep track of my vegetable consumption as well.
3. Exercise daily: Again, this is something that I want to do more often. I'll keep track of this in my regular bullet journal and give myself a tick in my tracker when I finish this task. I have a new exercise bike, so I have no excuse not to exercise except that I am lazy as all get out.
4. Write to Mom and Kelly weekly: My sister has been complaining that she never gets letters, so I am adding her to my goal of writing to my Mom every week. Guess she won't be able to complain as much if she actually gets letters now.
5. Save money: This is also a constant goal of mine. I want to purchase a house, so saving is essential. I have no real financial goal in mind, but I want to do this because I just spent over $700 on a bed and needed to raid my savings account to pay for the shenanigans that Mom and I got into over her visit this past break, so I'm feeling that I've gone overboard on the whole money thing. So, it is my goal to get my savings account built back up again.
6. Clear stuff out: I was able to clear out some of my extraneous stuff, but not nearly enough. I want to keep going with this goal. I want to clear something out every week. I made a good start yesterday by cleaning out the boxes of stuff that I removed from my car. I have a full bag of reusable shopping bags that need to be in the car so I'll use them. I have my out-of-date emergency kit that also needs to be in the car. I sorted the confidential shredding from the trash and now I am ready to reorganize the car. This task is going to be another one that challenges me, especially because I am often exhausted after work.
7. Challenge creativity: This is where my graphic design interests and other crafting, composing, and creative explorations will fall. I want to post things to my website and to my TPT store on a weekly basis. I want to be challenging myself to be creative, even when I don't feel all that creative. This is really vague on purpose because I want to see where it goes.
8. Sew and crochet new things: This is another creative goal. I like sewing and crocheting, but I often do the same things over and over again. I want to expand my repertoire to include more than prayer shawls and bean bags. I made a good start on this when I figured out how to do some new dishcloth patterns. I am working on a new prayer shawl as well.

This is going to be a challenging year, but something that I think will be good for me. I will keep track of my progress on my goals in my personal bullet journal. We'll see how much I can do on a weekly basis, but I think I can write two letters, make something creative, and work on sewing or crocheting something every seven days. I can even crochet while I am exercising...hmm. Exercising both my legs and my brain and hands - what a concept!! 

It is time to get started on my new resolutions. I am going to have some pizza for breakfast (I know, not really the most healthy of breakfasts, but it's better than eating cinnamon rolls!), take my shower, and then write to my sister. I will take out the recycling today and clear out some of my work stuff from my home. When I get back after a scintillating day of inservice training (not my favorite thing to do, especially when we don't get any type of time to work on schedules or organizing our areas), I hope to be able to stay awake long enough to work some on the bedroom - my new mattress set is being delivered on Saturday, so I need to be able to move the old bed out and have enough room for the new stuff to be set up. This week's clear-out focus is the bedroom. Who knows what next week's focus will be? There will be a little clearing, some vegetables on my nachos, and the opportunity to be creative today. It's not all I want from life, but it is a beginning.


Just so you know, here is my entire resolution page in my bullet journal. As you can see, there is more than what I've shared here. I've already started to put my goals into objectives and benchmarks as most therapists do in their practices. 

Thank you for reading this post. I'm getting myself ready for this new school year, and this is part of my music therapy and personal journey through this world of ours.

Happy new school year!