New Year Post! And How To Keep Your Resolutions.

2013?  
I moved a bazillion times, applied to internships, took my five hour and actively started practicing driving, took huge steps in getting back to eating right, got back up to 100 pounds, started dating my Knight, finished the first chapter of Oh Hell, Donna!, participated in the Shuffle comic, almost finished my MA, met a chunk of Rob's family, went to a bunch of museums and movies, Rob got my portfolio site up (www.rowyngolde.com), made a lot of stuff, remade some old connections, attempted to assist friends with wedding plans, wrote stuff, drew stuff, attended conventions, sold stuff...  started re-learning guitar...  I feel like other things happened.  ...That's all I can think of. 

For 2014, I wrote up a giant to-do list by month.  
The things anyone reading this might care about mostly involve getting my driver's license, finishing my MA (with starting my internship), getting Deddrie back online, and posting Oh Hell, Donna! one page at a time.  
Eventually, Donna will be available for purchase as a book.  
Moth will also be published hopefully within 2014.  
*crosses fingers*  
I also plan on working out a bit more, practicing guitar a bit more and possibly learning a little more Japanese.  

You might be wondering how I intend to do the things I'm saying.  
Well, I have a plan. 


How to Keep Your New Years Resolutions

Make a list:  

Write down everything you want to change or accomplish this year.  
Then cut that down to reasonable things.  
For example, “eat healthy” might be a bit better than, “marry that movie star.”  



Detail that list: 

Having things like “Go to the gym more often” wind up meaningless really fast because they are vague and therefore make it easy to come up with excuses to avoid.  

Instead, write things like, “Go to the gym X amount of hours, X amount of days a week…” and write exactly what you plan to work on while there.  

You can even go to someone who works at the gym the first day and ask what kinds of exercises and machines you should do to achieve your goal. 


This process works for pretty much any goal, not just working out! 

Mini goals: 

Having mini goals along the way can help you remember that you are making progress, which will help your desire to continue.  
Mini goals also give you something to build on in order to get to another level or step of your ultimate goal. 



Do you wanna?

Make sure you actually WANT to do the things on this list, or that they will make you healthier, or better your life in some way.  

Sometimes, we say we’ll do things just because other people want us to do them.  
This makes it less likely to actually stick to it, for obvious reasons.  

That being said, if something is on your list because a friend is doing it also and wants a buddy, you should probably stick to it.    


All else fails?  
If you can find an excuse to quit, you can find an excuse to continue.  
Make up a reason why it would benefit you to stick with the resolution, even if it is just a sense of pride and bragging rights.
Along those lines, if you don't really want to eat more healthy or keep track of something else medical but your doctor tells you to do so...  You might want to just suck it up and try it anyway.  
Who knows?  
Your doctor might be right and you might start to feel awesome. 

Have a buddy:  

It isn’t necessary, but having someone else hold you accountable and having the drive to stick to it too will benefit you both.  
(This can be in person or online.) 



Remember: 

If you find that it isn’t working out, you can change something about your routine.


Ask around and see how other people achieved similar goals. 

Form a habit!

Like brushing your teeth, if you do something every day, eventually you’ll do it without even thinking about it.  



Do research:  

This works for above examples, as well pretty much everything else in life.  

Want to learn a new skill?  Find a teacher or online tutorials.  

What does it take?  What supplies will you need?  

Start small though.  
Getting too involved too fast may cost you a lot of money for something you might wind up not actually enjoying.
You can always build up on supplies once you know that you want to continue. 



Help is good! 

In some cases, you may want to go to your doctor to see what the healthiest way is to achieve your goals.  

Do this especially if your goal involves ANY kind of diet or exercise plan.  



In other cases, you may want to find and go to a counselor or a psychologist if your goal involves facing a long standing fear or even attending to social problems.  

It doesn’t have to be something huge in order to seek professional help.  



In fact, asking for some kind of help is always recommended, no matter what your goals may be.  



Write down your progress:

On a calendar, or even sticky notes, write down every single time you accomplish a part of your goal.  
Even a tiny accomplishment. 

Say how many hours you did it, or what mini goal you met.  


If you organize your main goal, mini goals, and steps to get there by date on the calendar to begin with, this will be easy to see.  



Remember!!!

You can always add goals throughout the year.  

Every day is a new day, so we don’t have to wait for the next year to make goals.


Woo!

New Year

New Thanksmas.

I wrote this before the party:
We asked people to bring things to eat and drink.  We called it a kind of pot luck and so others got excited.  When you label something with a fancy title, suddenly the most mundane thing really does feel fancy. 

I told them to bring food, drinks... Honestly anything.

The potluck thing only happened because at first we were like, "Hell yeah! We're just gonna cater this shit!" and then we realized that we are poor and so other people also need to bring things.

As is, we've decided to try to decorate the basement for use just in case we get enough people for space to be an issue.  ...This will either be fantastic or terrible and either way it will certainly be entertaining.

3 Days Later...

Here is what I'm writing now, after the party:

..."New Year's Eve" turned into "New Year's Weekend".  We called it "New Thanksmas" and then tried to shove Halloween in there too.  Our basement was adorned with orange, black and green crepe paper.  It did not look any less creepy that way.  In fact, with the occasional piece hanging down precariously, it actually looked a little more like a serial killer's basement.  Now, it just looks like the mad killer had a crazy birthday party. 

Welp, I had said to say if you wanted me to draw a silly picture for this, and more than a few people said "Hell yeah!"  So, here it is:

Many people came.  Some do not like each other.  Some actually HATED each other with a fiery passion... and then made up.  That's right.  My friends may be enormous assholes, but some of them actually do try to get along.  I appreciated that quite a bit. 

Also, my housemate made jellO shots of every color of the rainbow:

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple all attended!  Fuck you, "Indigo".  Nobody likes that guy, so he's not in our rainbow.  "Roy G. Biv."  Fuck that guy too.  Also screw the kids who say the primary colors are "magenta, cyan and green".  ...Or even "red, blue and green".  You know who you are.  My boyfriend is one of these people.  Light also had no business at my party.  Paint says all the colors mixed together are brown.  I agree with Paint.  Light wants to be all fancy with her "white" bullshit. 

*ahem*

So, at midnight I turned into a pumpkin, but still attempted to party each night long into the day or until I felt like I was going to pass out or get sick.  By "get sick" I mean that I had gotten to the point of no sleep and too much candy where sleep was really no longer an option.  It was just a woozy time with me wandering around aimlessly pretending to have any idea what was happening.  I did not get drunk.  ...I just don't like doing it.  There were a couple other people not drinking at all.  Our party accepted all types of drinkers:  Heavy, Barely, Non, Depressive and "Wooooooooooooo!"
 Edit: I should make some kind of a test to determine which type of drinker a person may be.

At one point, a close friend happily shook my hand and said "fuck you" with a big grin.  He did this to everyone he could find after stating (again, rather gleefully) that he hated everyone.  I don't think this was so much an alcohol related thing.  He does that.  We accept him.  Personally, I accept him mainly because he accepts me.  We have a mutual understanding of, "yep.  She/He's like that."

We watched the ball drop (which I think should still be an apple, because "ball drop" just sounds... not right) and then watched lots of people make out on television.  I kissed le boyfriend. *D'Aw!*  ...Wow.  Typed "killed" for a moment.  That would have been a VERY different sort of post!
Also, the television made me realize that I am not terribly hip to the jive of the music kids are listening to today.  (Those of you who suddenly wonder if you are reading the blog of a great-grandmother of some kind... I'm 25.  I just talk funny when I am tired.  ...Like now.  Also, my sleeping boyfriend is kicking me.  He is AWFUL to sleep next to after parties.  "I wanna PUSH YOU off the bed."  "WAIT I LOVE YOU COME CUDDLE WITH ME!"  "You know what sounds fun?  Right now?  SLEEPING SIDEWAYS."  "Yeah... the bed is massive but *SHOVE* SAY HELLO TO MR. WALL!"  Sleeping boyfriend is an asshole.   Anyway, I'm not a grandma.)

We played games, listened to music and we were in general very silly.  Our upstairs elephants did not attend.

I'll probably add to this later.  If anyone has anything to add like memories, commentary of the evening(s), ...stuff, either comment or send it to me via some other means.  I'll add it in an edit.  (Also, tell me what to call you on this damn thing.)

OH and I got to eat most of an enormous apple, covered in caramel, chocolate and mini-marshmallows.  ...The apple was covered in these things in the beginning.  I was only covered in them when I was done eating the apple.

I realize that it is now 2011.  I don't think I'll remember that for long.  When Y2K hit, my computer was fine, but my brain was not.  Ever since, I've been writing things like "1910".  I think it's just proof that I'm a confused time traveler who has had my brain wiped by the gov'ment.

EDIT:  So far, one friend has said only, "HAHA".  I think this sums up the evening pretty damn well.

Dustin said, "Great blog and yes, they let anyone have a blog now!"  This is, of course, in reference to my saying "GUYS!  The internet let me have a BLOG!  Me!  I can post things for the world to see!"  Somehow, I thought this would help me succeed at dominating the world.