Resolutions Checkpoint 2018: February

Some people avoid the word “resolutions,” but I continue to make them each year because of these lovely monthly check-ins. This simple monthly post turns my attention back towards new directions and provides the space for me to briefly reflect. That said, I’m diving right in!

 

February Progress

Here’s the progress I made on the focus items I gave myself at the start of February.

Zero-Waste Lifestyle

Here’s some additional progress I made in this category over the month:

  • Read four blog posts on the Be Zero blog.
  • Emailed my place of work with ways we can reduce waste as an organization.
  • Used my tupperware/hitch dishes for breakfast at all of our motel/hotel stays (which only offered single-use utensils/dishes) and encouraged crew members to do the same.

Yoga/Pilates/Hamstring Stretching

  • ( ) Track in bullet journal. (And bring bullet journal on hitch if I’m front country.) — I stopped using my monthly tracker after the 18th, and only had three yoga checks in that period.
  • (-) Do yoga at home at least four of my six off-days. — Being put on a monthlong, I wasn’t on an 8/6 work schedule after all. Due to our location on off days (bunkhouse without Wi-Fi) and the logistics surrounding all of that, I didn’t do any yoga on my off days this month.
  • (-) On hitch, do just 5 minutes of stretching after the work day. Do it from inside my tent if it’s cold. — Again, the schedule/logistics, our locations (i.e. grimy motel), and my various health ailments all led to this endeavor being completely dropped from my awareness. I did some stretching one work night from our motel bed, but that’s it while on hitch.

Art Journal Regularly

  • (+) Track in bullet journal. — I tracked it in my bullet journal through the 18th, where everything left off, but kept on making pages nearly every day.
  • (+) I’ll aim for creating a day-marker page 20/30 days this month. — I’ll have to count pages for an exact number once I’m back home (currently I’m at the library), but I know I have more than 20 pages for February.
  • (-) Read two more chapters of the art journaling PDF I bought last month. — Never did this.

Art journaling in my day-markers notebook has been so fun. Making my daily page is something I continuously look forward to; there’s still no resistance. So I’m going to ride the wave and keep on enjoying that part of my day.

Create One Bigger “Thing” Quarterly

  • ( ) Go to the library at least twice per set of off-days. — While on my monthlong, I worked on this quarterly creation three times. One was a longer formatting session, so I’m surprisingly close to have the bulk of it written. (I’m at 80+ pages at the moment!)
  • (+) Write for at least 30 minutes each session. — Not all of these were writing sessions, as I jumped ahead and started to format the document, but each work session was 30 minutes or more.

Bits and Pieces: Poetry

  • (+) Carry poetry notebook and pen with me.
  • (-) Do at least two exercises per week. — I did one exercise in the van on our drive to Texas, and then nothing for the rest of the month.
  • (+) Track in bullet journal. — I do have a checkmark for that single day!

 

March Focus

I can tell you right now, the biggest adjustment I’ll be making for March is to remove my focus from yoga/stretching in order to swing the pendulum towards daily poetry reading instead. You can’t do everything all the time, and often focusing on one element for a prolonged period of time is when you’ll get the most growth. (That’s how I learned French back in 2015, for example.)

This is my final month on the conservation corps in Arizona, and I kept that in mind while making this tweak. April is wide open, and likely I’ll return to my parents’ home in Wisconsin which means ample space and time for yoga and stretching.

Zero-Waste Lifestyle

Yoga/Pilates/Hamstring Stretching

I did set up a column for this on my March calendar page, but like I explained above, I’m letting this drift from my attention this month.

Art Journal Regularly

  • Create a day-marker page for 20+ days of the month.
  • Read two more chapters of the art journaling PDF I have.

Create One Bigger “Thing” Quarterly

  • Write the PDF’s conclusion
  • Write the PDF’s introduction

Bits and Pieces: Poetry

  • Read a poem per day (track in bullet journal).

I realized after January that I needed to change my target from publishing a poetry collection this year (lofty goal; feels unapproachable) to simply filling x notebooks with poetry exercises/wordplay. Despite this change, there was still enough resistance last month to the exercises that I want to scale it back and simply be reading poetry every day in March.

I bought the poetry books “salt.” and “the sun and her flowers” as a gift to myself a few days ago, plus I checked out several books of poetry from the library. This is something I’ll easily be able to do even while on hitch, which makes it reachable.

My hope is that by turning my attention towards poetry at least once a day, my subconscious may start to think in poetry without so much force. To my delight, on my walk to the library today I pondered a topic and then my mind automatically worded it into a brief, two-line poem—in the style of many of Nayyirah Waheed’s poems. So I jotted it down in my poetry notebook upon arriving at the library. Hooray for small successes!

So that’s where my attention will be this month. What about you? What’s one small thing from February that you’re proud of? Where would you like your attention to be during March?