Happy New Year
Ex-blogger extraordinaire (V-Grrl) Veronica is a Facebook friend, and she posted these wise words on New Year’s Eve.
The sun sets on 2023, and my resolutions remain the same—savor small pleasures and ordinary moments, take care of my health, cherish time with those I love, be a good friend.
I liked that a lot, a lot more than the idea of always trying to change who we are. So I’m taking her resolution and making it my own.
I hope the holidays have been good to you. I had a lovely Christmas, and then the week before New Year’s was very busy at work, and now it is New Year’s Day. I have our traditional dinner of split pea and ham soup on the stove (Maya will be having leftover tomato soup and grilled cheese. The grilled cheese is made with Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam cheese, which is much like a Brie, fig jam, and thinly sliced apple. It’s delicious, and we had the ingredients in the fridge.)
Yesterday was my birthday, and I had a lovely day. It started with a long walk, and then we went to Oakland to look at books (and buy some), and then an early dinner at our favorite Ethiopian/Eritrean restaurant. Ted and Maya spoiled me with gifts and love, and I talked to friends and family throughout the day. It was a great day.
Today we did some cleaning. Put away all of the Christmas decorations (except the wreath on the door, which still looks good and doesn’t make the house seem cluttered, so we’ll keep that a bit longer. Perhaps until Epiphany on the 6th.) I cleaned out the back yard of all of the stupid eucalyptus leaves and so on that fall all over the place. Maya cleaned the kitchen and vacuumed. Ted took down the tree and uncluttered. The house feels lighter now, and ready for a new year.
Tomorrow is back to work. I’m not doing a lot of resolutions or goal setting for my year ahead, though I am going to participate in a (mostly) dry January. I am sipping the last of the open bottle of wine from the fridge now, and won’t buy any more this month, though if I’m at dinner with friends I may have a glass. I’m looking forward to the 30 day yoga journey that ‘Yoga with Adriene’ will start tomorrow. I’m looking forward to the big pile of books that I received as gifts, and the massage that Ted and Maya bought me that is scheduled on Thursday afternoon.
What about you? Are you making resolutions this year? I’m hoping things will be a bit calmer around here and I can come by your blogs to find out.
32 Comments
Beckett @ Birchwood Pie
Happy New Year and Happy Birthday Julie! I would have loved to take more time off work for the holidays but yuck this is the busy period for us so there was no way.
I’ve got a small list of goals for this year for the first time in a long time, but let’s be honestly I’m more interested in just living life from day to day and having a good time in the small things. So here’s to that for both of us in 2024!
J
Happy New Year Birchie! I agree, living life day to day is more my speed. I don’t mind a goal or two, but I am not so organized as some of my friends who put together goals for movies, books, holidays, etc.
Margaret
I like your friend’s words. I don’t do resolutions but I do have a few goals or wishes for 2024 and will do what’s under my control to enjoy what I can in each day. Happy Birthday! It sounds like it was marvelous and special.
J
I agree with what you said, looking for simple pleasures and understanding that a lot of what we might want to change is out of our control.
Melissa
Happy New Year and Happy Birthday! It sounds like you are having a gentle launch into the New Year. I am not doing goals this year. I have a word – Renewal which I think is enough.
J
I like your word! I had a word last year, Surrender, and I struggled with it. I pretty much failed, actually.
sarah
Happy birthday– it sounds lovely. I have bridge fig jam, and excellent apples in my kitchen and am very inspired for lunch today 🙂
sarah
BRIE, not bridge. My iPad keyboard conspires against me, I wear.
Sarah
SWEAR. SEE??
J
LOL, I love the bridge sandwiches, I wear too.
Nicole MacPherson
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! It sounds really lovely. All the best for the year ahead. I really like your friend’s sentiment and I agree with it wholeheartedly.
J
Thanks Nicole, I agree.
nance
Happy Birthday, dear Julie. I hope you have a happy year ahead.
As I always say, I am on a continuous journey of self improvement, so I don’t make formal NY Resolutions. This year, however, I’d like to make a concerted effort to read more and walk more since those two things have fallen by the wayside recently. We’ll see if I can do that.
Your birthday sounds like it was a lovely day. I’m glad.
J
Nance, I hope you manage to achieve those goals. I love my daily walks. It would be much harder to motivate myself if I lived in your weather. Here it’s not difficult, I almost never stay home because of weather. In the summer when it’s HOT, I go really early. Most days I go before work, which is sometimes cold in the winter, but there’s never snow or anything like that.
Elisabeth
Happy Birthday. It sounds like a lovely Christmas and I love these words as we enter a New Year. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel – the same things I wanted last year ring true this year. See places, love people, nourish my body and mind in healthy ways.
I’m not making any specific resolutions or goals, but it is my Year of Shmita, so I want to do some research into the Biblical basis for the Sabbath (weekly) and Shmita (every seven years). Mostly, I just want to rest and reclaim my body and mind after a year that was kinda crazy in my off-the-internet life.
J
Elisabeth, I love that for you. Happy New Year!
Lisa's Yarns
Happy Happy birthday! I am glad you had a special day and were spoiled! We took down Christmas yesterday, too, but I will keep our wreath up until the end of winter since it matches the wintery vibe that will be in place until March. Same story for our window boxes which have white birch logs, red berries, pinecones, etc. They work for the winter months and then I’ll take them down when it warms up.
I am going to set quarterly goals for 2024. In January I’ll do this annual “January Cure” that is hosted by Apartment Therapy. It’s a good way to get things organized/cleaned in the house! Yesterday I did quite a bit of purging. The boys have SO MANY TOYS so I tucked some things away to donate to good will. The accumulation of “stuff” is my least favorite part of Christmas!
J
There’s something about January and all of the new stuff that just invites purging, right? We’re doing a bit of that around here, too.
Tobia | craftaliciousme
Happy belated birthday to you. May 2024 and your new circle around the sun be filled with happy memories, cherished moments and lots of laughter.
As you know I have a huge list of goals, intentions and resolutions piled up.
However, all those things I put doen more or less are condensed in your sentences. Its the perfect phrase to live by.
Happy New Year.
J
Yes, you are very organized and keep track of so many things, it is fun to read about them on your blog. And when I read other people’s resolutions, you are right, they can pretty much be summarized by V’s statement.
Daria
Happy New year and Happy Belated Birthday!!! May this year bring many blessings your way!
J
Thank you Daria, you too!
Meike
Happy belated birthday and New Year! It sounds like you had a good day and the trip to the bookstore sounds really nice. I always like going to bookstores to browse even though I don’t get to the reading part much.
I usually don’t make New Years resolutions. Right now taking a day at a time feels right for me but I do like the words of your friend and that is something good to live by each day.
J
Thanks Meike, yes, one day at a time, with gentle goals of bringing joy. Also thinking of things that J 10 years from now will be thankful that I did now. Those are good things, be they health related, family related, friend related, etc.
San
Happy belated birthday, Julie! I hope you had a wonderful day.
And I love the New Year’s sentiment. Sweet and simple.
I am not making a whole lot of resolutions… I try to stick to my routines and make improvements here and there but no drastic changes.
J
Thanks San! Happy New Year to you and Jon as well.
Jenny
Is your birthday on NYE? My daughter’s is December 30th which seems like a blah day to have a birthday. At least NYE feels celebratory, and it sounds like you had a nice day.
Yes, I like those wise words for New Year’s. It’s really what we’re all trying to do anyway- we just try to make it sound all fancy on January 1st.
Happy New Year and belated birthday!
J
Jenny, NYE is sometimes a great day to have a birthday, sometimes it sucks. We couldn’t go to the restaurant I wanted to go to, they had a special menu and weren’t serving my favorites. If you have a party, everyone wants to stay until at least midnight, and I want them to leave so I can go to bed. When I was in my 20s it was pretty great. I hope your daughter had a happy birthday!
Ernie
Happy belated birthday. We are practically birthday buddies. We holiday birthday people have to stick together.
I love that resolution. It makes perfect sense. I don’t do resolutions, but that one is something I can wrap my brain around. I hope to stay more on top of the housework this year. I also hope that I can enlist the help of other family members to make that dream come true. I’m also hoping to get back in the swing of reading other blogs with a normal schedule on the horizon.
I took most Christmas stuff down today. I start babysitting tomorrow. 5 kids are still home tomorrow. 4 high school/junior high kids head back on Tuesday. Mini is home for another week and that is huge, because it helps me ease into my babysitting duties (although, let’s be honest, Mini will probably sleep until noon most days).
Happy New Year!
J
Happy New Year and Happy belated birthday Ernie! Yes, I like that resolution a lot and am keeping it in mind. Holiday birthdays are kinda sucky, right? I feel kind of bad about it because my husband and daughter work so hard to make it special for me. If my birthday were some random day in June, maybe they wouldn’t feel so much pressure.
Anne
Julie, happiest of happy (very belated, at this point) birthdays! It sounds like a wonderful weekend, and one during which you enjoyed doing things you love to do. 🙂 I have been going through physical clutter, too, and I am making plans to get rid of some of the more-challenging items (long story, but I have a LOT of… ephemera). Next up? DIGITAL clutter. Good grief.
I hope it has been a lovely start to 2024 for you. I am getting behind on blogs again; work has been a bit nuttier than anticipated, so apologies for the late comment.
J
I’m right there with you on being behind on commenting, no worries at all!
Oh, digital clutter. The last time I cleaned out my personal email inbox was January 2023, so I think I need to get on that soon. Sigh.
Regarding real clutter, yeah, way too much of that around here. I need to learn to get rid of things when I bring new things into the house.