Lazy Sunday recycle #1*

What better way to start the year than with a list of resolutions - er, sorry but I have actually been trying to keep my resolutions for the past three years. As the admirable blogger Frugal Queen said in her christmas speech (dated 24th December, so she got in before the real one): 'Its been a sticky year', meaning she stuck to her goals and kept her resolutions.

I don't see the new year as being a particularly significant time for doing new things, and I don't stay up until midnight unless I have to, but I do like a good recycle, I mean review. And having condensed my original 13 goals into 4, that should now be easier to achieve, right?

# 1: Health

Last year was the year of the knee (as the year before, 2012, was the year of the foot after a long walk in New Zealand resulted in plantar fasciitis - that word is a lot like fascist!) And yes, there was an arthouse film called le genou de Claire, from 1970, which someone may remember...about a fetish I believe.

Meaning the knee was the body part I struggled with the most in 2013. Knees are now slightly better, I am trying Green Lip Mussel capsules, after being on a UQ knee trial for osteoarthritis, where I am certain I got the placebo, so I thought I should try the real thing. But these are not cheap! I am also still taking red clover for menopause symptoms, which are also expensive, but they seem to help control those hot flushes, which are worse in hot weather.

I remembered today that the reason I first started exercising in earnest was to try to control sciatica, by doing pilates. One thing led to another, and I have since played squash,  run on treadmills, done boot camps, and now do the Les Mills trifecta (body pump, combat and balance), as well as cycling and yoga. And the sciatica is heaps better.  Its a fine line though (at my age) between exercising to combat pain, and combating pain to be able to do exercise.

Anyway, I have largely weaned myself off painkillers, and am also using ice after significant exertion, and am managing to still do most of what I want to do, except running. But cycling is a good replacement for running, and I am learning to love spin class. Not to mention the early Sunday morning river circuit with S, which is always good, but particularly so in the summer, when its warm, and I don't have to wear layers of clothing, including arm warmers (no I didn't know they existed either), to still have the use of my arms.

 Apart from that, I have been on the 5:2 Fast for the whole year, and have lost 6-7 kilos, depending on which day I weigh myself. I am not very strict, because it does give me a headache if I stick to the 500 calories, but it still works, if more slowly.

Emotions are harder to quantify (ask an art therapist!) and my focus in 2013 was on mindfulness as a means of managing anxiety and life in general. Which doesn't exactly take it away, but does make it more manageable. Except in certain anxiety-provoking situations, like exams and interviews.  But this is normal, of course, isn't it?

#2 Community

I am feeling a great deal more connected to my community these days, partly through this blog, and also because I am no longer studying, so I have time to be social, but there is always room for improvement here, its a constantly evolving process.  

My community development plan is to investigate an Open Table project for Brisbane. This incorporates ecological and social goals, so its a nicely compact and inclusive scheme, although perhaps not an easy one to start. I'll keep you posted...

We finally succumbed to installing an air conditioning unit this summer, and its been so worth it, given the ultra high temperatures, which are becoming the new normal for our crazy summers. And this article was written before the records were broken again last weekend.

#3: Creativity

Just briefly, as I wrote about this in my last post. I need to keep making and drawing, this week I made a wrap around skirt out of material I had already,  and a hand sewn journal, covered with lovely hand made wrapping paper from the Maldives (thanks Kareen!).

#4: Leisure

Ok, this will have to be a list.

Books I discovered beside my bed, in two piles:

1. Books I have (mainly) read last year/early this year:

•  Art as therapy by Alain de Boton - really interesting concept, did he discover/think of this himself!!??
• the Rosie Project by Graeme Simson - romance on the ASD spectrum
• the Missing Ink by Philip Hensler - about the dying art of handwriting, and italics!
• the Signature of all Things by Elizabeth Gilbert (yes, she did write Eat Pray Love, but don't let that put you off, I loved this book!)
• Why be Happy when you could be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson, an autobiography.
• Chicken Poop for the Soul by Kristeva Dowling - she was friends with a cousin, Clare Rolling, who sadly died in 2010 (I never met, she lived in Canada). The book is about food sovereignty.
• Notebooks by artist and critic Betty Churcher, who wrote this knowing she was losing her sight.
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - an early edition, given to me by dad
• For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
• The End of Alice by A. M. Homes. An author I really enjoy.
• My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. The ultimate running away from home and living off the land children's book, which I loved as a child (what does this say about my childhood?) and recently rediscovered. Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project loves children's fiction too, and why not, if it makes you happy?
• Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner - doing some cultural studies research, plus see above...
• Kafka and the Shore, by Haruki Murakami, a weird and wonderful fiction, thanks Sam!
• I can jump puddles by Alan Marshall - olde worlde Australia, and a story about a boy with polio...
• how to think more about sex by Alain de Boton - again, where does he get his ideas from? seriously thoughtful, but sometimes 'wrong', has a male perspective only...
• In the Winter Dark by Tim Winton. Love Tim Winton's work.
• Classic Haiku and the Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam. Awesome.

2. So far, unread, or still reading:

• The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton - I know it won the Man Booker Prize, but I'm finding it hard-going. Its 'quite interesting' as its set in the small West Coast town of Hokitika, South Island of New Zealand, where I went just after getting plantar fasciitis. And near where my maternal grandmother was born...
• David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell - looking forward to this, he usually manages to be surprising.
• Shady Characters by Keith Houston - about the ampersand and other quirky things.
• Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver - about global warming and the effect on butterflies, but I couldn't read this. It was an airport buy, the explanation for which is in the title, which is so apt....
• The Tree of Man by Patrick White. Could be a struggle, even the title puts me off. Of its time...
• The Blackbirder by Dorothy Hughes - christmas present from S: 'spy thriller with a hard-boiled heroine' !! What is he trying to tell me?

The reason for the large piles being, not because I am showing off my huge reading capacity, but because I 'found' the books, in the process of cleaning and reorganising the bedroom, as I hadn't put them away earlier (and we are running out of bookshelves).

Yes there is more to leisure than books, but this must already be my longest post ever, and I need to go to the hardware store to buy pva glue, and chicken mesh to stop crows stealing our chook eggs... action as well as reflection! Perhaps a movie recycle next Sunday - who knows?

What will you be focusing on this year? Leave a comment, and join the conversation!

more later

*I had this idea for a post a week ago, which makes the title even more apt.