Happy New Year!

2022 is my year, y’all. I am more than a little hyped for this year, and I absolutely cannot wait for everything that’s in store. I have some big, big goals for this year, and I am so ready to share them with you. I’m turning thirty this year, and it’s the start to some bold new adventures.

fitness

I have both some very specific and some very vague fitness goals for this year. Specific because I have a lot of things in mind, but vague because I need to take a step back from hating my body and work on just creating a healthier mindset. It’s been a lifelong struggle, and though we’re coming to a place where mind & body just accept each other, it’s hard sometimes. Thus, here are my 2022 goals for my body:

1. Get to a regular 5.10 climbing level.
2. Work on forearm stand away from the wall.
3. Practice yoga every week outside of teaching.
4. Try to eat more intuitively.
5. Hike more!

Currently, I’m at a 5.8 climbing level, but earlier in the year, I climbed for about four weeks straight, and I easily accomplished a 5.10 route with no problem whatsoever, and it really shook up my mindset around climbing. I am capable of more, and though my being able to climb is dependent on having someone to climb with, I can fix that simply by opening myself up to climbing with people that I’m not related to or that I don’t work with. There are plenty of people that need belay partners, and CRG is beginning a partner program, so I’m going to start climbing twice a week as often as possible so that I can regularly climb 5.10s.

I’m so close to a forearm stand away from the wall! Every time that I kick up at the wall, I don’t use it anymore except to do minute rebalancing, and I know that I can do this away from the wall. I just need to start incorporating it into every practice possible. I do three sets of headstands every practice, so it’s time I started doing sets of forearm stands, as well.

For ten weeks in the autumn of 2021, I took on an extra class, which meant that my only free days were Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. Those were bookended by days that I taught, and I was exhausted. Now, I’m back to my regular Monday, Thursday, Saturday schedule, and given that Thursday is beginner’s, I want to get back to regularly practicing on Wednesdays. I’d also like to start incorporating a practice on Sundays purely because I often get restless doing nothing but reading all morning, so I’m looking to add two regular practices on top of my three taught classes. I also recently signed up for a virtual membership with Commune Yoga because I want to get back to taking classes, too, so I’m going to try to make this my Sunday class.

I’ve been having a rough go of it with food lately, and while it definitely does show in my physical body, it also shows mentally. I won’t lie, I’m struggling with my food intake, and I know that it’s not healthy, but I keep doing it anyway, so I’m going to try to work on intuitive eating again. I know that I feel like shit if I eat late at night, and that it’s usually the cause of my awful heartburn, so I need to stop eating after dinner. I also need to stop over-snacking at work because it makes me lethargic and gross feeling, not because I’m having I’m so fat thoughts or something, but actually gross because I’ve overeaten, and it borders on nausea. Thus, we’ve got to get back to the good habits I formed pre-COVID.

And, lastly, I just want to hike more! I didn’t start hiking by myself until autumn of last year, and now that I know it’s a lot of fun to hike alone, I definitely want to knock out a bunch of routes this spring. Heck, maybe I’ll even invest in some spikes and get out there early for some snow hikes!

travel

What’s this? A new section?? You betcha because ya girl is about to see the world. In 2021, a lot happened, and I let go out of a lot of bullshit. I lost a few friends, and I stopped relying on others. When I was constantly met with a wall where people didn’t want to put in effort to be my friend, I decided to just stop giving them my own effort. If I don’t deserve effort from them, then they certainly don’t deserve it from me, and guess what. I deserve effort! Thus, I’m turning that effort inward.

During autumn of last year, I started hiking alone, and it got me thinking. What else have I been waiting on other people for? What else have I been saying I couldn’t do without friends or a significant other? How badly did I actually want to see the world? Badly enough to do it alone? Turns out, the answer is yes.

This year, for two weeks in March, I’m going to Portugal. I’ve wanted to go for years, and it’s been the setting of several of my books now, and it’s where my great-grandfather was born, where he came over from when he brought my maternal family to the US. This isn’t even a I’m going to travel alone, just watch me! moment because I already booked my Airbnbs, all of my tours are scheduled, and my flights are ready to go. And though this is my first time both traveling alone and traveling abroad, I have some goals that I’d like to accomplish while I’m there:

1. Explore Lisboa & Ponta Delgada for a full day without a plan.
2. Talk to people on the tours!
3. Solo hike in Peneda-Gerês and Pico Arieiro & Pico Ruivo.
4. Try as many new foods as possible.
5. Plan Scotland.

During the two weeks in Portugal, I’m hitting four cities–Lisboa, Porto, Ponta Delgada on São Miguel, and Funchal on Madeira. The amount of flights I’ll have to get on is staggering. From Boston to Heathrow to Lisbon doesn’t even touch on the fact that I’ve got to fly to two separate islands, one in which has one of the shortest airstrips in the world. But I’m going to meet so many people, both my Airbnb hosts and while just wandering around and while I’m on a few guided tours to see the cities properly, so I want to make sure that I spend time getting to know people and exploring the cities that I’m in. I have three full days of rest planned throughout the two weeks, and I want to take those to explore without a plan, to just let the city and its people (and its food!) take me where it will.

I’ve also got several hikes planned, and while a couple of them will be part of tours, a few will also be solo hikes, and I really don’t want to chicken out at the last second. I’ve got to find a way to get to both the national park and a little north of my Airbnb in Madeira, but I’m going to solo hike Pico Arieiro & Ruivo no matter what.

And Scotland? Well, that’s for 2023, but planning will start in autumn of 2022.

reading

Some of this is definitely going to look a little repetitive, but many of the goals that I set for reading each year are ones that I actively enjoy working on, so we’re going to see some old and see some new.

1. Read 100 books.
2. Stick to my monthly TBRs!
3. Do not buy any books until The Great TBR Challenge is at or below 35.
4. Stay current with new releases.
5. Read five books in Portuguese.
6. Try to read 10 books a month.
7. Finish Jane Austen!
8. DNF @ 100 pages if you don’t like it, ya dummy.
9. Buy two more bookcases.
10. Stop forcing yourself to read outside of fantasy if you don’t want to.
11. Reread at least one book a month!

Oh, I definitely lied, there are so many new things on this year’s goals list. I didn’t even know how many goals I had until I started writing them out, but damn! That’s a lot! Okay, let’s break it down.

The first three are repeats from last year. My TBR is still out of control, and given that I spent most of the last few months focused solely on new releases, I didn’t do a lot of damage to it. I’d like to stick by this ban, particularly because I’m spending money on travel and hopefully buying a house this year. I still want to read 100 books, as well, and since setting monthly TBRs works really well for me, I’d like to stick to them again.

I mostly stayed current with new releases this year right up until the end, but there were also so many books releasing in autumn that it got a little out of control. Thus, I’d like to stay ahead might have been a more appropriate phrasing. Since I’m reaching the end of my Duolingo lessons with Portuguese, and I’ll be traveling to my homeland this year, I’d also like to read a few books in Portuguese. This is definitely going to be a stretch because I’ll probably need to read either with a translation or a translator nearby, but I’d still like to aim for it. And though I’ve been averaging between 6-8 books a month this year, I’d like to get back up to my average of closer to 10. Hopefully, some of those monthly books will also be rereads! I had so much fun rereading this year that I’m going to try to make it a priority, and if I’m honest, I already know which series I want to reread, but stay tuned for specifics on that in a few weeks.

I’m going to talk about seven and ten together because they fit together. You’ll notice that, for the first time in a few years, I’m not aiming to read a classic or nonfiction per month. Look, I’m old, and I’m tired, and I don’t feel like expanding my reading anymore. I’ve done it a lot over the years, tried to branch out, and there have been a few successes, but mostly just me realizing how much I love fantasy, so outside of reading the last two Austen’s that I have, which I actually enjoy, I’m not going to force myself outside of fantasy anymore.

And the last two are mostly self-explanatory. I need to work on DNFing because I’m horrible at it, and I really don’t need to keep reading books that I’m clearly not enjoying, and the 100 page mark feels like a good one for me. I generally know by then if I’m enjoying something or not. The bookcases will be dependent on when I actually manage to buy a house, but Satan willing, it’ll happen soon!

writing

This is going to look smaller than normal, but it is, in truth, so much bigger. I only have two goals this year:

1. Finish the first draft of Andrew.
2. Keep querying sister witches.

I’m about halfway done with the first section of Andrew’s story, and I’d like to finish up the whole thing this year. I just finished the third lover of eight, and it’s well over 100k, so I’m envisioning I’ll be about three books deep in length by the time I’m done with the eighth lover. After that, it’s time for Rafael, and he’s an entire book all in his own, especially because I keep forgetting I plan on giving him a century of space in between the last three lovers, good grief, this thing is going to be five books long, just watch. All told, I’m kind of aiming to write two and a half books in terms of word count next year, so that’s why Andrew is the only one on this list.

However, I’d also like to continue querying sister witches since I kind of let that fall by the wayside after I had some hopeful agents in the summer. I really want to see this book published, and part of that is writing Andrew’s story, so it feels fitting that I’m going to keep working toward getting sister witches out there while I’m writing my depressed little vampire.

Same goal, different year, but with a little added flair! If I don’t end up in a house of my own this year, I may throw myself into a bonfire, and I’m so excited for the amount of cat decor I’m going to put up for the girls to have the entire damn house for them to play in. I’m talking ladders and shelves and tunnels everywhere. They spend more time at home than I do, and I want it to be a palace for them. I’m hopeful that I’ll have a library, so why not make the entire house their playground? They are solely the reason I’m not in jail, so they deserve all the love and more.

Are you setting goals this year?