What Can I Say About 2017

I think it's undeniable that this has been one hell of an eventful year. During the early months, especially, time seemed to be moving with a painful kind of slowness -- the number of remarks I have seen equating each month to "dog years" defies counting.

One of the best things I did this year was to start a bullet journal. I have kept a journal off and on for most of my life, but lately it's been more "off." I thought the minimalist format and single point of contact provided by a bullet journal would be useful, and I am absolutely a convert; since I started mine in May, I've only missed a couple of days. I have no talent for art, so my journal does not have beautifully lettered headers or dividers or even much more than a few doodles when I have an awkwardly-sized bit of leftover space to use up, but I love it anyway.

I am also not so good at using it for being hyperproductive like some people seem to do. Maybe that will be something I work on in 2018. Mostly I've made do with a pretty high level kind of tracking. Even glancing over that stuff, though, it's been a decent year in terms of accomplishments.

• I got serious about learning French; as of this writing I'm at 62% on Duolingo. 
• I started getting back into some technical subjects with a refreshing class on HTML/CSS via Codeacademy, and have moved on to their Python course. 
• I've subscribed to a slew of podcasts -- too many of them to really keep up with, to be honest, but they've introduced me to further new ideas, in a rather dizzying virtuous cycle. 
• I've read ten more books than I read last year. Some of them kinda sucked, but there were some gems in there as well. 
• I finished NaNoWriMo for the first time in a long while. 
• I learned to knit. 
• I've committed to a career change. If everything goes well, I'll spend a lot of 2018 collecting experiences toward making that jump, and exploring what it would take to make an even bigger leap. 

 All of that while dealing with a shit-ton of anxiety and all of life's usual challenges. So here's hoping for a bountiful year. Happy holidays!

NaNoWriMo 2017

Generic Update

NaNoWriMo is going well; I got myself a day ahead, and have been writing consistently. I sometimes think that the best use for NaNo is the reminder that this doesn't have to be stressful, doesn't have to be about a future career, or a brand (ugh), or anything but a story you want to tell. Maybe it's a funny story, a scary story, a moving story, all three and more. It's just yours.

I have been thinking a lot about social media, its unforeseen consequences, and the ways in which we can use it without being, ourselves, used. These companies are vampires that we have blithely invited into our homes, where they feed with impunity. There must be a better way.

I have been thinking about starting my own company someday.

NaNoWriMo 2017

Because I don't have enough going on, apparently, I signed up for yet another NaNo. So far, so good - almost to the 10k mark on time. Anxiety has been eating up much of my energy that should be used for creative work this year.

Learning Goes On

I'm not sure what motivated this, but over the weekend I decided to learn to knit. I was delighted to find that it's not very hard, and am now about 1/3 through my first real project (a cowl).

I also started learning Python, mainly because it looked easier than JavaScript.

I am up to four blogs now.

I am "lack of focus" personified.

Need a Mental Shakeup?

One of the books I've been reading for work recently is CTRL-Shift, a collection of improv games for working life. I've had it for a while and flipped through it often, but there hasn't seemed like a good time to try any of the suggestions in it -- not enough time or other resources, usually.

Today, though, felt like a "stuck" day, and I was in a terrible mood, so I tried the acronym game. This involves nothing more elaborate than writing down acronyms that one encounters in daily life and thinking up new meanings for them.

I don't know how "useful" it was, but the exercise in silliness broke up some of the clouds on my mood.

Pointless Musing

It has now been two years since I posted that it had been a year since I posted anything, so I guess they do just leave these blogs hanging out there in the void for what might as well be forever.

Which is not to say that I don't think about coming back to blogging once a week or so, it's just that I can't find any sort of focus. There's a million things I could talk about, but none of them are much that I think other people would be interested in reading.

What's going on right now? So glad you asked.

• Oldest child will be a teenager in just a few more days. I am coping. 
• I feel trapped in my job, and I can't figure out how to get out of it. 
• I am working on the fairy novel again, some more, and determined to finish it this summer. 
• I started a bullet journal, like everybody else in the country. I now have even more pens than ever before.
• I started meditating. 
• I haven't had any significant time to just be in my home in weeks, and I think it's taking a toll on my emotional state. 

Judging from my Pinterest boards, what I most want at this point in my life is a clean house, time to write in my journal, and a horse.