Helga without the H

I had a whopping EIGHT New Year’s resolutions this past year! I listed them all here in this post. Then I did a check-in (like midterms I guess) in this post.

Now, the time has come to evaluate my results. So… how did I do? I’ll start with the overall attempt before jumping into individual resolutions. I am a major procrastinator by nature. This was a HUGE problem for me in school, because I never bothered to start schoolwork until right before the deadline. Sometimes I managed to finish the work on time by cramming, and sometimes (most times) I wasn’t. Add to that the fact that I’m a slow reader and literally could not keep up with reading assignments, and my grades suffered. One of my favorite teachers (Mrs. Bawcombe, 11th grade English, she was AWESOME, but also would be appalled at the drop-off in my writing skillz since HS) once told me “If you had turned this paper in on time, it would have been an A+.” I was very pleased to hear this. She continued, “But because you turned this in 4 days late and lose a letter grade for each late day, you’re receiving a D.” I replied that, if I’d turned it in on time, it wouldn’t have been A+ worthy. But because I took the extra couple days to finish the reading and put in the work, I know the material at an A+ level. And I know that, and she knows that, and that’s the whole point of school, right? I’ve been subsequently told by teacher friends that they would have hated having me as a student because of crap like that.

ANYWAY, I didn’t learn time management until sophomore year of college, when I had to balance being an animation major with being a college athlete. It is literally not possible to procrastinate where animation is concerned, because you can’t just pull an all-nighter to just churn out some crap like you can with an essay (if for no other reason than the computer lab was only open at certain hours). And the huge time commitment of being on a college sports team (even as a walk-on benchwarmer like myself) made scheduling skills absolutely crucial. I’ve since developed plenty of strategies for getting shit done, and have become pretty good at it. But all of these strategies are built to actively combat the natural procrastination that still stirs within me. Stuff like documentation (announcing to others that I plan to do something,) joining or creating formal challenges, setting deadlines, setting timers, formally tracking progress, etc. all work pretty well for me. One of my most powerful strategies is to try to jump on tasks immediately to get them out of the way, because I know that otherwise they’ll fall on the backburner and will never happen. I can get kinda manic when employing this last strategy, feeling like a failure if I can’t get something done ASAP because I know I will be an actual failure if I put it off.

That was a lot more than I meant to write here, but the point is that new years resolutions are definitely something where I had to employ all of my anti-procrastination strategies. The entire reason I came up with the resolutions in the first place is because there’s some stuff that I wanted to accomplish, and I needed the structure to provide the necessary motivation. For most tasks, I have a shorter timeline, which makes it possible to employ all my get-shit-done strategies. But with an entire year… dudes, a year is a long time. I’ve done 1 year goals before (daily Photoblog in 2011, posted exactly one year’s worth of Wordle scores in 2020, etc.) But 8 big resolutions is a whole other level. In general I started off pretty strong with most of my resolutions. But, full disclosure, I lost a ton of steam on most of these. But then, in the last weeks of the year, when I realized that my self-imposed deadline was fast approaching and I would need to write this very blog post (that nobody will read,) High School Procratinator Mode kicked in. I started cramming right at the end of the year to see how close I could get. This, too, was kind of part of the plan. Giving myself that 1 year deadline meant that I’d jump back onto dropped projects. Did I manage to catch up on a year’s worth of goals in the last few days? Let’s find out…

[As a reminder, I score myself using letter grades rather than pass/fail.]

1. Visit Museums: A [midterm B+]
   I visited and wrote full reviews for 16 museums this year. In January I set a realistic goal of 15. “If I can get to 20, that’s freakin’ awesome. 24+ and I’m a total rockstar.” So, on paper, I 100% accomplished my goal. Huzzah! However, a couple of these were stretches, plus I didn’t get to a bunch of the museums I wanted to. This resolution will be repeated next year.
   
2. Write Book Reviews: A+ [midterm A+]
   I read and reviewed a whopping 39 books this year. THIRTY NINE BOOKS! That’s by far the most books I’ve ever read in a year, and every single one of those got a full Goodreads review. Some of those reviews aren’t exactly the most in-depth, but I did it and knocked this goal right outta the park. Huzzah!
   
3. Publish my 3rd novel: D [midterm D]
   Shiiiiiit… I am very disappointed in myself with this one. It’s the goal I was most excited about, and the one for which this self-imposed deadline was designed. At the end of 2023, I had just finished (finally!) my first draft and had sent it off for editing., plus was working on my blurb and cover art. My editor got her edits back to me in early July (she’s an extremely talented professional editor who was doing this for me pro bono), and I immediately jumped right into reading through all of her comments! But then… I don’t know what happened. I got overwhelmed? I got busy? I dunno, but next thing I know, it’s freaking autumn and I’d barely touched my follow-up editing. But this is where High School Procratinator Mode kicked in. In the last days of December, I’m been working my ass off on getting through all the edits. I’m still not quite done, but I am finally at a point where, if I had to publish at this exact moment, I could do it. Though I didn’t accomplish my goal, I am giving myself a D because I did at least make some progress. My hope is that I can finish up in the early part of 2025 and get some make-up points. We’ll see…
   
4. Write the draft for my 4th novel: F [midterm F]
   Hahahahaha!!! OMG, literally NOTHING has happened with this one. Nothing!
   
5. Establish a solid new fitness/gym plan: B+ [midterm C+]
   I covered most of this in my midterm report, but this year I’ve used a ClassPass membership to try out a couple different options. Over year I’ve fallen into the following pattern: strength training 2x per week, yoga 1x per week, volleyball 1x per week, run 3x per week (approx. 12 miles per week, or 50 hours per month,) chiropractor 1x every 3 weeks, and 10K steps of walking daily. Plus a rest day or two per week. If you’re thinking, “Hey, that’s more activities than there are days in a week,” well then you are correct. Additionally, I’m kinda a hermit and don’t go out much, but on the rare occasions when I do have something to do (or heck, if I’m just sick,) it takes away a day or two of activity. All that means that I wasn’t 100% consistent all year long. That being said, I’m a lot more consistent than in previous years, and the current plan is pretty sustainable for continuing into the new year. I’ve also made HUGE strides where running is concerned. I ran a whopping THREE trail relays (approx. 15 miles each,) and I’ve broken my longest-run record several times. Before this year my record was 10 miles (which I’d done exactly once and felt like I was going to die after,) but in the second half of this year I’ve made a point of doing a 10 mile run at least once per month. Why not an A? Where is there room for more improvement? In addition to the occasional veering off plan mentioned above, I would like to be pushing myself more where strength training is concerned. I don’t think I’m lifting heavy enough in my classes, and I’m not doing any additional work at home. But overall, I’m really happy with where I am, and am setting up for a whole bunch of continuing fitness goals for 2025.
   
6. Become Better at Gardening: B [midterm B]
   This one started pretty well. I’ve been reading my month-by-month gardening book all year long (though, honestly, there were several months where I didn’t get to the chapter until the end of the month.) I did a big project in my front garden where I ripped up the old weed barrier, built a rock wall, and planted flowers that absolutely flourished. My bulbs from last fall came in great in the spring (though I did way too many bulbs way too close together.) I planted in all of my window boxes and the plants there made it over halfway through the summer (better than I expected given our heatwaves,) then I did some ornamental chilis and mums in the fall that died after a few weeks (doh!) I planted rosemary that immediately died, lavender that kinda hung around but didn’t really flourish, and a couple sad little basil plants that absolutely EXPLODED beyond my wildest imagination. I was posting on BuyNothing asking strangers to come take all my basil because I could only make so much pesto (and I made a shit ton of pesto.) So I definitely made strides, but… am I actually any better? I would say that, yes, I am better, because I actually did some stuff and put in some work. Am I any good at this? No, not yet. So much of this still feel like trial-and-error. One big problem here is that, to my great frustration, gardening is soooo slow, and you don’t find out how you did until months or even years later. I moved around some bulbs- will they return next year, or was that a one-and-done thing and I wound up killing everything? Did I prune stuff right? Did all my pre-winter mulching and compost application help with anything? I am still FAR away from being good at gardening, and honestly I don’t think I’ll ever get there because I lack patience to put in all the work that’s required. But I still put in a bunch of work, and I’m lightyears ahead of where I was when I first bought this house and garden 3 years ago.
   
7. Complete Some Home Projects: C [midterm D]
   Did I complete any of the projects from my original post? No. What did happen this year? We did plenty of work on the house, but most of it was done by others, and none of it was pre-planned. First, we had several windows replaced because they were leaking rainwater into our house. Then we had plumbers cut a hole into our ceiling to access a leaking bathtub. Then another company came by to fix the hole with a new access panel and to recaulk our leaky tub. Then an electrician fixed several faulty switches and installed a new ceiling fan and light. Outside, I pulled all the old material out of the joints between our patio and walkway stones, and my husband and I replaced it all with EZjoint (that was our biggest hands-on project.) High School Procrastinator Mode kicked in around December when I thought about all the cool stuff I’d wanted to do around the house and didn’t. I replaced the idea of building an organizer for my foyer, with placing whimsical hooks on my foyer wall. That project took about 15 minutes and happened 3 days ago. I also ordered a light-up house number/address sign to put out in front of our house. Originally I’d meant to built it from scratch using wood. But honestly, my craftsmanship is way less than professional, and my husband at some point mentioned getting a light-up sign, which is a fantastic idea since the whole problem is that people never see our house number. There is still hands-on work to do with that one, though. We have to figure out where/how to mount it, which may still require some actual construction. Finally, for Christmas I requested “free manual labor” in hopes to get help with the wood panel accent wall I’ve wanted to do since we moved in. So I (just barely) have attempted to put wheels in motion to get some of this stuff done in the new year (knock on wood.)
   
8. Get (and Use) a Library Card: B [midterm B]
   I got myself a library card in January. I haven’t gone into a library to get a book yet, but I have used the card to check out audiobooks and ebooks through the Libby app. I have read several books through this app, but I’m not gonna lie, I haven’t enjoyed the experience. The selection is limited, there are wait times for anything remotely popular, and if there’s a waitlist on a book you’ve got checked out, you can’t renew it and instead have to get back on the waitlist again. This has really fucked with my ability to enjoy the reading experience, and towards the tail end of the year I haven’t even opened the app, instead just going back to Audible and paper books. But hey, I did this one! And I’m glad I did, because it’s helped me stretch out my Audible credits to achieve my record highest number of books read in 1 year (see resolution #2.)

1. A
2. A+
3. D
4. F
5. B+
6. B
7. C
8. B

FINAL GPA: 2.625, which my high school would have counted as a C+. Did I make honor roll? No. Did I pass? Yes. Do I have to do summer school to make up for failing resolution #4? Yes. Overall, though, I’m pretty happy with these results. I made progress on almost all of my resolutions, have plans to continue into the next year, and got to challenge myself on multiple fronts. I did all this while adding other fun projects like a thorough Oscar Movie Binge, Christmas Movie Binge, some video editing, and an anniversary gift for my parents, and while being busy with foster dogs, travel, and family medical issues. Enough crazy stuff happened this year that, frankly, I’m proud of myself for doing ANY of this stuff, let alone most of this stuff. Not too shabby. Good job, 2024, and onward to 2025!