Resolve to always be resolving

‘Resolve to always be resolving.’ That was a suggestion in the New York Times newsletter Saturday morning. It talked about how lots of people make new years resolutions and then break them by February and it said all the things that I am feeling about this topic. If you want to start a new habit, live healthier, sleep more, any year of the day is as good as New Years to start. I did not make a single resolution, did not find a word of the year, did not make any concrete plans as of yet other than going to my dad’s 80^th birthday party in March. Flight is booked and everything else will come in the coming weeks. I always in awe of everyone who comes up with all the ways they want to better themselves, all the goals they set for themselves for the year to come. It’s not for me this year.

During the break I started running again – outside when it’s not raining in the gym when it is. I do feel much better with the exercise in my life. I get antsy when I don’t but it gets harder to fit it in with the kids back in school, with long work days, pick-ups, etc. I am not a fast runner, don’t run long distances either but I enjoy it. We will see how long I can keep it up.

All this reading about goal lists made me question my approach a little but I think I finally settled and am more content with my decision to let the year just come. Last year I had our Resident’s Day week all nicely planned out and was about to head home on Friday to go home and pack suitcases when I got the call from school that one of my kids was not feeling well. Sure enough it was covid and we had to stay home that week instead of going on an adventure. Luckily covid did not hit to hard and we had a quite week. Since then, I started letting things just happen more because I am always weary that something might come up that leads to disappointment. Of course I still plan a little – flights to Germany for the summer have to be book ahead of time so that they don’t get too expensive, summer camps, hotel rooms, but I make sure I am able to cancel and leave it up in the air mentally.

Christmas is officially over in our house. I usually keep the tree up until January 6^th and put everything away the weekend after what I did yesterday. I only left the snowflakes on the windows. It makes it feel still a little festive and helps me ease into the next season.
Today the outside lights got put away as well, since we had a break from the rain. Oh, the rain, there is so much of it this year. I can’t really complain since we had no leaks, no flooding in the area, had not to evacuate unlike others in our community. The only thing happening to us was that we had power outages twice already caused by the rain and storm. If the electricity poles are any indication, I am not overly surprised. The jumble of wires and the ‘quality’ of the set-up, surprises me every time I have a closer look. Our friends lost power during a party once because the tree across the street grew around a power line and cut it off. I saw lines which still had parts of tree branches attached after the tree was already gone for years, have seen poles which were reinforced by planks because there were cracks. Because faulty lines caused some of the big California fires they finally started putting the lines underground. Hopefully it will also fix some of the other issues. It’s a little annoying to always expect a power outage when it’s a little windy outside (because of the fire danger in the summer and because of the rain in the winter). Is this something normal in the US? I don’t think I ever knew this before moving here. In Germany power lines are mostly underground for a long time now. When I was in elementary school I remember we had to pay attention when flying kites. because of power lines on fields everywhere. Over time they just disappeared (or I was to young to conciously hear about it). Can’t say I ever missed them.