Resolved for 2018

In 2017 I took  new approach to New Year’s Resolutions: rather than selecting 1-3 big things to focus on, I made a giant list of everything that passed through my head that I wanted to do, accomplish, or change in 2017. To my surprise, this approach actually worked pretty well. I didn’t get everything done, but I didn’t really expect to. And I did do a lot more than I expected–including some things I’d been wanting to do for years and had never gotten around to. I did the same thing in 2018 but I never got around to posting it. However, I’ve had the full list of resolutions in draft form for the full year, so what the heck: I’ll run through ’em and see what we did.

1. Drink more water Hit or miss on this one. It comes and goes in phases. But…mostly no. 
2. Establish a regular exercise regimen for cardio and strength I did GREAT on this from January – Memorial Day. I was swimming at least twice a week and as the weather got warmer started biking as well. Then (surprise!) a new baby arrived and everything went off the rails. In the fall I started ice skating a couple of times a week and I’m trying to re-establish good habits from here. I’ll call it a success, with the challenge that I have to kind of start all over again in 2019. 
3. Vacation to Chicago For the last two years, my visits to the homeland have been dominated by need and obligation: health crises, helping with packing and moving, specific commitments like parties, weddings, or showers. This year I want to spend some proper vacation time with my mom at home; take time to see my old friends and their children; and take Liddie to see and enjoy some of the glory that is Chicago in the summertime. She’s almost three and she’s literally never been downtown–not OK.  Maybe we’ll even take the train from Ann Arbor! We did it! A week in late June/early July. 
4. Get Kelsey and Robyn to visit me in Michigan Nope–no luck this year, despite repeated attempts. Looking to 2019….
5. Don’t drink alcohol or eat desserts while sitting around at home on weekday evenings. I did really well on this from, like….March-June.  Ha. 
6. Bring healthy snacks to work. I got a bento-style lunch box that I really like and it (sometimes) helps. A good effort was made. Could be more consistent in 2019. 
7. Lose 15 pounds Here was my rationale last January: Ugh, I’m so mixed on this one. I hate putting, like, a pound goal on here. I’d rather focus on nutritional things like eating a more plant-based diet, or exercise things, like, um, exercising. And I do have variations of those things on my list. As I did (and even accomplished) last year. But the fact of the matter is I just keep gaining weight, especially in the last half of 2018, after holding steady for a couple of years. It just keeps going up, like, almost weekly. This may be a side effect of medication, as well as age, sedentariness, winter, etc. I don’t want to obsess about this, but I also can’t healthily stay on this trajectory. I want to get back to a more balanced place, where my clothes fit, I feel better, I don’t get winded on the stairs, my joints don’t complain. I know where that point is, and I might as well just lay it out there so I can aim for it. In conclusion: I continued to gain weight through the end of March, hitting a new lifetime high. I then embarked on a pretty focused calorie-counting program, and lost almost 15 pounds in a couple of months (the first half of that fell off fast, just extra bloat/bulk I was carrying around). However, because of how much I’d actually gained in the last year, I really would have liked to lose another 10-15 to even get back to the high end of healthy for me. But, baby life de-reailed that plan. I’m holding steady-ish and OK with it. Having halted the scary steady gain, in 2019 I really just want to focus on intuitive eating and adequate sleep, exercise, and water intake. 
8. Cut back on Noosa. Go back to plain Greek yogurt. In service of the above. Yeah, we consume an absurd amount of this high-sugar, high-fat dessert yogurt in our house. It’s not unlike just eating ice cream all the time. Time to rein it in. Yeah, pretty much. L isn’t that into it anymore either (I guess our days of #lemonyogurt are over?) and it’s probably for the best. 
9. Sleep. Like water, this is hit or miss and lately, more miss. Keep trying!
10. See more movies either at the theater, or rented from iTunes. Yes! So many great movies this year. Plenty in the theater but also plenty of new/recent movies rented at home. I feel pretty up to speed on things, and I really, really enjoyed a lot of what I saw this year! Mary Poppins Returns, The Favourite, BlackkKlansman, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, Skyscraper, Eighth Grade, The Spy Who Dumped Me, Crazy Rich Asians, Sorry to Bother You, Blindspotting, Black Panther, The Post, The Greatest Showman, A Quiet Place, Can You Ever Forgive Me, Oceans 8, Blockers, Solo…probably even more? It was a great year for movies. 
11. Keep up contact with family. This is still hard. Always crossing wires/time with relatives and I just don’t do a very good job of holding up my end. Continuing challenge. 
12. Send more cards and letters. Well, I mean, this is the first year that I was consistently communicating with more than one person in prison/detention so as a result of that, I sent more regular letters/cards than I have in years. Not the best way to have that play out. In 2019 I’d like to send more, um, positive correspondence. 
13. Publish something. This is a specific career-related goal that’s really a holdover from last year. I had a number of opportunities in 2017 to publish work that I’d done, and never managed to follow through on the basic requirements of just. getting. it. done. So! This year I challenge myself to DO IT.  OK, in 2018 nothing got ultimately published, something is in the woks and well on its way. It was exhausting and draining and a lot of work and I hated it and I did it (almost did it–still some final work to do). Wahoo! 
14. Relaxing beach vacation. I’m just gonna leave this on the list forever. Especially because it did not happen in 2018 😦 
15. Do up my mom’s 60th birthday right. Yes! Brother and I took my mom to Amsterdam for a few days for her birthday. It was wonderful!
16. Pay more attention to my dog. Mmmm, sort of. We got better at this in the last few months of the year. Let’s keep it up! 
17. Make a real go of biking to work Did not accomplish because life was upended (in a good way) in May. Interested in putting it on the list for 2019! 
18. Replace broken, shitty, or inappropriate things as needed We got A/C and replaced our fridge! Does that count? 
19. Figure out *something* re: cleaning We had a good habit getting formed in the spring and then baby threw everything off track. On the list again for 2019. So far if this past weekend is any indication, we’re off to a decent start. 
20. Add to our family? YES! Amazing, miraculous surprise Simona. I don’t remember anything from before she arrived on May 24.
21. Get our finances back in order so that we’re contributing regularly to our savings account.We were…then the holidays happened and 2 kids in daycare happened. Need to revisit and figure out WTH is going on. But I’ll count it because you know what, we did get there, for awhile in the middle of the year, and it counts. We just have to, like, do it again this year. 
22. Get estate planning, wills and living wills, etc., fully under control. Ugh, close but no cigar. We signed up for the legal plan at work, I requested a case number, contacted a local attorney and….went no further. We do have named guardians but–again–none of this is legally enshrined. This is so, so, so important and needs to get done. Making this a Q1 goal for 2019 especially since (see below) this has become a bit of a hobby horse for me. 
23. Find a way to volunteer with hospice or similar I reached out but then unfortunately people in my family kept, um, dying. Hospice has a (good, reasonable) rule that you need to wait 12 months after the death of someone close to you before you volunteer. So, you know, fingers crossed…maybe later this year. I am still deeply interested in death and dying and want to find ways to engage with people here. Throughout the year I continued to read and educate myself.  I’ll give myself credit for doing as much as was possible in 2018.
24. Fix up our bedroom Made some small improvements to storage. It still feels far from done. As we make progress on other areas of the house (kitchen is on the calendar for Q1 2019!) hopefully we’ll finally get to our own space. 
25. Celebrate my dad’s birthday with love Lol. On my dad’s birthday I made an emergency redeye flight to Denver to be with my grandmother (his mother) who was horrendously sick and seemed to be dying (she lived another 5 months). It was awful but….I guess there was, indeed, love? Not exactly how I’d wanted to mark the occasion, but I was with (his) family so. I guess. I did what I had to do. 
26. Get out quarterly with spouse Yeah! And in the second half the year we even made it monthly. Good commitment, keep it up. Pre-booking the babysitter months ahead of time is the secret here. 
27. Reduce the number of things (projects, people, commitments) in my life that I dread Hm, yeah, actually, I think kind of. Feeling good about the trajectory anyway. 
28. Get re-engaged with my community Not really and in fact I’m not even sure what this means right now and I’ve kind of (unfortunately) totally lost interest. Shrug. 
29. Skin care Apparently earlier in the year I thought this was a yes? Shrug. 
30. Flossing Lol nope.
31. More vegetables again Yeah, pretty good. Here I am most satisfied with the meal prep and planning I’ve been doing since September. We’re cooking for real, even with the two kiddos and working full time. It’s an accomplishment and I’m proud of it. 
32. Active nurturing of friendships–especially, hosting Some! Coordinated our SI reunion visit in March, coordinated a birthday movie get together, and hosted a small handful of “book club” / snacks, wine, and venting evenings. We didn’t succeed with our weekly drinks nights like we did in 2017 but we did what we could our own ways. It’s important to me that our home feel like a warm and welcoming place so we’ll keep on this. 
33. See more of Sam’s friends Not really? But…kind of? Jon and Jill came to visit us in February and we saw them again in Chicago in July. We also saw Molly and Andrew in the summer. So…sure, yes, I’ll take it. More than the last few years, anyway, I guess?
34. Celebrate our anniversary properly I literally do not remember what we did for our anniversary. I have actually no idea. But we’ve already started planning something special for next year, which will be our ten year, so there’s that! 
35. Make regular time for professional/scholarly reading. Mmm not really. I struggle with this so much. 
36. Give blood Nope
37. Get our chimney/fireplace inspected and fixed Nope
38. Attend least one professional (or very high-quality) theater performance Yes! In the Heights, West Side Story, Waitress, A Little Night Music, and a local performance of The Nutcracker. Good year for theater and lots of good stuff on the horizon for 2019! I’m really excited about making this a regular part of our lives. 
39. Get our garage cleaned and sorted Nope. 
40. Improve storage in our basement YES! Now…can we maintain it? That’s the question…..
41. Continue to process/make a dent in our overstock of books. Maybe? Time to Marie Kondo this thing. 

19/41. Not fantastic, but pretty good considering one of the things outweighed all the others in terms of awesomeness, as well as consumption of all time, energy, and spare resources.

Also, a few holdovers from 2017:

• Swimming lessons for Liddie--yes! Did in first quarter of 2018
• Ice skating with Liddie–Yes! Technically was January 1, 2019 but I think it counts.
• Renovate our kitchen–we met with a contractor, got estimates, made plans, and the work will actually happen in 2019.

On to 2019!

 

Unquiet Time

I get up between 5 and 5:30 a.m. every weekday. I do this because it’s the only way I can get some dark, quiet, alone time in my own house. I use this time–usually at least an hour, some days closer to two hours–to walk the dog, do a yoga video, drink a whole cup of coffee while hot, make and eat my own breakfast, empty/re-load the dishwasher and, if there’s time, make L’s breakfast and maybe pack our lunches.

This time keeps me calm and sane and helps me start the day off on the right foot–i.e., means I have plenty of time to complete my metamorphosis into a human before I have to parent, spouse, adult, or anything else. This is not just about my mental and emotional well-being (which is important!) but also about just keeping ahead of the entropy of the house. Dishes, laundry, meal prep, wiping down surfaces and floors, clearing fossilized leftovers out of the fridge–this all happens in that uninterrupted early morning window.

And so, it drives me CRAZY when I don’t get it. Specifically, when the 3 y.o. wakes up at 4:54 am, wide awake, demanding breakfast, and raring to launch into an argument about why she won’t use the potty first.

This is harder for me than when she won’t go to bed at night, or even when she wakes up in the middle of the night, because, well, it feels like she’s sticking it to me on purpose (obviously not true…I mean, I wouldn’t put it past her, but she doesn’t have a clock in her room and she can’t tell time). But really because it just throws the entire day for a loop from the very first second we’re awake. When she wakes up in the middle of the night, we can get her back to bed or, in a pinch let her come into our bed. If everyone in the house is, in fact, sleeping, she is likely to settle down and at least stay quiet-ish and still-ish in the dark for awhile.

At 4:57, there’s no going back to bed, because in fact, I’m up, the dog’s up, there’s movement, there’s light, there’s clattering in the kitchen and the smell of coffee and she *knows* it’s not nighttime and nothing will convince her otherwise, even if it is pitch black outside. It also means I can’t just go walk the dog, unless S also gets up, an hour before he normally would, to make sure she doesn’t wreak havoc on the house in the 15 minutes I’m gone. And then he is up, too, which is good and helpful, in terms of childcare and prep for the day, but also a further chip away at the quiet time that I literally trade my sleep for: another person in the kitchen, all the lights on, all the clatter, all the animals, at 6 am instead of 7.

So, obviously, this is all frustrating, but also straight up part of parenting a small child. It’s to be expected. I know, I know. What I’m not sure about, and the line I’m trying to walk, is how far to go showing her that every minute of the day doesn’t revolve around her. This morning when I got back from walking the dog, I gave her a choice: stay in her room to play/look at books, or come downstairs while I did my yoga video, and either do the yoga with me, or look at her tablet on the couch.

She chose tablet on the couch, which was actually the worst because in fact TABLETS ARE THE WORST! Every 12 seconds she has unplugged the headphones, turned off the tablet, switched user profiles back over to me and locked herself out, run into a pay option in a kids app that’s preventing her from going any further (embedded purchase/upgrade options should be illegal in apps for small children, but I digress). In a way that would have been uncannily humorous, if not so enraging, I would be, like, in downward facing dog. She would demand assistance with some problem. I would pause my video, solve the problem, settle her down, start the video, get back in position and literally, as soon as my body would settle into where it needed to be….”MOMMY! I’M TANGLED UP!” and the headphone cord is wrapped around her toe.

I was starting to get really short with her: “What? … WHAT!?…. WHAT DO YOU WANT? CAN YOU PLEASE JUST STOP FOR LITERALLY TWO MINUTES!?”

I could feel my heart rate going up. I don’t think this is how yoga is supposed to work.

And I was feeling bad about it, but also just completely frustrated. Like, there’s only so early one can get up in the morning and still even pretend that it’s not the middle of the night. I am pretty much already at that place. If she starts getting up at 5, there’s nowhere for me to go, and when I contemplate this, that’s the feeling I literally have, this panicked, claustrophobic response. If this becomes a pattern, there’s. nowhere. for. me. to. go.

Last June she started getting up between 4 and 5 every day for like two weeks. Not coincidentally, I think, around this time I broke down crying in the doctors office and started an anti-anxiety/anti-depression medication. There were lots of reasons for this, this wasn’t the *cause* of my depression and anxiety. But I do firmly believe that it was the loss of this early morning, dark, quiet, low-sensory, no-people, morning warm-up time that destroyed my ability to cope/manage it.

So, back to today. Finally, I sat down with her on the couch for a chat and I said, “Look, you woke up almost 2 hours earlier than usual today. This is my quiet time, when I do other things. I’m getting frustrated because I really need that time, and to do those things. I am happy to see your face, but the rule right now is that you need to sit here, play by yourself, and be quiet until I am done. I get very frustrated when you interrupt me.”

Not that this was actually that *effective.* She’s barely three. She doesn’t necessarily even have the impulse control or awareness of other people to wait and choose to try to solve a problem by herself, before demanding assistance.

It felt good and reasonable, though, to make clear to her that not every minute is about her; that our household has other rhythms and requirements than her personal whims; that stuff happens that has nothing to do with her; and that she’s welcome to be a part of that, if she follows the rules, but if she doesn’t, I will be annoyed with her. This message will need (gentle) (and firm) reinforcing over years, I know. But laying the groundwork felt right–and helped me feel even a small measure of control over my blasted morning.

And yet it also felt questionable and subversive. Is it really ok to tell your kid, “I’m annoyed because you’re talking to me and I don’t want you to talk to me right now?” (actually I didn’t even put it that bluntly–maybe I should! That might help her to at least grasp what is going on). It seems better than just getting increasingly rageful, impatient, and resentful without explaining why. Or maintaining fake cheerful, patient facade that suddenly shatters into the horrifying monster beneath.

One lesson I took away from How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk was the recommendation, which seemed counterintuitive at the time, to *let* your kids see when you’re getting annoyed, *before* you become enraged. Because it gives them information they need, so they can adjust their behavior. On the one hand, you don’t want to play into their pushing your buttons and deliberately riling you up–which definitely happens. But also, it’s not fair to be like, “It’s fine, it’s fine, everything is fine, you’re my precious angel, so sweet, so funny, so clever, life is a game, I AM GOING TO BURN THE HOUSE DOWN.”

I work full time, so my only time with my kid during the week is before and after daycare. It seems like I should treasure an extra hour with her in the morning. But no, not so much, if from the very first second (“Come back upstairs, please.” “NO, I WANT BREAKFAST”) it’s a battle that neither of you are well equipped to navigate healthily. There’s this feeling that if you’re not patient, fully attentive, and responsive to your child’s needs at every moment, that you’re not a properly loving parent.

But it turns out that three-year-olds can’t differentiate between a need and a whim and an unfamiliar feeling or a random observation. They have no filter, they have no framework for making decisions about when and how to spout something. And there is *always* something bubbling up in those little minds of theirs. And I mean ALWAYS. It never, ever, ever, ever, stops. We have to establish this for them–help them learn to triage, and to read the room: this can wait, this never needs to be said (ever), this is an actual emergency, this feels scary but we can figure it out together, this is fine for later but don’t approach mom right now. Right? Otherwise we would all go absolutely mad?

So: while I will work on tone (ugh, nobody ever likes hearing “WHAT!? IS!? IT!?), I think after this morning I’m going to practice making it clear to her that 5-6:15 a.m. is my time, and if she’s going to be up and moving around then, so be it, but it will be on my terms. And there will be absolutely no toys, games, or shows of any kind with sound, and I am not open for questions. We can co-exist downstairs, or she can choose to have her own quiet time in her room (this is a skill I would really like for her to cultivate anyway!)

Also, she was basically falling asleep by them time we dropped her off at daycare, and threw a tantrum seconds after we walked in the door, because there were no seats available next to her BFF/frenemy. STAY ASLEEP LONGER, CHILD.

My reading list for illness, death, and grief

Most readers of this blog will know that my dad died, unexpectedly and awfully, almost exactly a year and a half ago. Some of you may even read my other, semi-secret blog specifically about that experience (if that’s something you’re interested in reading and you don’t have access to it, just let me know).

In that time, I’ve read a lot about death and dying and grief (sometimes it’s felt like that’s the *only* thing I could read about!). Some of these have helped me to process and heal; others have helped me to wallow; others have been acutely painful, but made me feel less alone; some were just numbing or a distraction. Below is a list of my “top” recommendations for someone facing the death of a loved one. They’re in no particular order because there’s not really a meaningful ranking here. This is just as they occurred to me.

On being outsmarted by a toddler, #metoo, and Hunger

Content warning: sexual harassment, assault, trauma, #metoo

This morning L. was playing with two little wooden animals, a fish and a gorilla. She told me the fish was afraid, because the gorilla was scary. Trying to create a teachable moment, I said, “Hm, maybe they just don’t know each other well enough yet. Maybe the fish could ask the gorilla a question?”

So she makes the fish say to the gorilla, “Hey, you scary? Yeah. OK.”

After I stopped laughing, I thought. (Everything she does makes me think.) My first instinct was to focus on the obvious and child-friendly lesson of “let’s not fear what we don’t understand, or people who don’t look like us. Let’s try to learn more and get to know each other.”

But in light of the inescapable #metoo zeitgeist this week, I recognized a different direction I could have taken–one that I totally missed in this moment:

June Check in (or: oh shit, the year’s half gone)

Hey, it’s been awhile…let’s check in on ye olde resolutions.

1. Drink more water. Still still still no.
2. Sleep at least 6 hours per night. Still no. This is getting better-ish, though, as a few major committee obligations have wrapped up and everyone shifts gears into the generally more low-key summer pace of life. 
3. Aim for 7. NOPE.
4. Exercise 5 days per week. Absolutely no success here, until this weekend, when we walked to the pool and swam twice. Now, this was bobbing about in the shallow end, not laps or anything, but I did a lot of moving around this weekend, and it felt good. At a doctor’s appt a few weeks ago I expressed my concerns and dismay about this and she basically gave me absolution, like, if I’m not already doing this because it’s personally important to me, I need to be realistic about the fact that I’m probably not going to suddenly start going to the gym five days a week, and just focus on moving more, as much as I can. Feels like a cop out, but also feels like a relief to hear someone say, “look, you work full time, you have a two year old, don’t lie awake feeling guilty because you’re not following the generic universal guidelines for cardio.” That’s not to say that this is an excuse, or it’s impossible to do–of course many working parents run marathons (including some readers of this blog). But whatever. I’m not right now, and I can and should focus on smaller steps, and not get so overwhelmed and discouraged I abandon all hope. 
5. Eat more vegetables. Keep this up OK, though my love affair with roasting is less appealing as it gets hotter and hotter in my a/c free house. Next step: get the grill out and working? 
6. Be kinder to my spouse. Feels like this is going well lately. 
7. Be less rigid.
8. Have more fun.
9. Roll with the punches.
10. Take the long view. Everything is temporary. Everything can change. Indeed, everything will change, whether I want it to or not.
11. Take myself as seriously as I expect other people to take me (like, carry business cards and shit). I still really struggle with OWNING my stuff, preferring to see myself as a marginal helper on everything that I’m responsible for. Think about that later. 
12. But also take stuff in general less seriously.
13. But also do not become complacent/paralyzed/apathetic re: the world/our nation/social justice. I’m glad I set up all those monthly donations because it means I’m contributing *something* to the overall good even as I’m doing shit all else–which, alas, does continue to be the case. 
14. Just keep grieving. Getting over the one year mark was fascinating because because I felt, like, a physical weight lift. It’s not like it made everything go away–far from it–but it somehow felt like permission to have hold this at the top of everything in my mind and heart. The Victorians knew what they were about, maybe. 
15. Pull my weight re: nurturing friendships; do my fair share of organizing, hosting, prodding, reaching out, reminding, and lowering the overhead as much as possible for busy people to spend good time together. Yeah! Starting last week we launched Welzillian Wednesdays, open cocktails/snacks on our back patio on Wednesday evenings after L goes to bed. Now, we’ll just wait and see if anyone shows. 
16. Participate in the weekly Sunday night potluck dinner organized by a former neighbor at least quarterly. Aim for monthly. Goal retired.
17. Cook more real food for dinner at my house. Doing OK–probably 2-3 properly homemade meals per workweek, mixed in with 1-2 more semi-homemade/prepared dishes. As the weather gets warmer we eat lots more salads, and experiment with interesting ones, which is good all around and always feels like an easy, low-prep meal except for all the goddamn chopping. 
18. Eat dinner as a family, at the table. Last time I checked in on these I was happy to abandon this goal–just for this brief stage of life– in favor of a relaxing evening enjoying my dinner. But now that she’s getting older and the days are getting longer (at this time of the year in Michigan it’s like until like 9:30) she’s staying up later. I think SK would like us to use this to eat together more. But from my POV, it’s still just as difficult to prep food and simultaneously chase her, and we still wind up having to leave half eaten food on the table when she can’t make it through the meal. It doesn’t solve any of the problems, just means we can’t eat until like 9 p.m. I’m feeling very protective of my extremely limited time to just chill and eat, the summer transition is becoming a problem for me. 
19. Make time to speak with my mom at least weekly, more if possible. Yeah.
20. Make time to speak to my aunt and my grandma at least monthly, more if possible. I haven’t kept up well with this. My grandma is now in the hospital post-surgery and my aunt is totally drained from care-taking, so I need to step up here. 
21. Curtail Facebook usage (unless actually writing meaningful messages to the above or others) NOPE.
22. Blog more. Meh. I guess monthly re-hashes are better than nothing? 
23. Write more letters. Not yet. But my desk is all set up with my stamps and my address book and everything! 
24. Make a weekend with Kelsey and Robyn happen.
25. Visit my aunt and grandma in Denver .
26. Get my high school girlfriends to Michigan for a visit. It’s booked!
27. Take one awesome, adventurous, ambitious family vacation. It’s booked! Roma, here we come! 
28. Make our bedroom a nice, warm, comfortable, functional, attractive, calming, intentional place to be, rather than the garbage pile where we hide everything that we don’t want anyone else to see. Paint. Window treatments. Closet. A bed. OK, as of like a week ago our bed is finally finished being built/hacked (it has a storage headboard that mounts to the wall, but we had to cut some rather ugly notches into it to fit around a windowsill. It’s IKEA, it’s fine). It’s super functional and having this done is prompting us forward…..slowly. 
29. Renovate our kitchen. NOPE.
30. Establish a personal desk/table/corner/space for my crafts/personal projects/special off-limits pens/whatever YES, DONE, AND IT HAS CHANGED MY LIFE! 
31. When not on vacation/sick/out of the office, respond to email within 48 hour. LOL 
32. Fix our goddamn roof. YES DONE! (Now just to fix/clean up the interior wall/ceiling that got all fucked up from the water)
33. Obtain access to a functional and comfortable bicycle. NOPE
34. Create playroom space in our basement. NOPE
35. Swimming lessons for Liddie. NOPE, but we have taken her to the pool and she LOVES it, and we’re working on going underwater, kicking her feet, etc. I know that proper swimming lessons would be a really, really good idea, too, but I feel like we are taking big steps to get her comfortable and safe in the water. 
36. Take Liddie ice skating. NOPE
37. Help my mom move out of our family home. Ease this transition as much as possible with significant practical and emotional support, i.e. a substantial stay with her this spring.  Cry as much as needed. Do not withdraw, do not fail to show up for this. I’ve made three weekend trips in favor of this cause already. This weekend is *finally* the “real” move, and I wasn’t going to go because she had other help lined up, but that has fallen through for various awful emergency reasons, so now I’m trying to see if I can….
38. Cruise on my brother’s schooner!!! Booked for Labor Day weekend!
39. Make regular donations to worthy causes. Ongoing.
40. Visit with Liddie’s birthmother in person at least once. Aim for three times. We have had some contact via text and agreed to a plan, but have yet to schedule it–I think this will be the hard part…
41. Do something fun on purpose for my birthday. YES! Over the weekend Kelly, Mallory, and I went to East Lansing to see Fun Home–which I am still thinking about constantly–and enjoyed a sushi feast with tasty cocktails to boot. Good birthday. Alos, on my actual birthday, I told L. what day it was and completely unprompted she started singing to me, so, best present ever. Goal complete. 
42. Participate in the neighborhood yard sale. Done, though not as spectactularly successful as in years past. We made a dent in the stuff in the basement, and then the next day realized that we completely forgot to put out a stupid chair and lamp that are taking up a huge amount of space in the basement. I really, really don’t want to hold them till next year, so maybe we’ll just put them on the curb. Goal complete. 
43. Go to the beach. House booked for family beach vacation the weekend before July 4. 
44. Find a way that also works for spouse to regularly schedule to space and time to myself that does not involve staying up puttering until 1 a.m.: mental health days, Saturday mornings out, whatever. This has stagnated and it shows…. 
45. Set up auto-pay or reminders as appropriate to pay all bills on time. This really remains more of an issue than it should be. 
46. Clean house more consistently. Sweep, vacuum and bathrooms weekly, that would be  a significant improvement and good enough. Nope. Has completely fallen off a cliff.
47. See more movies in the theater. Enough movies that I’m not devastated every time I manage to go and it doesn’t live up to my expectations. I love going to the movies. It brings me joy and it is probably the number one thing that I used to do a lot of and now do practically none of. Saw Wonder Woman, which  makes….two movies in a theater so far this year? At least I liked both of them, which is a lot of progress over 2016. 
48. See at least one live theater performance. YUP–Fun Home, as above. I absolutely loved it and feel every human should see it. Was hoping to also take my mom to My Fair Lady at the Lyric Opera, but that didn’t quite work out. Will try to be more proactive about looking for more opportunities, but technically, goal complete. 
49. Have a big-ass Christmas tree. Brought back an artificial tree from my mom’s house. I don’t think it’s that big, but at least we’ll definitely have a full size tree this year. And it was free, so that’s cool. I love decorating a Christmas tree, so looking forward to it. 

Almost halfway through the year, I’ve made progress on many. 8/49 are fully completed. Many more than that have significant progress, or are open-ended in such a way that it doesn’t make a lot of sense to call them done. Tolerable.