New Year Goals and Plans

I don’t want to use the word “Resolutions”, but I do have some New Year goals and plans. Some things just need a start date! My main goal for the New Year is to either walk or ride my bike 30 minutes everyday. So far I have easily accomplished this and it has even started to give me more energy in general. Right now I have Ursula set up in the basement on one of those contraptions that let you ride indoors, but I am dying to get outside and ride. April is coming and I plan to participate in 30 Days of Biking again. Then in May I hope to continue the momentum through National Biking Month. All of my indoor riding should get me into shape for that!

My second big goal is to eliminate sugar and flour from my diet. So far I have not had anything with sugar, honey or any other sweetener, real or artificial, since the 31^st of December. I have had some flour, but only as thickener in gravies and the like. I am not finding this to be too difficult, but I do have cravings every once in awhile. Last Friday I was aching for a bowl of homemade chocolate pudding. Mmmm….pudding.  But, I resisted. In February I plan to add more veggies and salads to my day, but for now I am doing fine.

My third goal for the year is to learn Swedish. I have been working on this for a month or so now and it is going as well as I could expect. I am not good at languages, but I do find Swedish easier to pronounce than some I have tried. (My poor French teacher…) In the fall I plan to take Swedish classes at the American Swedish Institute. I would have started them now but there is one big plan for January that got in the way. I would have needed to miss one session and I knew that that would not be good for me.

You see, Rodney and I are going to Hawaii! I figure I will have no problem getting 30 minutes of walking per day in while we are there, so that goal will be easy to keep. No sugar/no flour might be a bit harder to do, but I plan to just try to stay away from being too crazy with sugar and flour. The Swedish will actually be easier in Hawaii because my sister-in-law speaks Swedish and I am hoping that she will be able to help me a bit with my pronunciation of a few words. (I just can’t seem to say the Swedish word for two: två. It sounds like a cross between two and four.) ~Now, don’t you worry about Hawthorne being lonely while we are gone. My very good friend Raineth will be staying here the whole time with him. He might not even notice we are gone!~

Other plans for the year include trips to Northern Wisconsin and Chicago; a visit from our friend Thomas; letting go of a bunch of stuff from our house; and then maybe painting and redoing a couple of the rooms in our house. I will fill you in on new developments as they transpire!