Monday Musings: Settling into 2015

NORTH PARK - 2015

Let's get real for a minute. You know how at the first of the year, your mind is brimming with all these great intentions for the new year and you get off to a running start and think, this year is going to be the BEST year? Well, I still think that, but already, I have slipped behind on some of my goals. 

Case in point, this blog. I was proud of keeping up my blogging on a daily basis, planning out a content calendar a week in advance, but then life stepped in and I was sidetracked by other things, i.e. writing for other people. So goes the work/life balance when your life is writing...but, so is your work. 

No complaints, of course. I just think January threw everything up in the air and I had to wait to see how it was going to land. A lot of things started falling into place rather quickly (after what seemed like a long time of waiting!), which left with me little time to blog for pleasure. I feel now for the start of February, the dust has settled a little and I can start a new routine. A new routine that is more balanced and more to my liking! 

One of the big things with starting a new year is getting rid of things that no longer serve you and for better or worse, that's exactly what I got to do last month. Most of the time we hang onto things because we feel like we have something left to prove either to ourselves or others, but once we just let go, it's freeing. It opens up the door for more opportunities, better opportunities.

I also STILL have not finished my book that I made such good progress on during November and December, but though stalled, I still plan to finish. Why is it so tough to just get to the end?!

January is that time to take all the excitement and zero in on what you want to achieve, but February is realizing that those goals may change or may be less important than what you initially had wanted. 

I continue to write creatively as much as I possibly can. I am still focused on doing one thing each month outside my comfort zone. In January, I learned how to samba. While most of the time, I felt like a newborn horse stumbling around, I had fun and stopped taking myself so seriously, which was the point. And, I added more walking into my life, which is so good for the soul. 

How have your goals shaped up for the first month of 2015? Have they taken a new direction? Mine have, but I'm embracing just going with the flow.

Monday Musings: Turning the Corner

Taking a break from my writing schedule to well, write this blog post and keep up with my 2015 goal of contributing more to my own creative endeavors. This week has already begun with good news and I had an impromptu lunch with Mikey, so I'd say I'm off to a wonderful start. 

Do you ever feel like you are five steps ahead of people and just waiting for others to catch up? In some cases, I am guilty of instant gratification. If I need to know the answer to something, I want to know right now. But, usually that's not how the universe works. It's not just going to lay out your life before you, so you can cherry pick the good parts. 

I've felt for some time that I have been waiting and waiting (and waiting!) to see what's around the corner, and I feel now like I'm finally rounding the curve, which makes me think of this quote by Martin Luther King, Jr:

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." 

This is so, so true and can apply to almost any situation. Speaking of MLK, for those of you who haven't seen "Selma," I recommend doing so. Despite certain critics who want to focus on the inaccuracies of what is a fictionalized version of this significant time in history, it is still an important film to watch, if for nothing else then to get the conversation going. Inequality and issues surrounding civil rights are still very much a point of contention in 2015. They deserve to be discussed.

Recently, I was waiting for a screening of a different movie to start when I heard a man behind me say he did not want to see "Selma" because he was tired of white people telling the story of black history. He went on to say that no black person was associated with that film and he had no interest in seeing it. 

I wanted to whip around and ask if he caught the most recent Golden Globes when they discussed the fact that the movie's director, Ava DuVernay, was the first black female to be nominated in the category of Best Director. Never mind the support and affiliations with several other celebrities and musical artists who took part in the creation of the film. I also wanted to tell him to shush. But I kept the comments to myself. It was a discussion I chose to skip.

Close-minded attitudes are not my thing. 

Maybe too many times we avoid discussions because it's the fight we don't want to have or the point we don't feel we need to prove. Sometimes we just don't want to fight period, but instead appreciate the opportunity to learn from others, understand how we do and do not want to live our lives, and create the kind of life that makes us happy. 

We just have to instill the kind of confidence and passion within ourselves, so that when we find those things worth fighting for, we won't back down. 

Monday Musings: A Message from Amy

As a fan of her latest book Yes Please and her last Golden Globes hosting stint with Tina Fey last night, Amy Poehler is my inspiration today. Other musings have been put on hold due to the wonderful craziness that is Monday!

Monday Musings: About Those Donuts, Calm Down

I'm going to 'fess up right away. In the last 30 days, I have eaten too many donuts. I actually went a whole span of time, something like 10 years, where I couldn't eat donuts.* But, then, one day I could. Again. 

I blame my love, who on more than one occasion has brought me donuts, including my absolute favorite, a caramel Long John (or maple bars or whatever you refer to them as), to me in bed on a lazy weekend morning. Wash that sucker down with a plastic container of ice cold milk and that, my friends, is simplistic bliss at its finest. 

To make matters worse, I just discovered that one of my favorite places in PB - The Baked Bear - now offers Donut Ice Cream Sandwiches! Eep! This place allows you to mix-and-match your favorites cookies or brownies with whatever flavor of ice cream you wan't scooped in between. If you follow me on Instagram, then you've already had a visual of this glorious concoction.

I scarfed that puppy down so fast. So, it's clear I need to cool it on the donuts. Especially since two of my goals for the new year is to walk more and do the abs portion of my workouts. 

I take classes at 24 Hour Fitness pretty regularly, but I often opt out of the abs at the end. I either lie on the mat reveling in my own awesomeness for making it to the gym or hightail it out of there before the torture can begin. This year though, it wouldn't hurt me to stay. Even if I still lay there for half of the time. 

Walking is something I want to do more of because of the exercise, but more for the chance for me to clear my mind. I love a good, long walk either with friends, my guy, or solo. I am fortunate to live in a gorgeous city with near perfect weather year-round, so walking new paths isn't hard to do. 

I took a five-mile walk recently, exploring an unfamiliar to me and discovered another thing I want to do this year: go sea fishing! If you live in San Diego or are just visiting, they have a new open fish market every Saturday morning at the docks by Seaport Village. I have yet to go, but I want to check it out and also befriend a fisherman and experience it for myself. Not sure how I'm going to do that quite yet, but I am confident it can be done.

Should I just leave a note on one of these boats? 

San Diego fishing boats - January 2015

I'm feeling pretty good this first Monday of 2015. With inspiration from the Passion Planner, I am creating a focus for the week and listing all the things that go well, which will help keep things in perspective for me. 

Other randomness -- 

What I'm reading: Someone Else's Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson
What I'm listening to: Out of the Woods by Taylor Swift (shamelessly on repeat) and also Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars (because sometimes you just gotta DANCE)
What I'm watching: The Pioneer Woman (always, and all the shows that are coming back from break, including Suits! #TeamDonna)

Hope you all have a spectacular week! Quit grumbling about Monday -- it's almost over!

*When I was a young girl at Girl Scout camp, one of my fellow scouts handed out the donuts we had packed for the trip. She went on to lick her fingers between each donut and all I could imagine was her disgusting slobber all over my glazed pastry. I declined eating donuts that day and for hundreds of days after. Moral of the story: If you want to go on a diet, imagine someone has spit on your food.