New Year's Resolutions
North East Quine
Purgatory Host
in All Saints
By way of an experiment, I asked my nearest and dearest what they thought my New Year's Resolutions should be.
Husband: Lose weight.
Son: Aim for 5 publications in 2026.
Daughter: Don't let Difficult Relative get under your skin.
Diplomatic friend, neatly eliding the question: My resolution is to get up early and be in bed by 10.30. I'll share my resolution with you.
Oldest friend: Difficult question. What has everyone else suggested? Definitely go for ignoring Difficult Relative, that's a really good one.
Second oldest friend: diplomatic silence so far
Overseas friend: Don't make any. You'll just feel bad when you fail. But do ignore Difficult Relative.
I think these are pretty good, and a better list than I'd have drawn up myself. I'm going to add - get on top of the garden, which will combine fresh air and exercise with a positive result if I get the garden looking nice.
Anyone else making New Year's Resolutions?
Husband: Lose weight.
Son: Aim for 5 publications in 2026.
Daughter: Don't let Difficult Relative get under your skin.
Diplomatic friend, neatly eliding the question: My resolution is to get up early and be in bed by 10.30. I'll share my resolution with you.
Oldest friend: Difficult question. What has everyone else suggested? Definitely go for ignoring Difficult Relative, that's a really good one.
Second oldest friend: diplomatic silence so far
Overseas friend: Don't make any. You'll just feel bad when you fail. But do ignore Difficult Relative.
I think these are pretty good, and a better list than I'd have drawn up myself. I'm going to add - get on top of the garden, which will combine fresh air and exercise with a positive result if I get the garden looking nice.
Anyone else making New Year's Resolutions?
Comments
Your list is a formidable one, but the advice re Difficult Relative is especially good.
Best of luck!
Seriously though, I think saying 'I will be/do this from a specific date' is bound to fail. If it's something you really want, start now or, in the case of the garden, when conditions permit.
I'm aware of marking time at the moment, until I have a date for my surgery. But otherwise it's a matter of persevering in courses that I know are helpful - more art, reading, garden, approach to eating. And avoiding/abstaining from those I know aren't - doomscrolling, most news, too much computer gaming.
I suppose one useful Resolution I could make is to drink less BEER.
Happy 2026, all of you!
And please, the Ship would be a poorer place without your posts.
Very boring, whilst also channeling Pam Ayers.
Later in the year it may have to be to have the guts to turn my back on the entire passage of my life so far and take on a trade.
Edited to add no resolutions here, as like @Firenze I am waiting for an operation, and can’t plan much till it’s over (and I am recovered, which, since it I volves breaking and pinning my heel, amongst other things, may take some time).
That sounds about right, Nicole!
Adding my pleas to those of others that BF doesn't stop posting on the Ship; you'd be Very Much Missed if you did.
Please stay and post! ❤️
Do not, I repeat NOT, make this Resolution. Please.
Every year I make a resolution to finish the novel I've been working on for twenty years. Every year I make it to about March before I give up again. This year I'll be trying again.
I too also want to lose weight. I have quite a few events on starting in May and want to look good or at least OK in the photos.
1. Avoid as much as possible using "yes" or "no" in answering questions. E.g Q. "are you running today?" A. "I am" or "I am not", rather than "yes" or "no".
And making a couple of new ones:
2. As far as possible eliminate the words "just" and "should" from my speech. E.g "you should just do this..." 🙅🏾🙅🏾🙅🏾
3. Apart from washing and skincare, shaving, brushing teeth, or blowing my nose, try to avoid touching my face.
The other day Mr Boogs and I were shopping and the cashier was full of flu. Luckily behind a screen. I said "Don't touch your face until we can wash our hands." I found it very easy. He found it almost impossible. No wonder he gets far more coughs and colds.
That seems to be my emotional experience of every year since Covid.
Absobloodylutely!
Laughs arse off.
Hey!
We enjoy your company!
Ignore the ones who like to grumble.
https://youtu.be/7j9wF31jUCM?si=3tmfSWwR28To9V-H
And it's wonderful!
Skol!
To hang onto what remains of a sense of humour.
More wild swimming while the summer lasts.
To stop snacking before I I put on more weight.
To do a Lenten retreat.
To read more challenging literature (why?)
Make time for poetry, art, music, growing herbs in pots.
To be a better friend.
Learn to knit which has been a failed resolution for at least a decade.
I can't even remember what my NYR's were!
How are others doing? It's nearly Lent .... I give up!
As my old pastor would say, 'What should I be praying for?'
My husband's suggestion I should lose weight is still on the "pending" pile.
My son suggested I should aim for 5 publications this year, and I'm working on a journal paper just now. And I've had a think about a chapter of my PhD which might convert to a journal paper without too much effort. So I haven't ruled out five this year. Actually, I'm very much enjoying this. My son has pointed out that if I get all the bits of half-assed research finished and written up this year, I could aim for a book next year. And he's being my "accountability buddy". Left to my own devices I would just keep going down research rabbit holes and get nothing written up and published.
The gardening resolution has been impossible, the garden having been covered in snow for half the year so far, and waterlogged since the snow melted.
I'm reading Gertrude Stein (Stanzas in Meditation) with a bewildered enthrallment as so often before, difficult literature that stirs the inarticulate part of me. And planning to read JM Coetzee on the boyhood of Jesus which I suspect is not about boyhood or Jesus.
No wild swimming, a plague of frogs in the river so I'm doing kundalini yoga and fire-breathing to learn to breathe fast from the lower diaphragm. The teacher keeps saying it is transformative and we can access our higher consciousness, over-hyped a bit?
Still snacking too much, not planting herbs until it gets cooler. Thinking about Lent and just slowing down, letting the grief do what it needs to do.
Grateful for friends.
Re the weight loss: tell your amiable spouse to get stuffed.
As for difficult relative; remind your amiable spouse that said DR cams as baggage with your marriage and suggest that he deal with her.
Life is just too bloody short.
I think, even if we didn't know you were Australian, we might guess! And I mean that nicely, I honestly do.
I haven't made NYRs for years, but a friend has persuaded me to get with the 21st century (hell, I'd hardly got the hang of the 20th) and I have made a few videos about cameras and pasted them on TokTok, Instagram and YouTube. They seem to be going down well, I have a number of followers (mostly young women not wearing much... why does this only happen when I've reached an age where chasing young women is the cause of considerable pain... even before SWMBO catches me?).
It's also good fun and has helped keep my mood from making regular breaks for the centre of the Earth. If this goes on I might have to get some studio gear... well, a phone holder and a ringlight anyway.
To give you an idea of the level: https://flic.kr/p/2rVv44q
ETA it's pretty swampy here as well, I am expecting to have to wade to the allotment if I go in the next few days.
I'm not so sure of grabbing any old yarn and hoping you have a pair of needles of the appropriate gauge. I favour a specific project, with the appropriate tools and materials. Something like a bag, or a scarf or coasters or whatever, but something you would actually use.
Glad you've managed to not let difficult relative get to you @North East Quine.
Surgery, I discover, causes you to gain weight (fluid retention, not moving about much) tempting you to answer the mating call of the chocolate biscuit. But no, I had a virtuous bowl of tuna and salad for lunch.
The underlying resolution is that this is an episode, and definitely not an excuse.