New Year, new me

I have started and abandoned so many blogs. It’s sad. I almost hate to start another one for fear I will do it again. As today is the first day of lucky twenty thirteen, it’s just too tempting, however.

In fact, I almost named my blog that: Lucky 2013. But since I’m aiming to make this a long term project, I decided I’d better pick something else. What will I do in 2014 when I’m still blogging and it’s no longer 2013?

Lucky 2013 first crossed my mind while I was listening to a financial advice show on NPR. They asked a caller what his New Year’s resolution was and he said it was the same as always, to try to save more money, an effort he typically started at the beginning of the year and then lost steam on as the year wore on. But you are going to do it this year, right, the host questioned. Oh, yes, the caller said. 2013 is a very lucky year.

I’m not superstitious. I don’t believe the number 13 is unlucky. Or black cats. Or broken mirrors. So I’m going to embrace 2013 as a potentially wonderful, luck-filled year.

Why wouldn’t it be? One year ago I was just starting a wellness journey prompted by three months of three upper respiratory infections in a row and four courses of antibiotics. I went off dairy. I consulted with a homeopathic doctor and then a holistic doctor. I radically changed my diet. I got healthier. I got happier. I started sleeping better. I haven’t taken a single prescription medicine in more than a year. (Food is my medicine.) I lost 30 pounds.

In lucky 2013 I plan to continue my efforts to be healthier. That’s going to mean more appointments with my holistic doctor. Continuing to eat better. Adding exercise to my routine, now that I finally have the energy to do so. And, hopefully losing more weight—although that’s not my main goal, it’s just a happy side effect of being healthier. I don’t want to put a number on it, but I really hope I will be a size or more smaller by the time my brother gets married (date not yet confirmed.)

This blog is for me. Which means if you come to visit, you are welcome, but I won’t be writing for anyone but myself. I want to use it as a journal, a record of the events of 2013—and maybe beyond. That means some of my entries won’t be anything but lists, like what I ate and what physical activities I’ve done. Recipes I have modified and notes on how they worked out.

I read a book a while ago (fiction) about an older lady that had many notebooks filled with lists: to do, grocery lists, the dates of medical procedures of her children.  She didn’t mean for them to be a journal but at the end of her life that’s what they were. A really important record of her life in lists. One list isn’t that interesting. But all the lists of one year or a lifetime would be very revealing. Of course, I’ll probably include more than just lists, but I’m not going to feel pressured to do more than what I feel like doing in any given day.