2024 New Years Resolutions

 Last year I resolved to...

• Update this and my satelite blogs at least 55 times
• Have at least 35 of those posts be sourced from this blog
• Walk an average of 35 km weekly
• Average three strength workouts per week
• Dedicate one meatless meal per week
• Do 12 hour fasts daily
• Dedicate time to being off screens

So let's see how I did.

Update this and my satelite blogs at leat 55 times. 35 sourced from the Perch

As far as blogging goes, I met both resolutions. I barely met my Perch goal with exactly 35 posts. I also updated Gryphood 17 times, my Gallery 6 times, and Reviews 5 times, for a total of 63 posts, exceding my goal by 13.

Normally I would say that I've found an equilibreum with 35 annual Perch posts. In 2021 I hit my lowest ever post count with 34. To ensure I didn't keep backsliding, I resolved to do at least 35 in 2022, which I met but did not excede. This past year I repeated the trend. To me, this indicates a pretty natural quantity for my current blogging standards and my lifestyle which so often requires confidentiality.

HOWEVER. As of this update, I have 960 total posts since this blog's inception in 2009. Because this is my second update of the year, if I post 35 times, it will bring me to 993. That is DIZZYINGLY close to 1000, which is likely the most significant landmark number that this blog with ever get to. So let's make it my goal to reach 1000, which will require 42 posts on this blog, 40 additional after this one is published. That's seven posts more than I've achieved in the last 2 years, and something I haven't met since 2020. I'm not sure I'm up to it, but I'll try.

My previous resolution of 55 total including my satelite blogs allowed 20 posts to be off the Perch. If I were to keep 20 as the baseline, that would bring my total post goal to be 62. That's an awkward number, so let's keep it at 60. That still increases my total post output by 5.

So I'm resolving to reach my 1000th Perch post, and have 60 total posts between this blog and its satelites.

Walk an average of 35 km weekly 

My average this year was 39.4.

I was going to let this one sit at 35 and focus on health goals surrounding diet and strength training, but since I've been increasing my expectations by 5 km over the past 3 years and I was so close to meeting what would be my goal this year were I to continue that pattern, I think I have to make it a goal to walk an average of 40 km weekly.

In 2021 my goal was 25 km and I averaged 33.3. In 2022 I resolved 30 and I achieved 36.4, and now in 2023 I resolved 35 and made 39.4. I feel like I have momentum in this category, so let's keep pushing.

Do 3 strength trainings weekly on average

So at this point I begin failing resolutions. I started recording my workouts in March, and I was pretty consistent with them until August. At that point I started feeling pressure about my upcoming wedding and stopped focusing on my physical health. After the wedding I struggled to get back into the swing of things and failed to reestablish the habit. Still, that was about five months of consistent strength training, which is the best I've done since college. So it's progress if nothing else.

I'm reducing my expectations. I'll resolve an average of 2 strength trainings weekly.

Dedicate one meatless day per week.

I keep resolving this and not achieving it, so I think I'll omit it as a goal going forward. I'm still going to try and reduce my meat intake, but I'm not formalizing it as a resolution. The only positive I can say about my attempt this year is that it did motivate me to learn some vegetarian recipes, including falafel (although I think I uploaded the recipe in January 2023, but actually learned it December 2022), which is Lee-Anne's full-stop favourite thing that I make, even compared with all my meat recipes. She says it's better than restaurant, and she can't order falafel anywhere, because they don't compare to mine.

Do 12 hour fasts daily

My diabetes recovery plan was to start by rehauling my diet, then get into strength training, and then get into intermittent fasting. I may have been a little too ambitious to reach both my strength training goal and get into fasting. I still need to commit to my strength training, so I'll focus on that this year, and maybe in 2025 I'll be ready to start fasting.

Dedicate time to being off screens

This one is tricky to determine success for, since I didn't put a metric that I could measure it by. I'm going to say I failed it though. I may have decreased my screen intake a little, but not by enough that it felt like a significant lifestyle change.

This year's resolutions:

I heard of an interesting new approach to making resolutions. Most people set goals with an expectation that they will feel good in some way after achieving them, but a lot of times the goals they set are based on the expectations or advice of people with different motivations. This creates a misallignment between the goal setter and their goals, which often leads to disappointment. A new method that has been suggested is to start off by asking yourself how you want to feel, and then developing goals based on that.

For example, with health-related goals, some people might want to feel healthy, or they might want to look a certain way. Since it took the diabetes scare to get me to focus on that stuff, I don't think either of those motivations work for me. I think I wanted to feel safe. When that motivation became relevant, I was able to make a concerted effort.

I'm keeping some of the goals that I've been making progress on, but I'm going to add a motivation-first resolution as well.

In 2024, I think I want to feel valuable. Increased use of AI has made me feel irrelevant as a writer and an artist, and the impending climate crisis has made me feel complicit as a consumer. Basically, my thoughts and expressions have lost their value, and my existence passively helps push us toward the next mass extinction event. I want to feel like I can contribute to something positive.

...I'm blanking on how to do that, though. So for now, I'll just say "Find a way to feel valuable"

In 2024, I resolve to:

• Reach post 1000 on The Gryphon's Perch by adding 42 posts
• Make 60 posts total including the satelite blogs
• Walk 40 km on average weekly
• Do two strength trainings on average weekly
• Find a way to feel valuable

New Year's 2024

We went to Brampton for Christmas, so we were in Guelph for New Year's. We went down on Sunday and exchanged Christmas presents, since it was our first opportunity to do so. We got Mom some reusable, sealable sillicone bags, Duncan a video game, and the kittens some crinkle balls and cat toys. 

Our cats have a rainbow weasel, which is basically the only doll-type toy that they will consistently wrestle with. Every time I'd been back to that store they had one and I wanted to get one for Castor and Pollux, but the week before Christmas they didn't have it in stock. I got two dolls made by the same company, and when we gave them, it seemed like both their cats were enjoying a crinkly squid.

They got me the remake of Super Mario RPG, which was cool because it was the video game that taught me how to read. When I was in early elementary school, I was a reading level behind most of the other kids. Then we rented Super Mario RPG from our local Blockbuster Video and I fixated on it. Mom would play the game, and me, her and Duncan would take turns voicing the characters. This necessitated me being able to read the script, prompting a burst in motivation.

It was originally made for the Super Nintendo. Built in collaboration with an outside writing team, the same one that does Final Fantasy, this game was the first, and to me the best, Mario series Role Played Game. The Paper Mario Series was originally supposed to be a direct sequel, and later meant to be a spiritual successor. However, they couldn't get the same writing team back and they didn't have rights to the Mario RPG-exclusive characters, so while they were good in their own right, they weren't quite able to reclaim the magic. This remake for the Switch is likely the closest we'll come to it. It just has touched up graphics, a few new functions, some translation changes, and apparently it has a bit of a post-game.

Playing it as an adult is funny, because I'd previously only ever watched my mom. My favourite character, and probably the main one that I voiced, was Mallow. He was a sentient cloud whose mood effected the weather, who was adopted by frogs and so believed himself to be a tadpole. I remember some adults on early Internet video game guides thinking he was annoying, probably for his naivety and sensitivity, so I wondered if I'd feel differently about him as an adult. I don't know if it's just nostalgia, but so far I still like him.

We played a bit in Guelph. Later, Lee-Anne asked if we always took turns doing the voices. Apparently she thought it was odd.

 Lee-Anne got two books, Watership Down by Richard Adams and Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, both family favourites. I had a blog before this one, on which I did a lot of book reviews. I had a list of personal favourites, and these were both on it.

Lee-Anne's usually more of a non-fiction reader, and when she branches out, she's not usually into surreality. She says Harry Potter's about as far as she'll wade into fantasy. Since Watership Down is about a group of rabbits and Neverwhere mostly takes place in another dimension, these might be a stretch. I'm happy to have copies of both of them though.

On Monday, me, Lee-Anne, and Mom went to a family get-together in Toronto. My Oma, Granddad, two of my Uncles, two aunts, and two cousins were there. Most of them had traveled from the States, and some I hadn't seen for many years. It was a lunch, hosted at the community they live in. 

This is my Granddad that is experiencing dementia, so there was some worry that the amount of people would be overwhelming, but he seemed content. He was mostly smiling, he'd make eye contact when you spoke to him, he seemed to react to what you said, and he even talked a few times. His condition has not continued to worsen at the rate it did when he took a sudden decline a few years back.

After lunch and a walk though their neighbourhood, we went back to Guelph to do our tradition of jumping off the couch into the new year. They live in a basement, so I have to sort of crouch-jump while pressing on the ceiling so I don't hit my head. We decided to hold the kittens as we jumped and I wound up with Pollux. He spasmed and scratched up my arm pretty bad.

Dinner was a bunch of appetizers, meant to eat throughout the night. We brought homemade falafel, fatoush salad, and hummus, as well as store-bought tzatziki and pita. I also brought a bottle of cheap sparkling wine that we'd had in our cupboard for years. I don't remember why I first got it, but I always thought that part of the point of the experience was the excitement that came with the cork popping out and flying around. People were nervous so I palmed the cork and everyone was surprised at how anticlimactic it was. I'd figured that if it stayed subdued when a corkscrew was used, it shouldn't have too much force behind it. I assumed correct, not much pressure backing something that can be pretty theatrical.

I've got to do a post for my New Year's Resolutions for 2024, and I've got to do a tarot reading for a year forward-and-back. I've done the backround work for both topics, I just have to write them up. Hopefully I'll do that relatively soon.