Hi everyone and a very happy 2022 to you all. Today, like each year, I am sharing some things I hope to achieve in the coming year. I don’t usually call them goals, let alone resolutions. I mean, I used to have a ton of New Year’s resolutions when I was a teen, but these went out the window come Blue Monday. Not that I’d ever heard of that date at the time, but it was still what happened. So, hopes. Here are my hopes for 2022.
1. Get to a less stress-filled (I originally typed “less stress-free”), relatively healthy diet. I already eat relatively healthily at least if I look at my hopes for last year, in that I consistently eat two to three servings of fruit each day. I have also ditched the cookie with my morning coffee. My idea of experimenting with eating bread rather than crunchy muesli for breakfast, went out the window pretty soon and I’m not likely going to give it another try.
That being said, I could still improve on my lunches and make healthier snack choices. Besides, I would really like to stress less about food. For this reason, my staff got in touch with the dietitian, who is going to E-mail her a list of tips and recommendations based on my current food list this coming Tuesday.
2. Remain stable mentally. I am pretty stable mental health-wise already. I hope I will remain relatively sane as I adjust to my increased topiramate and later my decreased aripiprazole in particular. Of course, my aripiprazole taper might not be over with by the end of this year.
3. Keep writing consistently. I started a morning writing ritual today. Officially, I decided on Morning Pages, which dictates you have to write three pages. Then again, this is done by hand and I cannot do this anyway. I’ll be content if I can keep up the writing habit each morning even if I don’t make it to 750 words.
I did pretty great on my blogging over 2021, having written 303 posts over the year. I’d really like to write at least as many posts this year.
I would also like to broaden my horizons where it comes to my writing styles, writing more creatively.
4. Expand my creativity. Particularly, keep up with my creative hobbies. I did quite well on those over the past year too, having rediscovered polymer clay. I’d really like to improve my skill, but, like last year, don’t intend on doing the work all by myself.
I would especially like to discover some things to make myself rather than just copying from YouTube. Of course, I already select my own colors and do some things differently than in the tutorials, but I’d really like to expand on my creativity.
I will continue to do my own version of The Artist’s Way. I mean, I can’t take myself on artist’s dates completely solo because I can’t leave the house independently, but so what? My inner artist wants to be released just as much.
In line with the above, I’ll also experiment more with making my own essential oil blends and such rather than just copying recipes I find online.
5. Get back into the reading groove. This was a massive fail in 2021. One of my bookish resolutions for 2021 was to read 20 books. Well, I didn’t even reach half of that. See, I should’ve called them hopes rather than resolutions. Anyway, I’m not setting a number for myself right now, but I do hope to read some more than I did last year this year.
6. Socialize more, be it online or offline. COVID permitting, I’d like to go to the rescheduled Cerebral Palsy Day in April and to a regional Eye Cafe. This is a meeting of the Eye Association, which I joined in late November. I may also want to join the regional CP Cafe, which is held online on January 8. In addition, I’d really like to join online and hopefully at some point offline meetings related to my hobbies.
7. Deepen my faith. My faith really went in deep ebbs and flows over the past year and that’s not good. Thankfully, I didn’t lose my faith altogether. In fact, I signed up for an introductory course on Christian doctrine at BiblicalTraining.org last Thursday to get myself back in tune with what I believe. I really hope to be working on my relationship with God through Jesus Christ more this year.
What are your hopes for 2022?
Also linking up with #LifeThisWeek.
A Multitude of Musings 
Those are all good! I think #3 and #4 would help #1 and #2. Happy New Year from all of us!
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Thank you. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it makes sense.
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Here’s to achieving all of your hopes! I hope 2022 is all you wish for and more. Happy new year Astrid. 🙂 #MMBC
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Thank you so much. I really hope your 2022 will be great too.
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Hi Astrid, you’ve certainly given a lot of thought to your year ahead and I wish you well. I’m so pleased I was able to concentrate on reading during 2021 as it was a great form of escapism but many people I know lost their reading MOJO and still can’t get back into reading. All the best for 2022. #lifethisweek
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Thanks so much for stopping by. I’m so glad you were able to spend enough time reading in 2021. I did enjoy it when I did read, but so many other things took priority.
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Some good thoughts there for this year, Astrid. I also hope to get back to reading more this year – I’ve almost stopped reading books durung the last 10 or so years, except when we’re in holidays. That’s quite sad!
I wish you all the best with your goals and that you’ll have a good year.
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Thank you so much. I hope you do get back into reading again this year. Wishing you a happy 2022.
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I really see how well you have looked back and now know what you need to do moving forward. Life doesn’t ever stop still waiting for us to catch our breath does it! So pleased you are working on self-care that caters for your needs too.
Thank you for linking up for the first Life This Week in 2022 at Denyse Whelan Blogs.
Thank you too for sharing your post with our community and commenting on mine.
See you next week for 2/51 Life This Week,
Warm wishes
Denyse
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Thank you so much for stopping by. Yes, life is ever moving forward, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
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Have used Morning Pages in the past. My mornings are never the same though, and I hate that. I long for a quiet time every morning from about 7:30-10:00. Ha!! Is that too much to ask?? Probably!!
Hope you continue your writing, to feel stable and to find little victories in every day.
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Thank you so much for your supportive words. I understand it’s hard when you long for quiet time but that’s hard to come by due to whatever circumstances. I wish you more of that in 2022.
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I have two christian email groups that I am a part of and if your interested I could email the info for them to you. They are both good lists. wait, 3 lists, not two. anyway, one is for christians with depression, one is a christian based chat list, and the other is a list that has prayer requests, sends out devotionals, etc. Let me know if you’d like the info for these lists. Xx
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Thank you. They do sound interesting. Please do E-mail me the info.
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I wish you well with all of these goals. I have found morning writing really helpful myself for getting started with my day. I do like doing it by hand, but if you can’t, I am sure any method that works for you is fine. I don’t give myself a word or page goal, sometimes I write more or less – but once I get started it’s always at least a page. Writing can be a great stress reliever, but I think too many rules can cause more stress!
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Thank you so much for your encouragement. That definitely means a lot. I didn’t stick with my Morning Pages, but I do really want to pick up the habit again.
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Don’t feel bad. You can always start again.
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Agree, so true! That mindse tis so positive.
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