As I mentioned last month, I prefer to think of getting older as “leveling up;” it just sounds better. Of course, you will level up every year regardless, but I think that you’ll feel better about it if you can look back and see that you’ve actually accomplished some things.
I’ve been putting some thought into what I want to accomplish, since I just leveled up myself. Here are my goals between now and next October:
Strength: I’m way out of shape. I’m also finding myself stiff after long car rides (even after just a 45 minute commute) and first thing in the morning. Let’s face it; that’s only going to get worse as I get older. I need to at least pay some lip service to exercise (especially as I’m one of those odd people who loses weight with even small amounts of exercise but gives it up very grudgingly–or not at all–with diet). My goal is to do one physical activity per day–be that taking the stairs at work, gardening on the weekends, cleaning house, etc.
Constitution (Endurance): What requires more endurance than unpacking, organizing, and cleaning? We moved into our house in January and we still have some things in boxes, and have only put up about half of our pictures and none of our curtains. (You can tell someone lives out in the boonies if they don’t put up curtains first thing.) My husband does a lot of the basic housekeeping, but I’m the organizer and decorator and the doer of the hard-to-reach stuff. So my goal is to spend 1-2 hours every week working on improving the house and garage. This means getting everything unpacked and put where it needs to go, getting the necessary furniture installed, decorating, and general organization. Once a room is established, then my main goal will be to tidy it up and give it a general cleaning.
Ideally, I will spend two hours in two zones each week; in a 5-weekend month, I would get the entire house done, so every room would get a tidy every month. In reality, I’ve already been working on this and it winds up being more like 1 hour a week (and that doesn’t count weekends when we go to reenactments). But I’ve gotten some boxes unpacked and two rooms are now completely box-free and the living room nearly is. So I won’t knock progress, even if it’s slow.
Dexterity: My husband and I had our first garden this summer (something we’ve been trying to get going for years!). Some parts of it were a bit sad (the eggplant that never did anything; the various plants the dog tore out–sometimes multiple times), but some weren’t bad (the cucumbers that took over our porch and our small harvest of tomatoes when no one else was getting any). What was most important is that we learned.
I’ve recently been studying up on permaculture (aka food forests, edible landscaping, plant guilds, edible forests, and probably half a dozen other names). I’ve already spent a lot of time this summer studying edible wild plants and identifying them in our yard, and permaculture sort of piggybacks on that.
Long story short, I want to start landscaping our yard with edible perennial (or self-seeding annual) plants. My goal for this year is to establish at least one “food island” (as I term it) in the yard. We will almost certainly have another straw bale garden for traditional annual vegetables, but I want to work towards a permanent installation that requires little maintenance on my part.
Intelligence: I’m going to publish Flames of Prague. (I actually received my proof a couple of weeks ago and the print book is good to go; I just need to do all the formatting for the ebook.)
Wisdom: A few years ago, I started to make myself a prayer book for use on my Kindle so that I could carry it with me and get in the habit of using it throughout the day. It’s still hanging out in my Dropbox, mostly completed. My goal is to finish it this year and get it on my Kindle. I also want to get in the habit of going to synagogue once a month. I used to go weekly, but I’ve just gotten lazy (and I let other things compete for my time). Once a month doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
Charisma: I’ve been sick for the past couple of weeks, so I’ve let my daily Spanish study slip, but I’m going to get get back on that today. My goal for the year is to get all the way through the Duolingo Spanish tree.
So, there you have it: my leveling up goals for my 37th year. Some I need to work on daily, some weekly, some monthly, and some are a one-time project that I can do and be done. So a good mix of things to keep me busy, but hopefully not overwhelmed.
Even if your birthday isn’t any time soon, you can still take the leveling up challenge starting next year (and if you want to get a head-start, I won’t tell anyone!). Be thinking about what things you want to accomplish in 2017 and greet your next birthday knowing that you may be a year older, but you’re also a year wiser, stronger, and more well-rounded. Level Up!
Keri M. Peardon 