Happy New Month!

This is the last new month before the new year, and as is always the case, a large part of it is already dedicated to my family and the time I’ll spend with them. Between that and work, there doesn’t seem like a lot of time left over for projects and resolutions.

Which is why they’re so important. When you’re busiest, that’s when you most need a guiding principle. Something to anchor to. Time steals itself from you; to make your passing of the hours anything more than waiting for the end, you must mark them as your own in some way.

I’m going to go to the woods this month.

Happy New Month!

This is it. This is the month. I’m tackling my sleep problems.

There are several essential components to a healthy lifestyle, in both the physical and mental sense: good diet, good exercise, lots of hydration, sunlight, sleep.

I’ve got a really great handle on all of those but one. My relationship with sleep is so horrible, in fact, that I’m not actually planning to fix it in one month. I don’t think that’s realistic. Instead, my goal in this next month is to try enough different things that I can determine if I think the problem is actually medical and thus requires medical intervention, or if there are lifestyle changes I haven’t tried yet. There are a few things that don’t really work for me – while sleeping pills are a possibility, the fact that I have young children means I don’t ever want to be “unresponsive” at night, so whatever solution I find has to involve not drugging myself into unconsciousness each night. I need healthy sleep.

So, wish me luck on my journey. This is a hard one.

Happy New Month!

In classic tradition, this post is going out on the 2nd. The first has started to become something ceremonial, a trial run of the month.

Embrace it! This month, my resolution is simple. Do an hour less of each thing I don’t like, and an hour more of the things I do. And give each new thing an hour where I haven’t decided yet. A trial run.

There is always another hour to follow.

Happy New Month!

I’ve had such a wonderful time this last month, enjoying the last days of summer with my family. My children have been absolutely obsessed with their new baby cousin, who we’ve spent nearly every evening with. We managed to cram a lot of summer into the last month, with trips to the water park and swim clubs, parties with friends and family and more than one barbecue. It was a fine month, by any standard.

Now for this month’s focus: a major life shift. Both of my youngest children start (pre-)school tomorrow! They’re very excited, but it also represents a new chapter with new challenges. I want to be 100% focused on managing that change, both in terms of supporting my kids and in terms of keeping myself sane and productive as schedules change and new demands present themselves.

I’m probably not alone in having this focus for September, so good luck to all!

Happy New Month!

This month, I have a clear goal in mind: family. While family is pretty much always my number 1 priority, this month brings a few new things to the forefront.

First – my little (and only!) sister will be delivering her first child within a few short days. I am going to absolutely bury this kid in love. My sister has had a long road to get here and fought hard for her own family, and I couldn’t be more excited. I want to make sure I really intentionally set aside a lot of time to be there for her and my new niece.

Second – all of my children will be returning to school in September. All of them. This is the last month where they’re just here, present, self-directed and available. I don’t want to miss any of that.

So today I spent the whole day with my kids doing art projects, building things, and going out to dinner. I’ve got a beach trip planned for later in the month, and several day outings. I’ve got some days I’m setting aside from my normal work schedule to be with my sister.

Family always comes first – but this month especially, it’s coming extra-first.

Happy New Month!

We’re halfway through a year that feels like it both started yesterday and simultaneously has endured for decades. But my own warped sense of time aside, there are things to do!

Last month, I vowed to have a list of goals and projects for myself and my family to complete by the year’s end. I do! I won’t share boring and context-less details with you, but I have several trips with the kids planned, a few projects around the house, and several large professional goals that are all aligned and within sight.

So now to execute! For July, I want to get done a major writing project that I have in front of me. It’s certain to be a career-booster if I execute on it well, so I’m excited about it. When details are relevant, I’m sure I’ll share them here.

Tomorrow is December 31st! Or at least, that’s what it will seem like on December 31st, when you’re saying, “wow, it seems like only yesterday it was July.” Fill in those gaps, and don’t roll through the years without noticing!

Happy New Month!

Look at that, I actually put this one out on the 1st instead of getting distracted by another topic and writing it on the 2nd. And speaking of little victories, I accomplished my May resolution!

My goal had been to view May as an entity, to be able to look back on the month and describe it as something other than the days that comprised it. I can do that.

I own a house now.

I didn’t before! I rented. Now I own a place. (Well, as the classic joke goes, the bank owns it.) I expect this topic of adventure will find it’s way into the blog here and there, as homeownership is altogether new to me. But the point remains that I can say something distinct about the month of May 2021 – that’s the month where I bought my first house.

On to June!

I’m going to go a little farther here. At the end of this month, the year will be halfway over. So by the end of this month, I want to have a real roadmap for what I want the rest of the year to look like. Trips, hobbies, career advancement, kid milestones, home improvements. I want to have a solid 5-10 item list to knock out by the end of the year, so that’s my resolution.

As always, wish me luck – I do the same for you.

That’s three times in a row that the NMR post is going out on the 2nd instead of the 1st. In addition to being a funny pattern, it also means that last month’s resolution can safely be called a spectacular failure.

Seriously, last month I resolved to be able to view April as a whole, to see what happened as a result of it, and to be conscious of the passing of time. Here’s what happened in reality – I didn’t even notice the entire month.

That’s my blind spot. Individual days – great, solid. I usually rock those; rarely do I go to bed feeling unaccomplished. On the other end of the spectrum, my 5- and 10-year plans are going great. I can look back on the last 5 years and say I’ve moved in the direction I wanted, at the pace I wanted. There have been unusual turns and missteps, but I’m definitely five years ahead of where I was five years ago.

But on that middle scale, the months fly by.

My father, a brilliant musician, once let me in on one of his secrets as a drummer. He said if he was improvising a drum solo and he made a mistake, he’d just deliberately repeat it eight measures later, and then it looked like a creative choice rather than an error. His broader lesson was sometimes just leaning into your mistakes and not fighting the natural pattern can be helpful, especially if the mistake is mostly stylistic anyway.

So maybe I’ll just keep putting out the NMR posts on the 2nd, because I’m choosing to. But also maybe I’m going to give being cognizant of the month one more shot. I can have the same resolution two months in a row, because these are my rules and who’s going to argue?

Happy New Month!

This is twice in a row where I didn’t do my NMR post until the 2nd day of the month. I’ve been going a mile a minute lately; lots to do, lots to accomplish, not enough Johnny. In fact, I even wrote a post about it yesterday, because I’ve been thinking so much about choice as it relates to time. But I completely missed noting the actual first of the month!

In the best of times, I don’t really mark the passing of weeks and months. A dozen or more times in my life my own birthday has come and gone without me remembering. I’m bad at the medium term – I’m great at ten-year plans and day-to-day actions, but bad at noticing that a month has passed.

That’s my resolution this month. To try to get my mind focused on a month as a unit, to see what I can really make a month mean. To meditate some, try to reduce my overall stress level. I already have at least one camping trip planned, and that always helps.

But really, my goal is to feel a little different on April 30th than I do on other days – to be able to look back on April as a whole and say that I made it more than the sum of its days. Wish me luck.

Happy New Month!

It’s on the 2nd today for two reasons – one, I accidentally got really inspired on a different topic and forgot it was the first of the month yesterday, and wrote something else. And two, because today is my eldest daughter’s birthday and so that puts me in a ‘new beginnings’ kind of mood. Plus, I made up the whole ‘New Month’s Resolution’ thing anyway, so I can do it when I want!

February’s resolution was pretty successful – I managed to create my “relaxation zone” a handful of times and it was very nice. It also made me realize that more of my resolutions need to be in that direction; I’m not in any particular danger of accidentally not working hard. If anything, I’m more likely to push myself past the point of breaking, and I don’t want that to happen. I want to be around for a lot more of my kids’ birthdays.

So my resolution this month is something that comes very naturally for some, but for me requires deliberate action. I want to spend 10 minutes every day in direct sunlight, weather permitting.

I don’t commute to work, and the days have been short, cold and dreary of late. I haven’t had a lot of natural reasons to go outside. But sunlight makes me strong as it does you, and so I’m going to just go let it cover me and fuel me for ten minutes of nothing else each day that the sun chooses to show itself.

This is where it was when I became a father. It’s worth noting.