time to start packing

it's time to start packing away all those christmas decorations, storing or recycling those cards and generally moving on with our lives. christmas time is such a chaotic time full of bright and colourful lights, cheery music, cramped stores and general stress about finding the right gift and seeing everyone you have to see. well that's all done now and we can get our lives back to normal.

unless you have a gym membership. thanks to the need, with the coming of the new year, that people have to resolve to be better and healthier and funner and smarter, the gyms will be packed. thankfully i hopped off that train a couple of months ago. i'm not saying that i don't miss the gym. i'm saying that i don't miss the gym in january when people, full of resolve, pack themselves into brand new lululemon gear, all matching of course, and stumble around not really knowing what they're doing, but getting in your way and taking lots of time on every machine that they don't know how to work. harsh? perhaps. reality? yes. it generally takes all of january for those people to forget their resolve and eventually forget to come to the gym, but this month is generally not fun.

but then there's me. i dropped my gym membership after weeks of going back and forth in my head. i rationalized that i play hockey and volleyball and am paying for both sports so could afford not to go to the the gym. and honestly, i haven't noticed that big a difference in my body. i'm a little softer around the edges (and maybe in the midsection as well) but overall my weight hasn't fluctuated and i feel only slightly less strong. and the guilt is gone. i no longer feel like a turd when i haven't worked out in a couple of days. i no longer feel like i'm wasting my money on something i hardly use. and that's a nice feeling.

so instead of resolutions i make goals for myself for the new year. last night i found the book where i had written down these goals a year ago and laughed at the fact that i accomplished only one of my goals for 2006. but that didn't stop my from making new goals. i cheated a little and made the goals for things i knew were going to happen like, "move into new house". but i read somewhere that making a list and crossing things off gives you a sense of accomplishment and is good for your mental health. so here's my list for today:

- get out of bed (check!)
- go to work (check!)
- eat lunch (check!)
- go home
- get at least one thing done tonight
- go to sleep

wow, i'm already half done. look at me go! i was reading some of the posts in my new flickr group, project365!, about how if people were being completely honest about their lives (ie. posting pictures that truly represented what they did every day) all the pictures would be of them at work or eating or doing dishes and that made me think. yes, our lives can be very repetitive and boring but the joy, and this project is only one way of bringing out that joy, is to look for the things that aren't so repetitive or looking at the different angles of things. and besides, for someone who doesn't live my life, boring and repetitive may be interesting and fresh to them. it's all about perspective and i hope that i can keep a good one!