My new coat arrived in the mail the other day. It’s light-weight corduroy with a cotton lining – perfect for spring and autumn, or chilly summer nights. I absolutely adore it. It’s perfectly made, and fits me exactly. I could not be more pleased!
I wrote about the coat a few months back, in A thing that actually represents another thing.
I got the coat from an Etsy store. I LOVE Etsy! It has everything!
I think I like this list better than my own….
In fact, it’s a useful addition to my slightly more specific goals since it incorporates my goals of:
I’ll have to think about how we can make the others more tangible…
I was driving through town the other evening and it was teeming with tourists. A couple stopped me as I was leaving the gym to ask me about where they could find something to eat. It took me a while to think about where I might send them. I don’t know why anyone would want to come to Christchurch.
As a tourist myself, I usually stay in the inner city where all the interesting stuff is. I can just imagine catching a bus from the airport into the city (staying at the Ibis maybe?) and being bowled over by the complete lack of city. What do tourists think when they come here? Do they know how bad it is? That there really isn’t any city at all? Or maybe they are attracted by the pop-ups and weird abandoned feel.
I can only assume that some people are there because they are curious and others because they don’t know.
I’ve been trying to write this for a couple of weeks. It seems like each year it’s getting harder to think of my goals for the coming year beyond the mundane things that I intend to do – which aren’t really goals. I have plans, but are they the same as goals? Plans seem more concrete than goals. Argh! Anyway, let’s give this a shot. At the very least, it’s nice to be able to look back at the end of the year to see how my plans relate to what I actually did…
If 2014 was all about saying yes and no more carefully in order to get some balance, I want 2015 to be the same, but more so. Once again there will be no big projects or grand schemes. Instead there will be a little bit of everything – travel, sport, family, work. All the things that make me happy. Specifically, my goals are:
Take some little trips around New Zealand
Read 10 books
Because my work involves a lot of paperwork and reading things I’m not particularly interested in, this isn’t the leisure activity it used to be for me. I used to read dozens of books each year, and then when I started university, reading for leisure stopped. I’ve never really got back into it – I read news and magazines but have trouble committing to whole books. Added to this is Audible – why read when I can have someone read to me?! But Amazon-Audible recently added this nifty thing called WhisperSync where you can purchase the e-book and audio version of a book and it marks your place from one to the other so you can listen in the car on the way home, then pick up again with your eyes once you’re deposited on the couch.
I’ve got two books ready to go already. I might tackle the Game of Thrones series. That will keep me busy.
Go to at least one country I’ve never visited before
So Stephen and I have booked a trip to Europe from 3rd to 25th September. I’m not adding that to my list of goals – it’s a sure thing at this point. We are planning on starting in England (this time visiting the south west) and Wales (again, the south west), and then France and who knows where else, and then flying home from Frankfurt.
So instead I make it my goal to visit either Ireland, Switzerland or Luxembourg – all places I’ve not been before.
Spend more time at home
I probably need to quantify this in some way otherwise I won’t really know if I achieved it. In 2014, I was often out most nights of the week – derby on Mon, Thurs, Sun, hockey on Tues, meeting on Wed, socialising Fri and Sat. As much as I love it, it gets to be hard work. Some weeks between work and gym and sport and friends I felt like home was just somewhere to sleep and change my clothes.
I need to make a commitment to be home at least three nights a week. I think that’s manageable. That means hockey once a week, derby once a week, dancing once a week (more on this next), which leaves one more night to do something social. If this means skipping something that I want to do some weeks, I will have to do that.
The good thing about this list is that there is much less derby and more things that I share with Stephen, I’ve missed him in the past year with all the derbying!
Less derby, more other things
So I’m not going to be doing derby three nights a week any more. What do I fill this time with? Couch-sitting? Of course not … except those three nights I’ve committed to!
This year I want to play woman’s league ice hockey in winter. I signed up last year but then derby got in the way when the training night was changed. I was very disappointed with this, and I’m really excited about signing up this year.
I made a hard decision to give up dancing when I started derby. It wasn’t just about the derby – the studio had moved after the quakes, the class got smaller (sometimes it would just be Stephen and I) and we just weren’t enjoying it the same. I was also struggling with some pretty painful OOS in my arms that made it a bit torturous at times. Then when we went on the cruise last year one of the things we did was ballroom/latin dancing each night. We realised how much we had forgotten, and how much we enjoyed it! So this year we want to get back into dancing lessons – at a new studio. I’m really looking forward to it.
I made a big decision in December to quit playing derby. I gave it a good two and a half years, and it’s been an epic roller-coaster ride. When I started, it was to keep Megan company. I’d been rollerblading a few times, was enjoying ice skating and was keen to learn to roller skate. I signed up for freshmeat never intending to actually play roller derby. I love to skate and I’m glad I learned, but I never enjoyed the full contact aspect of derby. I don’t like hitting or being hit. Though, in honesty, it’s actually been really good to learn that getting smacked to the floor repeatedly really isn’t so bad – it doesn’t hurt as much as it looks like. I don’t mind the bruises and actually I am quite proud of some of them. They feel earned. Which probably sounds nutty to some.
I worry a lot about getting injured. I’ve seen more injuries in the two years I’ve played derby than in my seven seasons of ice hockey. It scares me a little. And derby has been hard on my body. People argue with me when I say I’m too old for derby. I’m not saying that I’m chronologically too old – at 42 there are people my age and older still playing. But my body is old and beat up. I haven’t taken care of it and it’s pretty wrecked. I have to be careful what I do with my poor body if I want it to carry me around for another 40 years. Last year I spent a lot of time in pain – legs, hips, back, feet, elbow (my poor elbow!). Just ask my massage therapist and osteopath. They are both very polite about the sport I play – they’d never tell me to stop, but they both support my decision that’s for sure.
Then there’s the intensity of it. Two hours, three times a week. In my busy life, that’s a huge time commitment. It doesn’t leave room for much else, and I’ve slowly given away other things I enjoy to make room for training. I’ve quit running, dancing, Sunday dates, gym classes, winter ice hockey, all for derby. In my league, part time is not an option. You’re either in, or you’re out. There is no middle ground, no “social derby”. One of the things I love about hockey is that I can do as much or as little as I want, and no one really cares. If I wanted to, I could skate every other day, go to all the trainings and camps, skate outside, practice my shots. Or I could just be mediocre and have fun playing once a week in the B Grade. I love that. It’s not an option in derby. Like I say, it’s intense. And not for me. Right now I feel like the love of derby got beaten out of me in the past year.
The problem is, I really love to skate! I wish wish wish we had a roller rink that I could socially skate with my family. In lieu of that, I’d love to be a roller derby referee. One of the things I loved about doing freshmeat was learning the rules. They are plentiful and complex and interesting. As a ref, I’d get to skate, and I’d have to really know the rules, and no one is allowed to hit me, and it’s free. Sounds perfect! It means I’d get to keep participating in a sport I really enjoy, and it’s something I can continue to share with Megan and Bronwen.
So maybe it’s not so much quitting as it is shifting from player to zebra. I’m pretty excited about that. I’m going to give it three months. Once the season starts in February I am taking a three-month hiatus to see how much I miss it. If I don’t, I know I’ve made the right decision. And if I do miss it, I can jump back in!
I started my blog five years ago today. I signed up with the intention of creating on online journal/diary for myself. I don’t care who reads it, I just wanted somewhere to collect my thoughts and deeds so I can look back at life and remember. At the time I’d been through a period of intense upheaval and I had no idea what direction life my would be going next. Obviously no one actually really knows what the future will bring, but I really had no clue – job, home, relationships were all up in the air.
I’m glad I started the blog – I love reading back. It isn’t very personal though, which is not what I intended. There is a lot of “I did this and that”, and “I think this and that” but not what I’m really thinking and feeling about things. I guess I’m reluctant to make it too personal – I don’t want to offend anyone and I want to keep some privacy. Which is funny since I’m really not a private person at all … “oversharer” I think is the word.
About the same time I started the blog, I also started using Facebook more, and I think it’s taken over the role I intended for the blog. It’s easy just to fire things up on FB – it’s a great summary of the life and times of Bebe Frayle. But there is so much noise on FB too. It’s not really adequate as a capturer of me and my life. So I’m going to recommit to this and see how it goes.
To help me refocus on my original goal I’m going to do two things:
Let’s see how it goes…
The Secret Life of Bebe 