Happy 2018!
Eiichiro Oda seems to be taking a break today, so I guess I am too! From One Piece, that is. For all else there are no brakes.
I've been trying to catch up with the blog before New Year celebrations commence, and there's so much I want to catch up with; so much I want to post... for starters I don't think I've written about our grand Go Kart session at work, and Christmas dinner at Little Persia, with hummus, mastokhjar, babaganosh and another nameless aperitif on aubergines and cashew nuts? The main dish was delicious: sabzi polo - salmon fillet marinated with oregano, golpar and saffron, served with zeytonparvarde and rice mixed with dill, parsley and garlic, and then lemon and raspberry sorbet after! Not to forget the huge bottle of Dogh - a local yogurt drink with cucumber, salt and dried mint, that was probably more like food than drink because I had a hard time finishing my saffron rice. Too much. But delicious.
I'm not sure I've posted about the luxurious five meal course at Djurgårdsbrunn earlier in November either. I also had the best halloumi burger I've ever had at Restaurant Two a few days later, and stopped by Beirut Café Deli a few weeks before that, as well as Restaurang Asahi and Nikko Sushi, not to mention the recent stop by Älskade Traditioner (that's Beloved Traditions) - a nostalgic-looking cafe on Södermalm where they serve delicious gluten-free waffles with sea food, and other great things like milkshakes topped with cinnamon buns, dual straws, fireworks and cream. I've been on a bit of a culinary quest the past few months, and will hopefully keep going with this little taste-testing escapade in 2018 too...
Then there's the visit to Tom Tits Experiment (it's not what it sounds like), and most recently a Ghost Tour on Riddarholmen with my nephew - who's been hanging out here for a few of the otherwisely a bit too stressful days between Christmas and New Year... hey, it's today! We had a great time playing games and roaming dark city streets with dramatically green grass beside - where there should have been snow, but I feel like this vacation didn't last a full week at all. More like a weekend. Oh did I mention me and my sister went to Östersund just before Christmas, for a quick visit to Big Brother & Co? There was snow! I know there's much more I'm forgetting.
I wish I had time for a recap post of all I've been up to this year - both posted and unposted, but that's something for another time. Or better yet: that's one of those back-of-mind projects that should just get set aside immediately instead of getting put on the backburner and being potential pick-up projects for rainy days, because projects like that have been eating at my mind - and time, the whole year. It still feels like 2017 barely started. Where did the time go? Rhetorical question. Work, hobbies, habits, obsessions, perfectionism and bad priorities... that's the answer.
I haven't forgotten about the summer recap posts, though... or the concerts. Promise is (a) promise. There won't be a recap post for the year, but there will be for those! No matter how belated they may be.
As the New Year starts I'll make an ode to take on no new projects I know I shouldn't prioritize, and to make no new promises I don't know if I can keep. It's nigh time for a year where I don't just keep digging into the same old tired treadmill tracks, but go onward! To open, uncharted, and exciting grounds. Let's make 2018 that year.
Resolutions? I'll say what I said last year, and repeat it until it sticks! I didn't manage it then but I will now. There's also this one item on my list of resolutions from the year before the previous year that I still wish to fulfill, that would be a spoiler if revealed, so that list will remain private until... the time comes. (It was supposed to be publicized at the start of last year).
It seems like new years without resolutions don't fare as resolutely as they do with, but maybe that'll change with this one, but one main resolution I would like to get out there is to stop stalling. I will do what needs to be done, and as mentioned I won't pick-up more weight than I can handle. If I can manage this one drastic change of character I feel like I can make great things, and stop feeling feel like making great things is a burden. Also: become healthy. That's a ladder of goals in itself.
Now that I've started gaining resolve I feel like I want to write up a whole list again, brainstorming, detailing, and challenging myself with goals and plans, but that's another thing I need to change. That's a part of the stall process. Begone distractions. Begone eternal revisions and my impossible strife for perfection too, and my obsession to view every single video that appears in my YT feed, and to at least skim all new articles on a select few sites/blogs, and to check my email and a select few other sites at least once every hour even though I know there is nothing so important there that I can't leave it until I've finished whatever task I have at hand.
Begone all that is unnecessary and holds me back. Begone my newfound addiction to buying cheap food, and in the process stockpiling stuff with a short expiry date so I need to keep track of what I eat first, and checking in on Let's Deal every day for cheap activities and meals that'd otherwise cost a lot... and having to make use of those too within a set date, when I didn't really need or even feel like doing or eating all that stuff anyway.
Begone hoarding unless it serves a purpose. Begone buying unless it's necessary. Begone eating too much (in part a side-effect of aforementioned stockpiling). Begone bad habits and a sometimes overly negative mindset. Begone being scared of self-improvement. Begone complicating aspects of life that could be so simple, and making certain tasks routine when they could otherwise be spontaneous and fun. Begone a lot of other bad things, and arrive an equal amount of good ones!
I might not share all my realizations and resolutions with the world, but as the fireworks explode in a dim, smoke-lit sky, I'll surely reflect over all I want to change, and formulate some motivational message within my mind, because there is no lack of ambition, the only lack is: time.
May the New Year shine! And may priorities fall in place, or fall away, and all be great on taller days, now that the gray and grainy shades of winter... soon, will start to maul decay. The dark fade and all sunrays gleam...
Happy 2018.