Arr the sense of satisfaction you may briefly experience were you to fully commit yourself to cleaning up leftover dues in the year that's been, and allow for a fresh start so supremely clean and sparkly once the new ones comes a running?

I didn't manage that. Not at all. I still have PMs, I still have email correspondence, I still have unrevised blogs both posted and unposted that I've been meaning to plow through and better polish, and other dues, audio cues, ideas and dreams and causeries on the news... so many undone dues!

But I still have a cold don'tchaknow, so at least I have some excuse as to why I'm not done with everything.

I still get stuck in those random conversations leading up to the New Year too. I get stuck in everything. I'm stuck. I gotta get moving. So without further ado let's move to the resolutions...

But first, once again I'd like to remind myself of my mantra, repeated a few years prior now; one I want to embody to the point it requires no further reminder: Don't wait, but don't haste. Don't hesitate. Don't stall, don't fall, don't all. Don't say "yes" if you stress. Don't do if you are not supposed to. But mostly, a 'can't do' won't do: think instead of what you could do. Be good too.

That's how I wish to live. How I want to be. That's the A, but onto the BC!

2022

This year I vowed to...

1. Get a stable secondary income, beyond my day job.

I didn't want to rely on any one thing too much, and I wasn't super happy with my day job, nor super confident that it'd last much longer.

For some time now I think I've subconsciously been wanting to move on, but I've been unwilling to. This in part because I feel like I'd be betraying my boss in the midst of financially uncertain times, when more prosperous times for the company may be on the horizon, and I might contribute to our getting there. In part also because it's comfortable. Because it's easier to stay than to move, and in truth maybe my loyalty is more a result of the second than the first part.

I'm not sure if I convince myself that it's a pretty good job too, or if I really believe it... I think it is. I'd be hard-pressed to find an alternative with the same benefits in regard to flexible hours, and part-time days that at least theoretically let me pursue my passions on the side. But I'm not using these benefits to my best benefit...

But did I get a stable secondary income this year? No. I've sold a few weight vests at a good profit margin, and a larger number of movie tickets at lesser profit margin, and I think I picked up one freelance gig. But that's about it, and I can't see how that'd qualify. There has been certain secondary income but it's all but stable...

I do plan to keep going with this though. I plan to experiment with different revenue streams until I find something that's right for me. Something that can become somewhat systematic; that I can fall back on and expand if need be. I'm pretty confident I could get something proper going here if I just take the time it requires to start something.

2. Put out a finished body of audio unrelated to the Inktober verses, be that an album or mixtape.

Nope. I've put out another Inktober mixtape, properly mixed and mastered and all - and I'm proud of it, but that's it. And then I did Inktober again.

I wanted more. Somehow every autumn I find my motivation just goes right out the window, I grow tired and glum, and come spring there's too much other stuff going on! Then comes summer and off to the farm we go, and sow and plow. Excuses, I know, but this is something I really do struggle with. Motivation. Should probably find a resolution to remedy this...

3. Buy property or land.

I did say 'Anything goes here, however small' on this one, and so yes, I have this year actually attained a piece of land I can truly call my own, though it measures but a meager meter. Mission accomplished. :) I am actively looking for more though! I have little financial surplus available for such investment - and I want to make it count, so count on this to possibly take a while, but with property prices currently on the decline it's not impossible something suitable will come around next year...

4. Participate in a demonstration for human rights and democracy.

I could've done this one so easily back in January. There was a big thing going on then, I planned on going but... something came in the way.

After that the motivation to accomplish this particular goal fizzled out a bit. I've signed petitions, I've plugged important things on the blog... I think? But no demonstration yet no. Currently I have no plans to attend one, but if a similar opportunity presents itself again I shall make an effort.

5. Make my current cellphone subscription free.

Nooope, not all the way there yet. I was down at 30 SEK/month for a while, I'm currently up at 40 SEK/month; I think I was higher at the end of last year. So I'm getting there but not there yet! If you're in Sweden and you need a solid cellphone subscription plz see this.

6. Update website infrastructure.

Nope, not this one either, it's one of those things I'd hoped to get to this month but as usual shit got in the way.

I must do this eventually. It's non-negotiable. Currently one of the plugins I have installed doesn't work with the framework I'm using, and the number of unsupported plugins will surely grow this coming year. I aim to get to this soon, yet without incentive I assume it won't become a priority until it's absolutely essential to secure further sustainability of the site...

7. Cold showers every day.

I skipped a day again, whilst up North, this autumn. The water was getting hella cold (5-6°C?) and I caught a cold - potentially covid - and didn't feel like it'd be good for my health to keep it going.

There's no shower there. The lake is it. The morning air's cold too. I think it was raining that first day. Cold rain. It was not very inviting.

And as last time I skipped a day this too turned to more than a day, and it definitely impacted my mood and motivation for some time to come. Probably impacted my long-term immune system negatively too, since I've had a cold a month for three months straight now, starting with the one I had here! I started taking showers half-assedly when I got better - sometimes I'd skip them if I wanted to sleep in, but after the second cold I'm back to it being a daily necessity - no excuses - and I do feel better.

I didn't stop taking showers when I caught my third and final cold of the year either, and if I hadn't been eating candy and partaking in tiresome Christmas celebrations I believe I'd have battled off the virus in record time with this routine. Just don't take too cold showers when you're sick, and I'm sure it does speed up recovery too.

TLDR: I missed a month or so, and it sucked. The other eleven months went well. I'm back at it.

8. Write something every day.

Have I...? I'm not sure. I probably have. I have a lot of creative writing streams in parallel. My blog, the hundred word site, my diary, NG, various other notebooks and pads and post-it's...

I can't vouch for this one 100% but I'm pretty certain I've managed to write at least 99% of all days this year.

9. Get healthy.

I wanted to be able to by the end of the year jog at least a Scandinavian mile (10 km), and do ten consecutive pull up's at any time.

I'm currently sick, so I can't test the one mile run, but pull up's...? I can't even do one properly. -_- FML man. Remember that site? It was a pretty good site, maybe it's still out there.

But my goal to get in - and stay in - proper shape, this year, has definitely not been accomplished. It was good this spring, and summer.

Not so much at the time of writing.

I'm a part of a little incremental improvements club to further motivate me with things like this, and one of my goals for this month was to initiate a one-month-free gym membership too. Of course I didn't get to that either. My other two goals in my latest resolution post there were to get through the goals here, and to get to the track one day and see how far I could run.

I didn't get to that either. Caught a cold instead.

So conclusively, how did I do? Two out of nine accomplished, with another two almost accomplished, and a couple in progress...?

That's not so bad. To make progress you must stay positive so that's not so bad, come on now.

I can do better though.

2023

Some of these are just repeats on the previous, but they need to be done, so here we go...

I've also learned that it's easier to accomplish something if your goal is precise. If you know exactly what you're trying to do. So here we go...

(more…)

I put together a little photographic recap of our summer for Christmas this year - haven't done something like this in seven years at this point.

It takes you from the start of summer till the end of it over a span of around four months, from late May until the middle of October, 2022.

There's a material copy of this in our living room now but apparently you can share it digitally as well, so I thought some of y'all might enjoy it too!

No annotations though. It's a purely visual sojourn that follows the season, with notable places and people, occasions and accomplishments - though it may not give an accurate representation on quantities of any individual veggies. Just little glimpses. The batches depicted herein are the final ones of the year, before frost swept in and took the remainder.

We're still feasting on homegrown almond potatoes, and probably will be until early Spring. :) And on frozen berries until we pick new ones.

Until next year! Till next summer. Till times of fun and wonder.

I dreamt I was walking through the streets of the city with a horse.

It was cold.

We were a gathering of people and I didn't know anyone in the group, but we had a leader who seemed caring and tough. Could've been a person from a movie.

It feels like we started out in an airport or some kind of gathering site but I'm not sure where we were or where we were going, but it was winter, it was icy and we were alone in the world, and needed some place of refuge.

We came across a horse and I tamed it, and became friends with it.

It was unwilling to come along at first, but eventually it did.

I found it in a barn, and it didn't want to come outside at first, but eventually it did.

It really was winter. Freezing weather.

Unhealthy weather to be out in for too long.

We took refuge in a restaurant, a little place with lots of small tables, and plenty of people who didn't pay us much mind. I was with my sister and someone else - my brother possibly, not sure. In a little backroom we were talking about orders and what-not, looking at menu items on a screen.

There were just three items, one of which was Conan-shaped French fries - French fries that looked like Conan O'Brian, with the grumpy kind of frown he puts on occasionally, his face molded into the fries.

We stood there and talked for a while, and the employees talked about something else, and people were sitting around eating, and I started feeling sorry for the horse since it shouldn't be outside in this weather.

So I went outside and brought it in. To a little glassed-in area with tables right outside the restaurant. It was tight, but there was a bit more space between a few of the tables, so I brought it there and tried to make it understand that it was supposed to sit down, and it did, and we sat there and waited, the horse on the floor and me on a chair beside it.

Eventually a couple of other people sat down as well. Initially it was still cold - not an insulated area of the restaurant at all - but it did get warmer with us all there.

It went alright... and that's where the horse part of the dream ends.

Way earlier in the dream we were at a cliff of sorts, a steep mountain side, where I was on the shoreline with someone, not sure who.

He managed to get up in a genius way.

He stuck a sword into the wall, and somehow hoisted himself up to a wooden platform by looping a rope around the sword.

I followed suit. In the dream it seemed genius, but looking at it now I have no idea how that worked at all. There was no motor, the cliff wall was steep, and there's no way he could've thrown the sword into the top part of the cliff wall in the first place, or hoisted himself up on a rope tied around the blade of a sword without it cutting through, but in the dream it worked!

I spoke to my brother (in the dream) about this in awe, and I think we figured out a similar trick to get across the river before we reached the cliff... without a canoe.

A while later - above the cliff - we walked into a building with security.

I was with a few people now, one of which was a rich person - a part of some elite family. He talked to a guard and we got into the inner sanctum, rode up an elevator into the hallowed grounds at the very top of this cliff, and I'm not sure what happened then. Then came the horse.

Even earlier we were in a plane. I'm not sure with who or why again, but for a while I'm pretty sure my nephew was there, and we talked about interesting things as we usually do. Movies probably.

That's it, that's all I remember. Waking up from a dream, and it's 10:13...

How they celebrate Christmas in the coldest village on Earth is pretty cool after all. :) As a lot of things are in that village.

Think I'll borrow the burnt wish tradition in particular.

Seems like a way to really solidify the resolution. To truly embody it. Might finally be able to accomplish some real things with that!

Cheers all great peeps over there in sparkly but harsh Siberia.

They say this is the future... it is cool but I just miss real engines. The power. The fumes. Gasoline and grit. All the good stuff.

Getting into a lot of these behind the scene videos on other episodes though, it's an addicting sport...

This one wasn't bad either! And this! And this! Also interesting.