Turn The Page

We’re sitting here mid-Jan, Reader, and I’ve made the decision that I’ve still got things to say and I know you’ve heard all that before and then I dribbled out a few words every few months or so, but this time is going to be different. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully.

Always hopefully.

I just landed back from a Jan cruise, so that’s my excuse for not getting this writing year off the ground sooner.

January is a good time to escape the cold and snow, but also? It’s not that warm in Florida, either. We didn’t hit 80s weather until St. Maarten and that was three days in.

Yes, I’m in my pajamas in that photo.  It looks wistfully hopeful, so it’s the pic we’re using, because we’ve got a brand spanking new year unfurled at our feet, and I’m always hopeful when we start anew.

Now, things in CA have turned to S-H-I-T with the start of this New Year, as is often wont to happen. The New Year will often try to just crush the shit out of our hopes before we even get dug in to it.

It tried to fuck with me. It tried hard, Reader. But my FORCE of POSITIVE VIBES was stronger.  This time anyway.

I almost – almost – almost – almost – missed my flight for my little trippy.  Security was slow as molasses and while it felt like I had gotten there in pee-lenty of time, I arrived at my gate five minutes after boarding had closed. I knew it didn’t look good when I was the ONLY PERSON at the gate. My vacay date was already snuggly in her seat, re-planning her solo vacay.

The gate agent was already looking to rebook me through Chicago. Would it get to Orlando in time for me to catch the ship? It was anyone’s guess.

But then! As I mantra’d, “Everything is ALWAYS WORKING OUT FOR ME,”  in a shouting match with myself in my head, another gate agent came from the ramp and said, “Are you Trixie Bang Bang? I didn’t close the door yet, you can run on!”

And run on I did! And that was that, so hahah Forces Who Tried to Fuck With Me! I only pissed myself a little bit.

Anyway, what we came here tonight at this midnight hour when I should be sleeping, but here we are instead – was this.

Right at the beginning of the New Year, I read a neato recap from Emily P. Freeman where she talked about what worked for her in 2024 and what didn’t work quite the way she’d wanted it to in 2024 and did a little recap that way, as she set her intentions for 2025.  So I thought I’d capture it in the same fashion for myself, kind of my prelude to my vision board workshop that I’m going to host at Chez Bang Bang later this month. For my friendies, where we sit around and cut magazines and glue things and eat and cheers each other. It’s not an official class, it’s just for funzies.

Here we go.

What Worked for Me in 2024:

1. Working out. I know, I know. Who am I, that this is the first and best thing I did for myself in a year?!? I don’t even know.  But swimming around has become my THING and I just really super like it and have been diligently going since April 2024. I miss it when I don’t go. I became an early riser (when the weather was warmer) and have gone before the sun was even up on more than one occasion AND I once went twice in one day. I went tonight and am looking forward to going tomorrow. I missed it when I was on vacation. I think it’s because NOTHING HURTS when I’m in the pool and I can jump and lunge and do all sorts of moves I can’t do on land, and it’s just being nice to my body.  For 2025, I plan on continuing my routine and adding to it by meeting with a personal trainer this month to develop a shorty-short weight lifting routine because I’m still not strong. I want to be stronger in 2025 so I’m making that a next level goal.
2. Vacations were strong in 2024. We did some stuff and it was fun. However, I’m not as in love with travel as I once was. I admitted that to myself recently. I like going; but I also like being home. I mostly like the opportunities to spend time with friends, which was some of the travel in 2024. We went to Laughlin with my friendies in May, and then my vacay wife Jody and I went to Turks & Caicos in November, and My Mister and I took our usual cruise in October. In 2025, I’d like to branch out from the usual, though. If I do plan a trip, I’d like something new. Or maybe this is the year I save for a big trip, like Hawaii. I’m not biting at the bit to go somewhere, and in fact need to cancel a trip we have planned for February. I’m not interested.
3. Friendships were also a strong point in 2024.  I re-connected and saw some people I haven’t seen in a while, and made tons of new friends at a book club I helped launch at a local wine spot near where I live. The people I hung out with in 2024 were probably some of the biggest sources of my joy in the past year. I want more of that in 2025.
4. On the flip of the friendships I’ve grown, I also did a huge culling in 2024. Mostly from social media vs. in real life. I made sweeping deletes to my connections on social, mostly with 4 criteria: do I like what you post or does it annoy me, are we ever going to see each other again in real life or not, did we meet causally once and friend up but we probably shouldn’t have, or did they vote for trump. And I cut 200+ people from my list with that criteria, and now the only part I’m a little sad about is that I get mostly stupid ads or random group posts vs. any of the people on my friend list. So maybe social just needs to go completely in 2025.
5. The fifth and final 2024 win I’ll note is that I’ve read a LOT more than my usual in 2024. With starting that new book club, and being active in my neighborhood club, and then listening more on Audio than ever before, my head is usually filled with a story and I like it. Since I like it, I plan to continue. Do I need to put a goal around it? I’m not sure yet. I’ll give that a think. The standout books for me in 2024 were The Women, From Here to the Great Unknown and then the self-help that actually made a difference is Atomic Habits. I’ve added some simple tasks – for instance, putting all my shoes on the shoe rack instead of kicking them into a pile NEXT to the shoe rack every night, and less clutterie spaces work well for me mentally. It’s spilled over into some other tidying habits, and I try to mostly do a 15 minute evening counter tidy-ing up, wipe my bathroom mirror when I’m done brushing teeth/washing face at night, and dust one thing in my bedroom. It doesn’t always have to be a whole hoopla of cleaning. Tonight, I dusted off a shelf where I have my printer, cleaned my standing jewelry box mirror, bathroom tidy and wiped down a shelf in the bathroom, too. Ten minutes tops and it feels better when I look around.
6. I lied, I have a sixth Win from 2024, but it was an unexpected interloper that ties right in to my new tidy-cleany habits! My Mister bought me my very favorite cleaning tool ever, the Tineco wet/dry floor mop and this machine has brought me more joy than well any other machine and that’s saying it all. Reader, I mopped my floors at 10:45 this evening because they were mussed from some outdoor weather mussing them up, plus the mussiest mussers, the cats. My floors have never ever ever been this mopped. I mop six times a day some days just because. And I have still not yet gotten a tank of “clean” dirty water. Close, on the six-times mopping day. But never clean dirty water. My house is almost ready for unexpected pop-ins. In fact, you could pop over right now, at midnight thirty, and while I would be alarmed, I wouldn’t be embarrassed that my floors or house overall was dirty.

That’s it. I’m saving the “what could have been better” version for another night. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not. Probably soon. I can guarantee a probably.