New Year's Resolutions and Stuff

When I started bike riding back in May, I decided I'd follow a program and, with any luck, end up doing a 100-km ride (62 miles). Then at some point in there I started to dream about also doing an actual century, a hundred miles. To my shock I was able to accomplish both of those things, and it made me realize something: I'm capable of a lot more than I usually make myself do. In other words, I can be self-disciplined.

That said, I've got three New Year's Resolutions for 2019, and I'm going to use that same discipline to make these happen.

1.  Create pockets of French immersion every day that I possibly can. It doesn't matter how (books, movies, shows, YouTube, podcasts); it only matters that it happens.

PS: Part of this is a hard-and-fast rule I made for myself, which is, "No audiobooks in English." I've already been following this rule for several weeks, and you'd be surprised how much it, combined with boredom while I'm cleaning, has driven me to listen to stories and podcasts in French. I'm getting really good hearing the language as a result!

2.  Follow my diet until I'm at my goal weight. Period. End of story. I don't want to be the fat girl on a tandem.

3.  Enter at least two organized bike events. I've never done a real event before, and I really want to.

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I want to tell you something that happened the other day when I was reading in French. For the first time ever I read a phrase in French and understood exactly what it was getting at, but I couldn't call to mind the equivalent phrase in English. It wasn't that I'd never heard it in English before; it was just that I couldn't quite remember what it was. Anyway, it was weird and kinda cool!  (The phrase was "réchauffement climatique," which means "global warming.")

Today is Baylee's last day at T. Bell (as she calls it). She opened, which means she had to be there at 6am to get the place ready to start selling food at 7am. (Who the heck wants Taco Bell food at 7am, I ask you?) Once she gets home from there she'll have a couple days to rest, and then she starts as a barista at her new job.

By the way, Taco Bell had a Christmas party a week or so ago, and they gave all the employees $10 gift cards to Starbucks, except Baylee. They gave her a $50 gift card...to Taco Bell.  LOL Her boss said it's because they're really going to miss her, and they want to be able to see her again.

Today I'm planning to put the Christmas decorations away. It's time. In fact, the only reason they're still up is because I didn't want to be tearing things down around Wayne. It seemed rude.*


*That reminds me of something that happened when I was in 9th grade. I had a little group of friends on the track team...there were 2 of us girls and 2 guys...and we would sit in the field and talk/laugh/be idiots between events at meets. One time the 2 boys and I were watching the other girl in our group run her race, only, God bless her, she was so slow that she literally got lapped...maybe more than once. It was painful to see. Finally one of the boys said, "At the rate Monica's going, this meet's gonna be over and everyone's gonna go home before she's done. The janitor's gonna be out there with a broom sweeping the track."

2018 in Pictures

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October 

 

November 

 

 

December