On Resolutions (v. 2012)

Last year I made the first resolution proper of my adult life. You can find it detailed here.

I was pretty sure of my resolution. Not that I was excited about it so much as I knew I needed it. I knew it was the best thing I could do for myself with 365 days. So, just in case you don’t feel the need to read up on last year’s resolution (even if you did, it’s lengthy), let’s sum it up:

In 2011 I wanted to…
1. Be single and fabulous.
2. Be in the best shape of my life.
3. Find the perfect white gold earrings.
4. Clean the kitchen before bed.
5. Cover firewood before it starts raining.
6. Wear my favorite underwear on a Tuesday.

Now, let’s go through these quickly with the results added, shall we?

1. Be single and fabulous. Oops. One of two isn’t bad. Is it?
2. Be in the best shape of my life. DONE! Thanks, Tony Horton!
3. Find the perfect white gold earrings. Done: Turns out I needed to only mention this one to my mom before going home for Christmas. She considered it her personal mission. Thanks, Mom!
4. Clean the kitchen before bed. I'm going to need you to be more specific about which night.
5. Cover firewood before it starts raining. Definitely not. Same firewood is still outside. Probably wet right now.
6. Wear my favorite underwear on a Tuesday. Done: Check posting date.

So… looking at my year in review, I don’t think I did too poorly. Progress not perfection; isn’t that the saying?

I keep my kitchen clean for the most part; I choose my underwear based on whatever-the-hell-I-want; I’m in damn good shape (Shut up, knee!); and I sport earrings that my tender lobes aren’t allergic to. So what if my firewood is soaked?

And as far as the big, bad resolution that grounded all of these minor resolutions… I think I did alright by that one too. I set out to be single and fabulous and that didn’t quite work.

I didn’t turn down dates and I let myself get attached. A couple of times. But I also listened to myself. My heart, yes, sure. But more importantly, I listened to myself. The part of me that thinks a few steps ahead. The part of me that knows who I am and what I want. The part of me that sees myself and everyone around me as flawed beings. The realist who remains a reluctant, yet hopeless romantic. And, because I listened to myself, I was able to navigate more than a few relationships in 2011. Some of them romantic, most of them platonic.

Now, just a few days into 2012, I can boast possibly the best relationships I’ve ever had with my family. Built on honesty, trust, love, and so much laughter, our bonds haven’t ever been so strong.

I can tell you all about dear friends who’ve opened up their homes and their lives to me and my craziness, becoming chosen family. Give me a minute and I’ll pull out baby pictures and tell you about recent milestones with more pride than I thought possible for me to feel about someone else's child.

I can tell you about my career and how having confidence in myself has allowed me to reach students in ways I hadn’t before.

Thanks to my willingness to engage, to feel, to try, and to communicate, I can tell you about my boyfriend. About the woman who is everything I wanted but didn’t know I could have.

When I found last year’s resolution post accidentally tonight I thought, “Ha! Didn’t keep any of those!” But that’s not true at all, is it? I may not be single, and I guess some might consider that the main event of the resolution… but I sure don’t. What I read in last year’s resolution post is a desire for confidence, independence, and happiness.

Have I achieved those things? Certainly. In ways, at least. I’ll not pretend that I’m perfectly confident, independent, and happy all days and in all ways. But… I’ve come a long way.

It’s now less about what comes at me and more about what I give out. Shoot. Maybe I’m growing up.

Anyway… my resolution for 2012 is similar to 2011’s with one adjustment.

In 2012 I want to be healthy and fabulous.

This means… seeing about getting this damn knee fixed.

Keep me honest, friends. I’m already dreading the appointment. That I have yet to make.

My 30 Day Plan to Separate Church & State

Loyal readers may have noticed that my posting history is an interesting one. I started this blog many moons ago without any focus or capitalization, and somehow I've wound up here. With you.

In the beginning I posted on the minutiae of my day and even tried my hand at poetry, but at present I mostly tease you with my successful culinary goodies and ask you to laugh with me about my kitchen disasters. I've moved the minutiae to Twitter, and some of you (bless your hearts) have even decided to follow me there.

Frequency of posting has fluctuated too. In March of 2009, I posted 27 times. That's one more post than the sum total of my posts in the year 2007. In spring 2009, I posted nearly daily, even without a working computer to call my own. I was a woman on a mission.

Then came summer and job applications and angst and an overwhelming apathy towards cupcakes. In August I got a job, moved to Georgia, and signed on for a whole new set of stressors better known as my 109 first year writing students. Cooking and baking has, of late, been my coping mechanism of choice so bring on the baking and blogging, right?!

Well... in theory.

This semester my blogging has been anything but consistent. When I've appeared to be on task and posting several times a week, it's only because I've sat down on a Sunday night, written three posts, and scheduled them for the coming week. I've started to treat blogging like homework. And for a teacher, that's not a good thing.

So, after some reflection, the reason for this behavior has come to me in an Oprah-like Aha! moment.

My work and my life have become one.

If I were not a teacher, I would be deemed a workaholic. However, it seems to be the predominant assumption that teachers are their work.

No one chastises a teacher for working on lesson plans on Saturday. No one scolds a teacher for heading home after a 10 hour day on campus and settling down to read student papers after dinner. Teachers who respond promptly to emails - no matter what time of day or night they are sent - are considered the "good" ones; those who only respond during certain hours are considered particular at best, and negligent more often than not. For some reason, our culture expects teachers to live for the classroom and I, as a new teacher, have done my best to comply with this expectation.

Within the first weeks, I learned that work would take over my life, so I responded by allowing life to seep into my work. If I'm going to be working all hours of the day and night, I figured I might as well allow myself little pleasures throughout the actual workday to break up the monotony. Therein lies the (social networking) rub.

Between 6:30am and 4:30pm, I'm always on. I tweet about the parking gate. I catch up on blogs when office hours are slow. I check Facebook during lunch. (I can't justify it during office hours for fear of being caught by students!) I compulsively check email addresses that will keep me posted on blog comments, Facebook messages, and new Twitter followers because... well... it's just that important.

And when I finally leave the office for the day, I go home to do much of the same. The social networks are all still there, but then again, so is my work. Student papers, lesson plans, grade rubrics, plaintive emails... they're all there.

So what I'm left with is a workday that starts at 6:30am and doesn't really end until I go to sleep. Or, if I'm lucky, until primetime television starts. Things slack off when I go home, for sure, but it's more like that last hour of work in an office setting after the boss leaves but before you clock out for the day: procrastination and general tomfoolery are not as covert, but when projects or deadlines loom, everyone gets serious.

No wonder I live for the weekends. They really are the only times I punch out. That is, until Sunday when I attempt to make up for my "absences".

For the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to come up with a 30 day challenge for myself that will give me something to do. I've contemplated adopting a raw food diet, meeting one new person each day, or forcing myself to the gym every day. None of these ideas really grabbed me, but now that I've had this Aha! moment, I know exactly what to do.

Over the next 30 days, I am going to rescue my life from my work. I'm going to separate church and state once and for all. (Well... once... we'll see about the "for all" bit at the end of 30 days.) I'm going to divorce my work life from social networking and frivolity of all sorts. I will then insert more work into work hours and reduce the amount of time spent on work at home in my "off" time.

Here are the rules.

1. NO social networking between 6:30am and 4:30pm, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or between 6:30am and 12pm, Tuesday and Thursday.

Facebook, Twitter, and blogs (mine and others) are verboten in the workplace, even on lunch breaks when the office door gets closed.

2. NO class planning or work email checking on personal computer.

This is going to be a tough rule to follow. But... if all goes according to plan with #1, I should free up office time in which I can plan classes, post assignments, deal with student emails and the like.

3. Paper grading, though probably done at least partially at home, will be rigorously monitored.

When presented with student papers, I will establish a reasonable schedule and hold myself to it. Naturally, social networking is verboten during scheduled grading times.

This is my challenge, should I choose to accept it. I haven't accepted it yet, because, well, I bet you can guess where I am at the moment... and it's not at home.

But you know what? Kick in the rear time. I accept this challenge and it will officially start tomorrow morning at 6:30am. With Day One as Thursday, Oct. 29th, I'll finish Day Thirty on November 27th.

I'll be updating you on my progress, but do feel free to call me out if I waver. You have timestamps. Keep me honest.