the trick is to keep breathing

So over my brief microsabbatical I decided on a list of things I want to get done by the end of the year: thus, New Year's Resolutions, in reverse, ie my resolution is to have this done before the new year. See? Get it? It's like I'm clever instead of backwards and wrong!

1. Get Healthy [metric: exercise 3+/wk; lose 10+ lb]
   Content note / Note this: being healthy and losing weight are not always the same thing! Health has a unique meaning to every individual body!
   That being said: for me getting healthy and knocking off weight go hand-in-hand at this point in time. From May-September I ate poorly, rested poorly, drank too much, drowned in stress, and had no time or motivation to work out at all. That plus medication changes has resulted in what is, for my body, unhealthy poundage.
   I miss swimming. I miss yoga. I don't miss running, fuck running, but I miss being able to run I guess? I miss punching my bag. I want to have Korra arms. And I have, quite reasonably, 10-20 lb I could lose before being even close to "danger". (Trust me, I'm a Taurus; we don't diet.)
   This is something I can make happen by 01 Jan 2016.

2. Inhabitable basement [metric: obvious]
   Right now the basement is storage, which is part of what basements are for, but mine opens up to my patio (and grill, and fire chimney) and has a nice little area by the windows where friends could sit and drink wine and grill things. I've two drum sets in my basement and my keyboard, all of which I have been missing desperately. (I miss music! I dream about pianos.) My workout area is functional, but not at all welcoming. My laundry area could use some sprucing.
   Much of the storage is related to the above, which means I just need to sort it and work through it. A good part, however, is my grandmother's stuff. She finally passed away in August (I am not sure I even mentioned it here; I was too broken by it to do so) and I do not mind storing her things forever but need to go through them and decide which way makes sense.
   This is, also, quite doable by 2016, and having those areas back in my life will please me immensely.

3. Shame room --> Craft room [metric: obvious]
   I want to turn my spare bedroom into a crafting room, to house sewing / knitting / beading / anything else I may start doing. Right now it's a shameful repository of clothes-to-be-donated and a few boxes from moving (not original boxes - these were empty boxes that were repacked with "shit i do not want to deal with rn" and hidden).

4. Plan for the greatroom [metric: having an estimate / loan]
   I have plans in my head to redo my entire greatroom, which started with my neverending desire to replace the horribly stained carpet in there and grew into a really, really epic floor plan. I need to get it from my head onto the page, then find a contractor who can give me estimates on time / cost to make it happen. Why not? Houses are investments, and my cafe-bar thing will be incredible.

5. Work-Life Balance [metric: ???]
   I need to prove to myself that I can, in fact, work the kind of job that pushes all of my success buttons without killing myself. The next 3 months will be busy, as always, but not deadly, so it's time to fucking do it. I still don't know how to make a metric for this; maybe I can use success on the other Resolution points, because they won't happen if I continue to use my energy on work.

6. Mental Peace [metric: ???]
   I went back through some journal entries and I've been in a massive depression funk since early 2014. That's too long. It has started to severely affect my health and my job. I need to attack this. I realize depressions don't "go away" but I haven't tried anything really and I at least deserve an effort.

7. Write Again [metric: get some word count] No real comments. I just miss writing.

I stopped there, since there are really only 3 months left in the year, and they will contain not only the major hols of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but also the birth of my newest niece or nephew, so I'm well aware that this is a lot to do in that time frame. (Obviously they won't need to be complete, but I work better with deadlines, even self-imposed ones. Better to not let myself cheat.)

There. Public posting makes it real, right?

It's that weird overlap time where you are moving and you know you are moving, but you haven't yet; the place you're in now becomes less home by default, just a feeling, but there's nothing yet to take its place. For a Taurus like me - grounded by the places I feel safe - this is a very strange and uncomfortable feeling.

I'm working on making the place feel like my home in my head though, so that once I get there, I will feel settled. Took the cats and had a sleepover party on Friday (Marzy had an absolute blast; Porter was pretty terrified and spent the first ~15min hiding under the laundry tub, but eventually warmed up to it. Rydia, showing once again that she truly is my familiar, somehow felt out which room was the master bedroom and spent most of her time lounging under my window); spent all yesterday afternoon putting up a first coat of paint in Becky's room. Going to spend time this week taking vacation from work to paint the other bedrooms, tear up the master BD carpet, fix a leaky sink etc.

I'm calling it the Feymarch. Although it also goes by Castle Gaylord (which is actually a more fitting name when you realize what an absolute dork I am for interior decorating. My dining room is going to be straight out of fucking Rivendell, you may all defriend me immediately.), but the Feymarch is fitting for a place that feels like it's out in the middle of nowhere.

Hard to believe I'm going to be living there in less than a month. When in the absolute fuck am I going to pack?

My moods are still, honestly, all over the goddamn place. I'm excited about it, but then I reach a point where I'm preemptively overwhelmed and just don't want to think about it - and then I start bouncing off all the other angles: I want credit for doing something this awesome all by myself; I don't want anybody else knowing or talking or helping because this is mine; I want to have a million parties; I want to be there alone forever. I swear my depression-brain is a manic depressive these days. I could deal with it when it was straightforward depression brain. I seriously don't know how to operate with manic depressive headbees.

But it's mine. If you're an address person and you'd like my new address, fire me an email -- I'd love to get some cute moving-in mail. :D