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Checking In - Mid-January 2021

For this first check-in, I can say I'm making some progress on many of my goals.

The first thing I had to do was put together a schedule. Then I had to tweak it because I was having dinner too late to fuel French and exercise. Then I figured out that French was too late in the day. I'm still tweaking things. C'est la vie!

DRAWING
This is something I'm going to do on the weekends. I bought access to a drawing course last year and I'm going to continue with that for awhile. It is lower priority than my other goals, but it's something I enjoy. I haven't started it yet as there is too much home reno work in progress, but hopefully I'll be able to soon.

FRENCH
It took me a bit to figure out where to go with this goal because so much hasn't really worked for me. After reading some reviews, I subscribed to Pimsleur Premium. I feel like I've spoken more than in two days than in some whole courses I've taken. The first level is supposed to get me to an intermediate proficiency. There are five levels of French through them. By the end, I should be at the level of a native speaker. I'm looking forward to whatever point gets me able to watch movies and read books in French.

GUITAR
My first task is to slowly build my calluses back up. I have gotten a large list of songs together to eventually learn. I think I'll be using a multi-pronged approach between Rocksmith and Hal Leonard books. I also want to get to a point of being able to play along with the songs without the game, but we'll see how it goes. It is lower priority than French is. I originally tried to do this every day, but in order to make more progress in French and in my writing, I think it's going to be a weekend thing for a bit.

HOME
I am going to need to figure out a meal plan to support all of my activities or I suspect I'll crash and burn. I have a new doctor who is sending me for a bunch of lab work, which is good because my energy has been low for a bit and nothing seems to be bringing it back up.

Otherwise, I have a practice area for martial arts now. 


And I'm working on fixing the wall behind my chaise. The wall is sticky from peel-and-stick wallpaper, so I'm slowly working away at that during the week. 

I moved the art that was on that wall to another wall because it flows better.



I also put up one of my art prints, Salvador Dali's Idylle Atomique.


I have one more I haven't put in its frame yet. It's Gustave Doré's Souvenir of Loch Lomond. I'm really excited about this one as it's my favourite painting. It'll be going up on the wall I'm working on, which is behind my chaise. I'm still finishing up the upholstery on that by the way.

The main hold up in my bathroom is supposed to be taken care of tomorrow, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high.

MARTIAL ARTS
I really enjoyed the first couple classes. I'm looking forward to more lessons. I also put in time in my schedule to review the materials that have been provided to me. My arms were sore several days after last Sunday's class, but it was the good kind of sore.

READING
I didn't formally say a lot about my reading plans for the year, but I'm trying for about two books each month. I have been reading a lot more than in years passed and I'm happy about it. The first book I completed this year is a beautiful little book a friend got me for my birthday. The Wisdom of Wonder Woman. I loved it!

SKATING
I think I'm going to just do Ring Fit for now. The Canal is being prepped this week and I'm going to take a walk to check out the rink by my house soon. I do have some small pylons for slaloms and such. I also got some indoor artificial ice tiles that I'm looking forward to getting into once the wall is done in the living room.

SPARKS
I'm back in chapter two fixing some parts that were not updated to reflect the changing direction I've taken. I hesitate to say more because I've changed my direction so many times on this novel. I do think this will be it though. I've noticed lately that I'm a lot more productive in my day job when I'm listening to music, so I think I'll be making up some writing playlists to power through the edits.

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