…Should now be the name of my blog. I write this one laughing to myself because this is one old, unattended corner of the internet that I have thought of often but mostly ignored for years. The last one I wrote was posted in February 2018. My intention of this blog was to get into practicing creativity. I started it in 2014 when I lived in Los Angeles and felt very lost and frustrated. I originally called it “Every 5 Days” because I wanted to write and post that often. It quickly became apparent that I couldn’t keep up with it that well. Then I changed it to “Every So Often” and that seemed like a title and goal I could achieve, but alas…it took nearly three years later for me to finally return.
The impetus to getting my butt back into gear can probably be boiled down to having a strange 2020 like so many people. I must have known it would be a weird year before it even started because even though I went in with a lot of hope, one of my usual January traditions I just didn’t complete. Each year from 2014 to 2019, I would write down about 4-6 goals that I wanted to achieve. At the top of the sheet I would write the year in colorful bubble letters and then list my goals in a semi-visually appealing way. I would tape the paper to my wall with the idea that seeing it everyday would make me want to do it. Below is an example of that:
As you can see, “Start Blogging” was number four on that list but I never got around to it. Actually, most of those items on that list were not done that year. I read 5 books in the entire year (instead of the goal of 24), didn’t learn to play my ukulele (or even touch the instrument at all), and I definitely didn’t start on a good workout regimen.
However, in 2020, despite it being a tough, emotional year, I was able to accomplish a bunch of goals without even making my little document. I read 35 books (audio and paper/e-books), I made pretty good meal plans, started to work out twice a week over zoom with my sisters and at least 1-2 more times with Pete (my boyfriend) or on my own, and even more importantly for the sake of this blog, I started making a plan about how I want to make it a feasible activity to do each month.
That plan was only really initiated because of influence from two of my friends. One of the few positives of living during a pandemic and being inside most of the time is that I started a writing challenge with my friend Kaitlyn in April. We found a monthly list of journal prompts on Pinterest and created a Google shared folder where we would write our entries. At least once a month if not every two weeks, we would hop on Facetime to catch up with each other and share what we had written. In June, my friend Lindsey joined us to create a fun trio to talk through our ideas. The daily entries morphed into once a week prompts, and finally evolved into choose your own adventure style goals. The adventure of my choosing was to sit down with this sweet blog and starting dumping words down again. I didn’t realize this is where the challenge would bring me when we started but I feel very grateful for it.
After the insane year that 2020 was, I enter 2021 very cautiously. I did write down a new set of goals this year in my bullet journal but also wrote down a potential action plan to achieve them. A big problem with my previous resolutions was that they lived as grand ideas in my mind that I never took the time to figure out a transition into actual achievements.
So, to sum up this post, I am excited to be back on here with the big hope that I can keep it going this year. I have the next couple of months lined up with a few ideas that I’m looking forward to sharing. Cheers to a hopefully happier and healthier new year!
every so often... 
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