Each month I plan to do several practices:
- Write an honest-to-goodness real letter to someone. I have a penpal now, and I am enjoying writing to my grandmother.
- Take a hike with Pi. This will be a new practice, but I already know that I want to do this at least once per month.
- Clean a closet/drawer.
- Watch a documentary. I love documentaries, but when I think to watch them, I often choose something trashy instead. With a goal of once a month, I hope to help myself become a decently educated, compassionate person rather than root for the least jerky of the real housewives.
- DIY home project – this will be fun! I have so many ideas for this, and will post about them as they arise.
It is now January 10, so I best have a good start on them!
1. I already wrote my letter – to Tammi Salas. It feels so good to send actual mail out with a stamp and an address on the front. If you want to receive a letter from me, use the contact me portion to send me your address privately.
2. I took Pi on a hike! I didn’t bring my camera because it was so flipping cold, but here is one of me right before i took off.


It was pretty cold, but we did a good three miles. I would have gone longer but his little feet seemed cold. And I couldn’t feel my face.
3. Clean a closet/drawer. I have a very loose interpretation of this. I chose the large shelf in my en suite bathroom for this month. I had old things on the shelf and the shelf itself was pretty dusty and needing love. I have a few photos, but I was a dummy and didn’t get a true before shot. I might need a class in how to write a blog so appropriate photos are included.


This shelf gets extremely dusty and those little grooves are a bitch to clean between. This level of tortuous detail could only be brought about by the folks at IKEA.
And here it is all dressed up and ready to go. It makes me so happy.

4. Watch a documentary – I haven’t watched it yet, but plan to watch “There’s something wrong with Aunt Diane” on Amazon Prime this weekend. It is a movie about the 2009 wrong way crash that killed a mother and seven others on the Taconic Pkwy in NY. I have heard it is incredibly difficult to watch, especially for those of us who have had our own issues with alcohol. But whenever someone says something like that, I really want to see it.
5. DIY home project! Ok, this one is not a lot of fun, but it is manageable. I plan to decide my February project early so I can choose something more involved. I haven’t started yet, but before I bought my house, it was pretty much completely renovated. The people did good work, but the grout around the bottom of the shower is coming out. It needs to be replaced and sealed with silicone (I think – gonna research other opinions first), but I will do that and it will be beautiful before the end of the month.
Anyone out there have projects of your own? Any documentary or DIY project suggestions for me for upcoming months?
This weekend I will post an update to my January Whole30 PRACTICE and announce what I have chosen for February – very excited about it!