2022 Intentions

2022 Intentions 

I’m literally in a very different place this year — Valencia, Spain. Last year at this time I was living in San Antonio, Texas in a house we’d bought 11 years before. My life has changed in dozens of ways, and I’ll be writing more about it in this blog going forward. Our move to Spain didn’t happen overnight, of course. It was done step-by-step over a couple of years and several obstacles – looking at you COVID. I’ve learned from the experience to keep moving forward any way possible to make my life more of what I want and less of what I don’t want. Big changes are tough and much harder to do fast. Small, consistent actions work. So without any further ado, here’s my list for 2022: 

2022 Intentions

#1 Break up with my iPhone, but still be friends

#2 Plan new experiences 

#3 Read two books a month by reading one chapter a day

#4 Learn the names and locations of all 195 countries, one continent at a time

#5 Practice conversing in Spanish everyday

#6 Close tabs I’m not using  

Just a bit of explanation on why I chose these and then I’m going back to working on them. Really, I will. 

#1 Break up with my iPhone but still be friends. It’s the old, it’s not you, it’s me story. It’s time. It’s past time. There’s a lot of stuff I want to learn and do before I die and clicking to see why Tina Fey is trending is not getting me there. So I’ll be in touch, but won’t have you next to me every minute of every day. 

#2 Plan new experiences. These first few months in Spain have been full of major adjustments. While we made this decision carefully and knew there’d be good days and bad, it has still  been a roller coaster. I had hoped we’d have traveled a bit more on weekends but with so much new, we didn’t need more novelty. We needed time on the weekends to adjust to our new country, city, home, and school by sleeping in, doing our favorite hobbies and just relaxing in our new apartment and neighborhood. Almost six months in, I’m happy to say we’re pretty much in the groove. It’s time to start putting new experiences on the calendar so they will happen. We have 18 months before our son will leave the nest. (sniff) If we don’t do things together now, we might not have another chance. 

#3 Read two books a month by reading at least one chapter a day. I’m so looking forward to this one! I love to read, but make excuses that other things need to come first all the time. They don’t. And this year they won’t. Reading one chapter a day is so doable and other things can wait.

#4 Learn names and locations of all the countries. I was inspired by a woman on Twitter who mentioned she knew all 195 countries and could locate them on a map.That struck me as very cool but impossible. Then she commented it could be done by learning one continent at time. That sounded doable, so I started studying and am pumped that it’s not as hard as I expected. Here’s the website I’m using to practice: https://www.seterra.com/ 

#5 Practice conversing in Spanish everyday. I picked up shopping Spanish and ordering at cafes Spanish – the just enough to get by Spanish pretty quickly. Now it’s time to push myself beyond. I’m willing to have simple, random conversations to move the needle even a tiny bit. The other day I practiced the last thing I learned on Duolingo by telling the cashier at the grocery that, “Hoy es lunes,” which translates to “Today is Monday.” Catching her off guard, she thought about it a second, laughed, and said, “Si” I’d met Pilar before when she offered to help me fill out the application for the store’s rewards program. She knows I’m trying to learn so I didn’t think she’d mind me practicing with her — as long as I didn’t hold up the line. Muchos gracias, Pilar!  

#6 Close tabs I’m not using. Okay, I know this sounds lame, but we need some easy wins, and I’m tired of being shamed by my teen for having so many tabs open at a time. Maybe if I start closing them it will reduce distractions, and I’ll focus more on my next task. And maybe, just maybe it will make me slightly less cringey by my teen’s standards. Probably not, but I’m going to do it anyway.

If there are things you want to change or do, take small steps to make them happen. It’s gratifying to check them off each day or week or however often makes sense. That feeling stokes the flame to do it again. And then again. The majority of my intentions from last year have become ingrained so I don’t need to add waste nothing, eat more berries, or read one book at a time to this year’s list. And by vowing this year to read at least one chapter a day, it seems doable to finish reading two books a month. Baby steps, my friends, baby steps. 

Adios!

Martha 

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