The importance of an end-of-year review.
(Get a copy of the 2024 Planner for pretty Paris paintings all year long.)
HEY 2023, SEE YOU LATER ALLIGATOR.
Hello 2024.
Normally it’s a good idea to stick to the season you’re in.
No Halloween displays until after Back to School. No Christmas before Thanksgiving. And no 2024 before the end of 2023.
However…
There is one lovely end of the year activity I love doing to take stock of the present year in order to make good plans for the next.
I take stock of the year.
This isn’t a grand event. It’s just a bit of pondering in the ol’ journal. I also gather whatever filled journals I have around the house and flip through them to see what I got up to.
My journals are a mix of lists, writing, and sketches. It’s a bit of a mess but it works for my brain. I find the lists I write on the side to be most lucrative for this end of the year activity.
No wonder I’m angry all the time. I’ve written LAUNDRY on the sidebar 100 times this year.
Domestic duties, in a word, piss me off.
However, not really interested in hiring it out, and man alive it’s a big ask to get anyone else to do it around here.
Someone asked me once if I was going to write a sequel to Paris Letters.
(Keep in mind I did write two books after Paris Letters, but they weren’t exactly memoirs. More of Paris.)
And I usually say, “No one wants to read a book called ANGRY IN THE KITCHEN.”
It’s not that marriage and childcare are bad. It’s just that they are a drag when the heavy lifting is heaped on the ladies of the house, who are also working on their half of the bills.
So after this 2023 review, one of my New Year’s resolutions is work through this irksome task of cleaning my house. Do I hire someone? Would that solve it? Not sure. You see, my introverted self has such a small amount of time alone that the idea of having someone come into my house during the day INSTEAD of having the house to myself… BIG LEAP.
There is a part of me that feels like I should toughen up and do it without complaint. Grateful to have a house to clean. Get on the ol’ earphones and slam down some Pledge. Get all Karate Kid wax on wax off about it.
Do a good enough job and that should, hopefully, lead to greater happiness… or at least a sequel that isn’t called ANGRY IN THE KITCHEN.
I’ve been wondering a lot about Main Character Energy.
I had a slew of Main Character Energy in Paris. I was the social convenor of my days and I was good at it. My lists were like this:
Walk to dahlia exhibit in Jardin des Plantes
Café to write in journal
Bookshop
Market for cheese, bread, flowers
Meet up with so-and-so
Home to manuscript
That is a nicer list than:
Laundry
Tidy up
Walk around the track
Grocery store
Home to sort papers
Honestly, what happened?!?!
I’m not bitter. I promise.
Just observing what has worked and not worked this year, and to apply reasonable expectations based on stages of life. The good news is that I’m not ill. Thank goodness for that. No more Google Analytics pointing to: Janice MacLeod Illness.
In fact, it took until this autumn to feel back on. BACK ON.
If only the laundry wasn’t getting in the way.
Janice
PS Quick reminder that now would be a good time to score yourself a copy of the 2024 Paris Planner. It includes a goals page so you can do some end-of-year pondering.
