So I'm not completely with the idea of resolutions, and particularly new year resolutions, but sometimes you know that if you want to make a change its good to a metaphorical starter's pistol go off in your ear and hit the ground running.
One of my big goals this year was inspired by a kooky dream I had -
I was in an op shop, looking thru vintage knitting patterns when I decided to make a purchase. The sales assistant said she couldn't take my money as she had no change, but there was another way. She opened up a huge big book of appointments and told me I had to give blood. The appointment she gave me? 01 January.
I know that the red cross blood bank is bleeding for donors (couldn't resist the pun) but I haven't quite been brave enough to bleed for the cause myself. I took this dream as my subconcious telling me to 'harden up, princess' and start donating this year.
I happen to not be overly fond of needles (the non-knitting kind:).
In order to face my fears I got a small tattoo in 2003 to 'beat the fear of needles'. However, lately I have been beginning to feel unworthy of such a tattoo if I am still giving into the fear when it comes to donating blood.
I did get really close to donating once - I went in the door, filled out the questionaire and then got the finger prick test to check a few levels. It happened that my haeimoglobin was right at the bottom of the healthy range - and would have dropped into the unhealthy range if they had taken a couple of pints out of me.
The plan to see this one thru comes with a little help from The Man - who is a regular donor. We are going to make appointments at the same time (as soon as he can donate again) and he will be there to hold my hand. He is also planning to feed me a heap of red meat the week before so I can get my iron and haemoglobin levels sky high so I don't work up all that nerve and then fail at the last minute.
My second goal is to get moving - and start running a little more. This has been partly inspired by
webgoddess and
brave-and-slightly-crazy and partly inspired by a quote I read somewhere about "the black dog is lazy, if you exercise he won't bother to chase after you" (lucky Pierre hasn't a lazy bone in his body and enjoys runs with me in the park!)
I am aiming to do the couch-to-5km, but may do a couple of the sessions for more than the usual 1 week. The aim isn't to go fast, but just to get moving and build up a bit of endurance. If you're keen to see how I am going I have added my nike+ mini to the right sidebar. (the mini is also on my facebook profile.) So far the running is going well - although the forecast in Melbourne on Wednesday was for 39C, so I got up and went for a run at 6:30am when the temp was 31C (it only dropped down to 28C overnight) so I wouldn't have to worry about going to a run in the hottest part of the day when I got home from work. Ironically, the cool change came through at 9am and we dropped down to 21C. My desire to avoid the hottest part of the day had me running right in the middle of the heatwave :)
And the third wish for the new year? To get a haircut. Seriously. It has been more than 18 months since I last got a haircut so I am a little overdue. The plan was to go to the verrry cool gothic hair salon down the road and get the type of haircut that would dishonourably discharge me from the military (seeing as I no longer have to conform!). There were pipe dreams of dark, dark brown hair with blue/magenta and fire-engine red accents, but that will have to be put on hold for a while. Due to the office closing over the new year I ended up having to take over 45 hours of unpaid leave - so my paycheck was more than a week short this month. I may have to go somewhere for a bit of trim in the interim until I have some play money I can splash out on lavish haircuts.
