Out with the old, in with the new... again...

Happy New Year!

Yeah, I know... Expect the next 2 weeks to be greeted with Happy New Year from everyone.

As always, when a new year approaches, I inevitably decide it's best to start over again. Create my list of goals to work on for the year and approach it with a more renewed vigour. I have crafted that list, though so far have not acted on anything as of yet... Oh, silly me...

I guess you could tell from my last post that I was very depressed and feeling hopeless. I continued to feel that way for the rest of the year, and indeed into today. I weighed in yesterday, knowing all too well that I had been eating non-stop and been a sloth for the last 10 days. Not surprisingly, I gained weight again. I have almost regained back my highest weight level again. I weighed in at 224 pounds. Eek!

I'm starting off slowly to get into the weight loss momentum again. It's day 2 with no soda, and day 1 of sticking to a diet (so far). I have to do my dishes tonight, which kept getting pushed to the side as I was slothing the rest of 2017 away. I hope after that, I can have enough energy to exercise again. If not, the exercising will start tomorrow. Back at the Richard Simmons thing all over again.

I think a lot of people have felt that 2017 was a pretty bad year. Personally, I saw some major issues unfold. My father had a heart attack, of which he is slowly recovering from. Every time I talk to him on the phone, he tells me that half of his heart is technically dead. It's very scary to me...

Then I got diagnosed with having type 2 diabetes. You would think those two events would smarten me up and make me kick my own butt into gear, but no.

The worst thing that happened last year, personally, was the death of my beloved Lucy last May. Even to this day, I still miss her dreadfully. I do have a new kitty, a beautiful black cat, with small white tufts of fur, and the most gorgeous golden eyes you'd ever seen. I got her in mid-June, and named her Diana, as I had seen the Wonder Woman movie shortly before getting her. While she has been some comfort, there are still things I miss about Lucy. Both cats have some similarities in character, as Diana is becoming more and more talkative every day, something Lucy and I had developed together. They both pick the same spot to lay in bed with me, which is around or in-between my legs.

But one thing Diana doesn't do is cuddle with me in the mornings. After my first alarm would ring, Lucy would always come right up to my face, lie down and purr. As I snoozed a few more times, that lovely sound would always get me going in the morning. Diana isn't much of a cuddler. She's more likely to come around to where my arms are so I can pet her, but doesn't cuddle with me. Maybe she will slowly learn how to do that, or maybe she won't. I don't know. It's just something I miss about Lucy. Losing Lucy was very rough on me. It was like losing my child.

Then there were the things that happened in 2017 that were out of my hands. Horrible news year, with the dumbass in charge in the United States. It's making me lose hope that there is good in this world, as it really feels to me like evil is ruling the world. I'm not particularly a religion person, but when someone like Trump becomes President, it makes me wonder about the predictions of the end of the world. Trump displays all of the seven deadly sins, and in fact seems to flaunt them around. He's done horrible things in the States, and so have his GOP friends, passing this tax reform law, which is basically giving rich people even more money. He also doesn't know how to shut up when he should, riling countries who happen to have nuclear capabilities up. It's almost like he wants to bring about the end of the world or something.

We have also seen the devastating effects climate change has had on this world in 2017. In this very province, we had one of the worst fire seasons last summer that started in June and ended sometime in September. A lot of smoke was filtering into our area at times, not just from BC wild fires, but also from the whole West Coast. Even today, the California wildfire is still raging on. The smoke made it impossible for me to exercise during the summer, as both my asthma and the diabetes diagnoses had strong recommendations against those activities while the smoke was in the air.

Last year just seemed to be a real let-down. I know quite a lot of people out there who felt that they just couldn't get that creative last year either. I'm sure it has to do with this feeling of hopelessness coming from the powers that be right now.

So... As a way to try to stave off this horrific hopeless feeling, one of my resolutions is to pay less attention to Trump and the news. It's affecting my emotions in very negative ways and there's really nothing I can do about it. I'm not an American, so I can't vote the bastard out. In order to maintain some sort of sanity and some sort of hope, I need to stop following Facebook sites that pump nothing but Trump news, or block them from my newsfeed. I will try to send positive vibes to the Universe to deal with this evil and hope it has a plan to take him down before it's too late. But otherwise, I will refuse to engage in any sort of political battle online anymore. Even if you say something nice, you get blasted by Trump supporters. Even if it has nothing to do with politics, someone inevitably turns it towards politics. I will refuse to comment! Life is too short for Facebook wars.

Other goals for this year are to continue to work on myself, dealing with my emotions through Emotions Anonymous and food addiction through the Russell Brand book called Recovery. I want to read more. I want to keep a more organized and clean home and office at work. Obviously, I want to lose weight and get down to my goal weight.

One small step at a time...

There were some good things that happened in 2017. Wonder Woman kicked ass in the box office and was a tremendously good movie. In fact, it was a great year for superhero movies. I loved Justice League and don't care if others didn't. Star Wars: The Last Jedi was the best Star Wars movie yet, and again I don't care if others didn't like it. There was a four-part crossover event with the CW shows which was epic. Elongated Man as a semi-regular character on The Flash has given me so much joy. So yeah, some good things. It was just really hard to deal with all the shitty things, you know what I mean?

Anyways, thanks for reading, for those who do. One day at a time...