Ramblin': Day 1

I've always enjoyed journaling. The process and the product of the process always give me a sense of being grounded--if even for just a few minutes. Over the past week or two, I've done a few blog posts on MyFitnessPal and found myself looking forward to writing a new post. So, last night, as I had about 100 thoughts a minute on what I would like to accomplish in the new year and how the heck to organize the ideas, I thought, why not write about it? Better yet, why not write about it every day?

So, that's a goal. I am curious to see how many entries I actually bang out this year. Surely, it may not be 365 with our family travels, day-to-day life with my now-7-month-old babe, and the expectations of an even more sporadic spouse.

I've got a lot on my mind in terms of things to accomplish this year. I've got financial goals, health and wellness goals, professional goals, friendship goals, marital goals, and parenting goals. It'd be nice for me to spend some time over the next week or so actually articulating these goals and the steps with which I may achieve them.

One of the more familiar realms to me involves health and wellness. I am a habitual user of MyFitnessPal. This week I am logging every thing I put in my mouth and all of my activities and looking for ways to tweak my day-to-day food and fitness. I've done it before and I can do it again. 

I am rambling a bit here. That's okay. The important part is that I set aside some time, put my butt in a chair, and scribed a few paragraphs.

Something to think about: If and when I want to make my writing public. I have a lot on my mind. Some of it is great for public consumption and some of it is intensely personal. How do I use this space wisely, but also support the idea of making the process and product of writing public? I've criticized others in the past for hiding this ugly process behind closed doors, but maybe it's easier to criticize scholarly writers rather than those who are doing writing of a more personal nature.

Currently reading: The Likeness by Tana French (IDEA: Pick up Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project again and read it to coincide with my year of writing?)
Current weight: 146 lbs.

And, a tip of the hat for the name of this blog: It's drawn from Seamus Heaney's poem "Digging."

Between my finger and my thumb  

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound  

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:  

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds  

Bends low, comes up twenty years away  

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills  

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft  

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.  

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods 

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.