The goals and resolutions of 2010 – an evaluation

2010 is drawing to a close and it is time to reflect on how things stand with last year’s resolutions. These were

1. to cultivate contact with friends and family
2. to practice Anthroposophy
3. to develop and maintain a positive attitude

I also posted 10 goals for 2010 in a note on Facebook. These were:
1. Graduate from Nurse anaesthesia course in June √
2. Get job as nurse anaesthetist L (no luck there so far, but still applying)
3. Apply to organisation for disaster relief or similar √ (but was rejected)
4. Lose 10 lbs L (lost 7 but gained back 6)
5. Take agility course with Lucy √
6. Buy new car √
7. Learn Spanish √
8. Go to Iceland with Tor Idar √
9. Go to Italy with Mother and Roland √
10. Use less water and electricity √ (especially since the girls moved out).

Above I have noted how things went with the 10 goals. I was unable to lose the 10 lbs and I have been unable to land a nurse anaesthetist job. Of my 3 resolutions I think I was only really successful with one of them – practicing anthroposophy. So what happened with my other goals and resolutions? Why did I fail to carry them out? Does it matter that I failed?

With anthroposophy I have progressed from just listening to a lecture or chapter every day to meditations 1-3X daily including exercises in concentration and contemplation. I want gradually to make a 3X daily meditation the norm in my life. I’ve become fairly successful at concentrating my thoughts on a subject of my choosing, be it a mundane object or a verse or visualisation. The contemplation exercises have made me aware of how much I go through life not noticing because I don’t really look. I still have a ways to go there – especially in the realm of listening, and noticing feelings and emotions. The real challenge is changing my ways. Even the simple exercise of resolving on an action to be carried out at a particular time, went well this summer (maybe because I was on vacation?), however when I tried it again in the fall I think I remembered it 2 or 3 times out of 15. Not a great record. How much more difficult is it to change habits of thinking, speech, and action. It is amazing, and depressing to discover how much I speak and do without really being conscious about it.

Which brings me to the resolution of keeping a positive outlook. I still hear from my husband and my children that I am negative, and that I complain a lot. I believe that I am a lot more positive at work, yet occasionally I hear that I am argumentative or I catch myself criticizing. I think I need a very concrete method if I am to succeed with this resolution but first to answer the question: is it necessary?
I think it is. When I was little we used to say a verse in the morning which captures the essence how and why to develop a positive outlook:

To wonder at Beauty
Stand guard over Truth
Look up to the Noble
Resolve on the Good

This leadeth Man truly
To purpose in living
To Right in his doing
To Peace in his feeling
To Light in his thinking

And teaches him Trust
In the working of God
In all that there is:
In the widths of the World,
In the depths of the Soul!

- Rudolf Steiner

How have I done with cultivating personal contacts? Well, during those final hectic months of studying I made sure that Husband and I spent quality time together at least once a month. We spent a weekend in Oslo in January, 5 days in Iceland in February and a weekend at a ski resort in March. I have called mother once or twice a week all year and we have had some good conversations regarding our respective reading. Ilian and I have also been talking on Skype regularly. Skype has the added advantage of video so that it is almost like hveing her visit. For the first time ever I can show her how we live, our house, garden, pets etc. Roland and Sharon spent a week with us in Norway in May, and we spent time with them and Mother in September in Italy as well. However I miss having regular contact with Adam and his family, as well as Tormod and Beren. Also all my friends in the US. Audun and I have regular contact about once a month. Since Audun has come home from Australia, we have had regular contact about once a month, always very pleasant. After the girls went to England however, I have been missing Ingvild. Irene and I skype regularly. Also I have been quite lax about keeping in touch with European friends. The truth is that I am a loner. I like being alone with my thoughts: reading, studying, writing etc. Actual real-time interaction, be it face-to-face, via telephone, chat, skype or whatever seems so time consuming. It seems to steal time from being alone with myself. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? Because it seems to me that this is wrong. I honestly believe that the most meaningful time I spend, is the time spent in conversation with family and friends, or caring for my patients. And yet I am always prioritising everything else. I worry that my friends will slip away from me. That one day I will be 95 and have no one, and it will be my own fault.

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There are 2 areas where I was unable to attain my goals this year. One is in the professional realm in that I am still not working as a nurse anaesthetist, a situation that is threatening to undermine my professional self-confidence. But do I honestly have reason to doubt my potential to become a competent nurse anaesthetist? I think not. For one thing I was offered 2 positions in Bergen. I did not accept them because Bergen is clear on the other side of the country. Also I got an A in my final exam! That doesn’t speak of incompetence either. I think I just need to take time to figure out where my calling lies. I will start working at the ER at AHUS in February. Meantime I continue to apply to nurse anaesthetist positions in Hedmark, Oppland, Akershus and Oslo districts. Sooner or later it will become clear where my calling lies. I need to have faith in the powers that guide my life and in the voice of my Heart.

The other area is that of losing weight. The problem must lie in a lack of sufficient motivation. I think this is because I think of weight loss as a question of vanity. However it can also be seen as a question of maintaining optimal health. A BMI of 25.8 is considered officially overweight, and thus potentially unhealthy. Perhaps I should change the focus to health in general: diet, exercise etc and see what changes can be made there, and then see if weight-loss follows as a consequence of a more healthy lifestyle.

Deck the Halls ...

Julebrus is a must for christmas around here!

What are the necessary ingredients for a good christmas celebration? I started thinking about this after listening to Ingvild's radio program interviewing passers by in London on their christmas traditions. For most people the ingredients are: family, food, gift giving, christmas decorations (which in our house is the tree, the creche and gnomes), christmas music, and snow. 

The girls arrived from England on December the 11th. I went to Gardermoen Airport to pick them up. Here they are coming out into the arrivals hall.  Audun arrived yesterday from Lillehammer. So I will be celebrating Christmas with my husband and 3 of my children. We skyped with Roland and Sharon on Christmas Eve, talked on the phone with Mother and the family (Tormod, Beren, Ilian and Joe) early Christmas morning (late night for them, they were in the middle of their celebrations), and a short skype with Adam this afternoon while we were playing clue after dinner. 

   

Here is the christmas tree on the day Husband brought it home, after selling trees for the cycle club, and a day later after we had a heavy snow. 

We had the traditional Christmas porridge on the 23rd before I had to go off to work. As you can see in the picture, the tree was not yet decorated. In Norway the tradition is to finish up with all the Christmas preparations by the evening of the 23rd. We then celebrate with rice porridge with an almond hidden in it. The person who gets the almond wins a marsipan pig (it was Husband this year). We have always had a whole family of marsipan pigs. The winner gets the mother pig and everyone else gets a little piglet. For the past few years Irene has usually been the one to create the pig family. This year she complained: "I don't feel any Christmas spirit!" "Christmas spirit comes from preparing Christmas" I countered. Anyway she made the pigs and before I left for work - I would be working all that evening and all day on Christmas Eve - I put the girls to work trimming the tree. And sure enough the last thing I heard was: "Now I feel the Christmas spirit!"

Do you remember last year's post: a dog's christmas? As soon as packages appeared under the tree, Topsy started sniffing around at them. Then she lay down near the tree emanating a threatening rumble when Lucy so much as entered the room. The meaning was clear: there is nothing under this tree for you. Stay away! Unfortunatly the Master and Mistress don't respect Topsy's rules and gave Lucy a package which she barely dared to open, and then dissapeared to the other end of the house with the contents. 

For our christmas dinner this year we had a roast leg of Vension, a gift from a friend whom I had mentored for her home exam (which she passed with a C). Her husband hunts. It was absolutely delicious! While I was carving the roast before dinner I gave each dog a little piece of meat. Venison it turns out is Lucy's favorite meat. So when I started opening packets of kibbles in gravy (chicken and venison flavor) for the cat's christmas this morning Lucy almost went out of her skin. The last to get his Christmas food was Funky who was sleeping in the bathroom. I brought him the bowl to give him a wiff and he was definitly ready for breakfast, so I skooped him up in my other arm to carry him into the kitchen where the cats eat. Lucy was following the scent of the yummy cat food, and Topsy was following her to make sure she didn't get any of it. So it was that Audun was woken up at 7 am by a dogfight errupting outside his bedroom door. I had my hands full, but Husband broke up the fight and Funky got his food. 

Murphy's Law

" All that can go wrong, will go wrong"

Murphy's law usually goes into effekt on the eve of a holiday, as husband has reason to know. He was supposed to get a long weekend over christmas this year. Four days in a row free. This was because his boars which originally were scheduled to be moved to the semin station on Christmas Eve were to be picked up a couple days early instead. Unfortunatly Husband would be missing the traditional Christmas Lunch at Norsvin, but hey, he got 4 days off! 

Now after a week or so of somewhat milder weather ( around 15 F) and snow, we are back in the deep freeze that I wrote about earlier. So when the livestock transport truck arrived, the hydraulic ramp was having problems. They eventually got it lowered and loaded on about 1/3 of the boars. Back at the Nordsvin Center the hydraulic had frozen up completely and the ramp could not be lowered again. They had to saw it off and then carry the 200 lb boars out of the truck and into the barn by hand. Then someone had to drive 400 km to get another animal transport truck which Norsvin has at another location. Husband was left to feed and clean up after the remaining boars. His long weekend was amputated by one day and he still missed the Christmas Lunch. 

Next day, the new truck came and picked up two more loads, emptying the barn. The grueling work of washing and disinfecting could begin. This is not a pleasant job, as there is no hot water, and there is not enough elektricity to run both the pressure hose and the heating. Husband got started cleaning, only to discover that one of the 3 pressure pipes was frozen. The plumber can't

come until christmas eve at 2 pm.  So there went another of his days off, and he is back down to 2 days.

Stopping in the Woods on a Snowy Evening - by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know. 

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year. 

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake. 

The only other sound's the sweep 

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep

But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep, 

And miles to go before I sleep.

Living simply

A simple life is when you only have a couple of things to think about. For example when I was going to college, life basically consisted of 3 things: study, work and sleep. There was a little housework but the time was so limited that I could only do the absolutely necesary: I walked the dogs every morning, worked out once a week, did the laundry, shopping and cooked dinner most days. Period. That is all I had time for.

This weekend, life is simple too. It is my night work weekend, meaning that I have 3 night shifts in a row. This basically means that I am either working or sleeping. My waking time at home is pretty much spent in a coma, and dinner is warmed up leftovers.

A complicated life is a life that requires a lot of planning and/or juggling the things I want to do with the I have to do. Meditation, working out, learning Spanish, training my dog, and staying in touch with family members are some of the things I want to do. Participating in housework, and taking extra shifts at work are things that are necesary. To make time for everything requires a good bit of coordinating.

I suppose if I stuck with doing only what I have to do and what others (husband, my boss) expect of me life would be fairly simple - only I don't think it would be very satisfying. It is when I do what I want that I feel satisfaction. Wanting what I must is satisfying. Doing what I must but don't want is a drag. So, except for some short periods like the night work weekend, my life is complicated, by virtue of having too many irons in the fire and trying to please too many people.

Working out - what is the point?

Husband and I have frequent discussions about whether what I do even counts as working out. According to him: 

1. there has to be a goal. Husband's goals include winning (or at least placing ever higher) in competitions, achieving a higher average heart rate, achieving a higher max heart rate, better time, longer distance, more hours pr week, more hours per year, more days of training in a row before taking a day off and so on. 
2. it has to hurt. No pain, no gain. If it doesn't hurt, it wasn't worth the effort.

Now for me training, or working out is not so much goal oriented, as a question of lifestyle. And as such I think it should be fun. Pain messes with my motivation. So why do I do it? Is there a point to working out if I don't keep aiming to get better?

There are several reasons, or goals for my training: 

1. Staying healthy as I get older: exersise has been shown to be beneficial in preventing as well as improving the outcomes of high blood pressure, heart desease, cancer, osteoporosis, and diabetes, to name a few. It also improves the immune system. Now I don't have any of these illnesses (yet), but neither do I want to have them. 
2. Increasing my mental stamina in the face of stress. Exersise has also been shown to prevent and improve the outcomes of depression as well as delay the symptoms of dementia, such as Alzheimers. I discovered this effect the year I worked in Ithaca, which was a very stressfull experience. I used to get up at 6 am to do water aerobics at the nearby gym and it saved my sanity.  
3. Weight control. Though I am unsure how effective my exersise regimen really is on this score, as weight is still insidiously creeping on, in spite of my actively trying to stop it for the past 5 years or so. Every year another kilo sneaks onto me and will not be budged!

Since my main goals are physical and mental health and well being, my exersise regimen becomes completely different from that of Husband.  He works out so much that a day without training puts him in a foul mood. The amount of training he does also seems to negatively affect his immunity, as he seems to catch a cold with fever approximatly once a month (whereas I am "never" sick). 

I have heard that 30 minutes of excersize that increases your heart rate and makes you slightly out of breath 3X a week is the minimum for enjoying the cardio-vaskular health benefits of working out. This can be achieved in the form of a brisk uphill walk, bike ride, cross country skiing, ice scating, dancing, or orienteering to name a few of my favorite aerobic activities. 

We women, of menopausal and postmenopausal age also need to find some form of weight bearing exersise to keep our bones strong and our joints supple. My favorite is pilates, because it combines weight bearing with balance and really protects the back. 

The inspiration for this post came from a conversation I had with one of the trainers, who is also a physical therapist,  at the gym that husband and I go too. We talked about different styles of training depending on the goals of the individual involved. My conclusion is that there can be different reasons for working out. And how you do it, and how much, depends on what you are trying to accomplish. 

Meditation

I write so much about the other things filling my life, but find it hard to write about my path of spiritual developement. This is partly because it is so intimate, and partly because I am afraid of coming off as thinking of myself as somehow "holier than thou". 

So...

Why self  developement? Why spiritual self developement? and why an anthroposophical path?

I may have mentioned this before, but I have always had the conviction (or at least the hope) that there is a spiritual life before birth and after death. The idea that my life on earth should be of no more significance than that of a random leaf on a tree that buds forth in the spring and turns red in the fall before falling to the ground and eventually turning to compost has never resonated with me. There must be more of a point to all our striving and all that we experience and what we allow our experiences to make of us, than that when we die it is all over as if it had never been - except in someone's memories...

In the last few years I have occasionally thought that it would be usefull to prepare myself for the spiritual life, unendowed (or unencumbered, depending on your point of view) with a physical body, which is the reality after death. I chose the anthroposophical path because I am familiar with it. As I progress in my studies of anthroposophy I find it rings true to me. It is a path that I can work with. It describes the methods for developing organs for percieving and communicating in the spiritual world. It also describes what happens during this process and the dangers connected with it, such as succumbing to illusion, narcissism, and losing contact with reality. These indeed were always my worries and what prevented me from embarking on such a path in the past. One of the premises to avvoid these dangers is that for every step undertaken to develop ones spiritual perception, 3 steps should be taken in the developement of ones moral integrity. That is the rule that I try to keep firmly in mind. And that is where self developement comes in. 

One thing that I had not expected was that the meditative state would be so comfortable. Closing my eyes and dipping down into the meditative state is starting to get almost too pleasant. I am a little afraid that it will become an escape from the outer world of demands, responsibilities, frustrations, and conflicts in which life needs to be lived. Because there is no question about that: it is the life lived in the physical world, the goals attained, the transformations achieved, and the works performed there, that we can carry into future lives, not what is experienced in meditation itself.

Deep Freeze

It has been colder than a brass monkey (as Father used to say) for over a week and is supposed to continue for at least another week. I mean, hey, we're talking about end of november (!) and zero degrees Fahrenheit more or less (minus 15 to 20 centrigrade). This is highly unusual. We normally don't get a cold spell like this before Christmas, usually not until february/march. Here is our house - you can see the smoke rising from the chimney against the frost-lined trees.

Inside we have a fire roaring in the wood stove, spreading comfort.

And outside lies next years firewood, ready to be cut, split and stacked at some time after the cold spell breaks.

It is also too cold for outdoor cycling, so here is Husband training indoors. He has his bike attaced to a kind of frame that allows him to ride stationary.

So how do the animals react to this weather. The cats spend most of the time sleeping in their various hideouts:

Puseline in a laundry basket

Piril in the kitty bed in the bathroom

Funky, or «Tjukken» (Fatty) as we like to call him, on the sofa in the dining room. Funky had to go to the vet the other day because we discovered a film or growth or something covering his eye. Imagine his outrage when he was picked up off the chair that he was comfortably sleeping on, and stuffed into a cat carrier, and then being carried out into the cold car and for a drive (to the vet). He yowled most pitifully. Once at the vets however (strange room, strange smells) he was not at all sure that he wanted to leave the safety of his carrier. The vet thinks it is keratitis and it turns out to be on both eyes. I have to drip his eyes with medisine 3X a day. It may or may not get better, or at least not worse. He seems to function normally for now, though his vision must be at least somewhat impaired.

Even Fluffy sleeps inside more than usual. Here she has just woken from her nap and is preparing to go outside to see if she can find any mice, or maybe have a chance at the birds by the bird feeder. After spending her first year or so as an indoor cat, I have never seen a cat enjoy the outdoors more than Fluffy. No weather is too nasty to go out in, and while other cats are meticulous about keeping their paws clean, Fluffy tracks in more dirt than the dogs.

This has been a rhodent year and Fluffy has been catching mice faster than she can eat them. She leaves frozen dead mice on the driveway for the dogs to play with and brings them as gifts to Husband whom she has adopted. One day he found 4 dead mice lined up on his desk, with Fluffy lying beside them.

Topsy, our border collie spends much of the day warming her 10-year old bones under the stove, occasionally getting so close that you can smell burnt fur.

Lucy has her own agility course out in the yard, though it has been to cold to really train on it much.