2025 Plans

nightshade

nightshade

Your grandfather is a cat
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Black Thorn
Only 6 weeks left of 2024, so it's time to start thinking about what you want to do next year. Do you have anything booked already?

I'm hoping to go to Minnesota in the summer.

I want to try reading Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy, as well as keeping up with my book poster challenge.

I want to try and dress better, I'm very much a chuck on the first thing I see person, but I want to try and declutter my wardrobe and have outfits rather than stuff to wear.
 
TamsinValencia said:
I just really hope to make a friend the loneliness is killing me. I cant spend another year alone.
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When my wife died in 2020, I never thought I would ever meet another woman. But a friend of mine clued me into the Latin dance circuit. I started in September of 2023 and by December, I couldn't keep the names straight. I wasn't intending to get a new girlfriend, but in March I got one. Any dance school will get you into the network of venues (I have danced at 14 venues so far) and some will be suitable for meeting people whereas others may not (primarily couples). There are lots of people with the same problem of loneliness, so people are willing to meet you and some of them have found that the dance circuit has given them many friends.
 
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Joan the Vampire Slayer
I didn’t realize your wife had died in 2020. I’m so sorry. My fiancé died that year as well. I know how hard it is.
TamsinValencia
TamsinValencia
sorry to hear about your wife. I found a Latin class in my area but I'm scared to try
I want to improve my flexibility. Most of my current exercises are strength-based and I am weak on stretching and cardio. I've been looking up the prices and it looks like about £6-7 for a class in yoga or pilates. I could at least start with those, alternating the weeks, until I know what I am doing at least. Then I could maybe do it at home.

Aerobics would be an option for cardio, although I can and am building cardio without classes.
 
HowiMetdaSlayer
HowiMetdaSlayer
could just pay someone to chase ya round :D
TamsinValencia said:
I just really hope to make a friend the loneliness is killing me. I cant spend another year alone.
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Join the dating and friends apps. Even if nothing comes of it, they are a real ego boost! I have been experimenting with them this year and its actually been a lot of fun. I met more decent men than I expected. The non-decent men are fun too, just to chat to, the messages can be a comedy show. Dont do what I did and ghost them all on chat, they were good guys and that was mean of me.

The prompt questions are stupid, so I like being brutally honest and then seeing if the men have liked for the pic or the profile. My profile always says no sex before marriage, and that I require horses and riding crops. Many men just dont read, and the ones that do have typed an elaborate fantasy for the the first date. The attention helps self esteem. Its nice for them to have to work for it.

All us women should have to do is turn up, if they havent planned out a nice date, find one who will (because one will). I know I will not be settling for anything less and my standards are higher than they deserve to be, but having the options open brings hope for change, at least.
 
NotASlayer said:
I want to improve my flexibility. Most of my current exercises are strength-based and I am weak on stretching and cardio. I've been looking up the prices and it looks like about £6-7 for a class in yoga or pilates. I could at least start with those, alternating the weeks, until I know what I am doing at least. Then I could maybe do it at home.

Aerobics would be an option for cardio, although I can and am building cardio without classes.
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See but that would require lessening your chocolate intake. 👀
 
Plasma said:
See but that would require lessening your chocolate intake. 👀
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Despite what it seems like, I don't eat that much! 😀 I think it would have little effect on pilates and yoga anyway. And yes, I will keep telling myself that. 😀
 
I want to keep trying new recipes, I had planned to do one a month this year, but I don't think it's averaged out at that many. I did do a few though. Also use the slow cooker more.
 
TamsinValencia said:
To not be quiet and anxious. To be loud, outspoken and extroverted.
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Or just go to that Latin dance class that you were afraid to try. New members are always welcome.

One bit of advice: feminists may balk at the fact that in Latin dance, the man leads and the woman follows because it appears patriarchal. But the woman gets to accept or reject a man's offer to dance and she gets to test the man's leadership skills. In Latin dance, you don't just have a set move and you repeat it for the length of the song. The man has to make decisions in real time.

For instance, in bachata (my favourite of the Latin dances), I usually start with a right turn followed by left turn. If she executes the turns differently, I suspect I am dancing with the walking wounded, someone with a foot or knee problem, so I adjust things accordingly. I may go from a wrap to a double reverse to a hammerlock to a cradle to a flipper turn to a full rainbow turn (usually show up or causes any shoulder problems) to a mirrored turn and I have my own specialties: bump within a wrap and bump within a hammerlock.

Just do it and report back on how it went. Continuous exercise eliminates anxiety because you always have the next dance to do things differently.
 
Honestly, my plan for next year is to just try to be happy. This year has been so difficult, and I deserve to be happy.

As for tangible things I want to accomplish this year, I want to start exercising again regularly and read 12 books.
 
Joan the Vampire Slayer said:
Honestly, my plan for next year is to just try to be happy. This year has been so difficult, and I deserve to be happy.
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Yeah, I’ll second this. After losing someone close to me very unexpectedly last year, most of 2024 has been like an exercise in trying to figure out who I am now, and it is not the same person I used to be. It’s been though and remains to be so, but I hope too to be able to just be happy some times in 2025
 
Taake said:
Yeah, I’ll second this. After losing someone close to me very unexpectedly last year, most of 2024 has been like an exercise in trying to figure out who I am now, and it is not the same person I used to be. It’s been though and remains to be so, but I hope too to be able to just be happy some times in 2025
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*hugs*

I can very much relate to this. In the last four years, I have lost my fiancé, two uncles, my sister and three friends. It changes you, and that’s okay. Grieve as long as you need to, in any way you need to.
 
Taake
Taake
Hugs to you too. That is incredibly rough!
Joan the Vampire Slayer said:
Honestly, my plan for next year is to just try to be happy. This year has been so difficult, and I deserve to be happy.

As for tangible things I want to accomplish this year, I want to start exercising again regularly and read 12 books.
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My late wife was a great reader of mystery novels and also a speed reader. She would often take a new book that she hadn't opened yet, go up to the bathtub and sit and soak while she was reading. She could finish a typical novel in two hours by the time she got out. She could read 12 books in a month without setting any goals.

I recommend the Latin dance circuit as the best form of exercise for someone who wants to socialize as well as get some exercise. The approximately 100 people that I have met in the past year alone are sufficient to keep me occupied and I now have a girlfriend who is absolutely devoted to me who I met at one dance. If you take a dance class, usually the other people will clue you in about the various venues and you may be going three times a week, like I am. BTW I also dropped about 7 pounds since I started.

You could also train in the martial arts as that proved to be a great anxiety-reducer as well as good exercise.
 
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