In the past week, we’ve gone to the vet three times. No need to panic—Coconut is fine—but we are gearing up for his first ever dental cleaning / experience under anesthesia (at least since we adopted him). On Thursday he had an echocardiogram; Sunday was his semi-annual senior checkup (which involved vaccinations, a fecal screen, and pre-surgery bloodwork); and yesterday I dropped off a pee sample for a urinalysis (which will help identify any additional risk factors, such as kidney issues).

On many occasions, thinking about this procedure has made me a nervous wreck. At nearly 13 years old with a heart murmur, Coconut is far from the ideal surgery candidate. The vets who I’ve entrusted with his care are experienced and highly competent, but of course, I worry.

It’s also possible that the small eyelid lump (likely a cyst) that he developed last year can be removed while he’s already under. There’s a lot of uncertainty, though—since the vet can’t know how severe his dental needs are until getting x-rays, and since those can only be taken once he’s sedated, it’s basically impossible to estimate beforehand what can and cannot be fit in. His vet and I agreed, though, that his teeth are higher priority.

It also turns out that recovery will take longer than I expected. I’d read online that a canine dental procedure generally takes 24-48 hours to recover from, but it turns out those estimates were for cleaning alone. If he has extractions—which could definitely be the case—then he’ll have to get stitches. The eyelid procedure would also require these, so he’ll almost certainly need a checkup two weeks post-op.

I’ve made peace with the fact that February will be largely dedicated to vet visits, but I do feel bad that this experience will be so prolonged for Coconut. Also, it pushes back our timeline for going to Seattle, which we were planning to do a week after his surgery date. Alas. 🤷🏻‍♀️

In non-Coconut news, I recently started a program on obé called BodyComp (short for “Body Composition”). The program focuses on building muscle, and having gone through a week’s worth of workouts now, I can really feel it.

I’d been pretty lax about exercise leading up to BodyComp, so I was riding the #StruggleBus during that first week. Post-marathon I was running approximately 2-4 times a week, usually at a pretty slow pace, and I rarely strength-trained. BodyComp changed that completely.

The program consists of five 50-minute classes per week for four weeks. A total noob at lifting, I’ve been learning a lot of moves from it—we’ve done things like Bulgarian deadlifts, RDLs, slooooow lunges, bridge chest presses, and more. I’m really grateful that my apartment complex has a gym, as these workouts wouldn’t be feasible otherwise. Most of them so far have involved using a variety of weights, and it’s been really convenient having them all at my disposal.

It’s now Week 2 of the program, and I’ve been going strong! Something I’ve learned about myself is that I do really well with highly-structured fitness plans. For both my half-marathon and marathon, I followed schedules that broke down how many miles I needed to run each and every day for 12 and 18 weeks, respectively. I’ve also done BBG three or four times, which is another 12-week program that tells you exactly which exercises you need to do, for how long, and when. I think my success with these programs comes from the fact that they all eliminate the need to think or decide—all I have to do is follow the instructions for that day.

I’ve been trying to use this knowledge about how I operate to achieve some of the 2022 goals I set for myself. I’m a huuuuge fan of New Year’s resolutions, and I spent several days coming up with mine. Like I’ve done in past years, I split them up into separate categories.

Natalie’s 2022 Goals

Intellectual

All A’s in my grad classes. Yesterday was the first official day of my master’s program! I plan on taking one class a semester so I can balance school with working full-time. This semester’s class is Machine Learning.

Read 50 books. This one is a repeat, and I’ve never reached it. Last year was the closest I’ve ever gotten, but I was still >20% short. I’m hoping, though, that with better time management and a commitment to digital minimalism, 2022 can be the year I finally do it!

Significant progress in Vietnamese. Last year I tried out a few different tutors through italki, but I fell off the wagon when it came to scheduling lessons. I’m gonna aim for bi-weekly sessions this time around.

Physical

Do the splits (3 ways). Another repeat and a fun way to ensure I’m regularly stretching.

Complete Levels 1-6 of the “Learn To Skate” curriculum. This is a standardized list of ice-skating moves in order of increasing difficulty. Currently, I’m riiiiight at the start of Level 3 (though I’m feeling a bit stuck on two-foot turns…)

Creative

Write 15,000 words on a story. I’ve started several short stories but never finished any. This year I don’t want any more additions to my laptop’s abandoned story graveyard!

Knit a sweater. I’m working on a multicolor sweater right now, though I haven’t quite gotten to the “multicolor” part yet…I’m still at the base of the first sleeve and haven’t swapped my green yarn! This will be a veeeeery long project, but I’d love to have something handmade to wear by winter. I’m now on Attempt #3 of this sweater—I had to unravel it a few times due to some early mistakes…

And that’s all of them! I know, it seems like a lot, but not so much when you think about how long a year is. And of course, they’re not uniform priority: I care a lot more about getting all A’s than doing the splits, for example.

Which brings me to how I’m working towards achieving them! In the interest of eliminating the need to think or decide in the moment, I started writing out my top two non-negotiables the day before. If something—like a habit or task—is not on this daily, high-priority list, then it’s fine if it doesn’t get done. Limiting the list to two items has been great because 1) it forces me to be intentional about choosing which tasks go on it, and 2) it makes them feel achievable, in contrast to an overwhelming laundry list of to-dos.

I’ve been keeping my list of daily non-negotiables in a red Moleskin that my sister gave me. Before I go to bed, I check off the ones I’ve completed and then write a short summary of the other habits that I managed to fit in that day, like stretching or reading for 30 minutes. This summary occasionally includes things that worked or didn’t work: a recent entry read, “….Woke up so well-rested this morning, so I think 10:30 PM [bedtime] works for me.” Another: “Didn’t realize BodyComp would be 50+ min, and I didn’t budget enough time for that.”

After writing the summary—usually just a sentence or two—I date the next day’s entry and write its non-negotiables. A lot of the time, these repeat. For example, “Study for Machine Learning (30 minutes)” has been on the list almost every day.

I was inspired to keep a daily log after re-watching Free Solo, which is one of my favorite documentaries (and possibly movies!?). In it, professional rock-climber Alex Honnold diligently keeps a climbing journal, in which he records everything he did and learned from that day’s climb. It sounded like a cool idea and seemed to work well for him, so I leaned pretty hard into journaling too.

From left to right, the notebooks above are for: grad school, my daily log, Vietnamese lessons, professional / engineering notes, and Silly Goose prompts (a birthday gift from my sister…it’s an inside joke). I’ve gotten a lot of satisfaction from organizing my life across these notebooks. It’s definitely felt like I’ve accomplished more too, even though it’s only two-and-a-half weeks into the year.

Well, in an effort to stop myself from going on and on about the various productivity hacks I’ve been trying, I’ll end this post here. I said it in the last one too, but 2022 feels like it’s off to a great start. 🤩