New Year, New Blog
Happy 2024!!!
It is common for people to make New Year's resolutions to kick off every new year. I'm not actually one to do that, however. Although I do set goals for each year, I am not actually fond of the idea of "New Year's" resolutions. For me, any time I would do that, I would ultimately fail within the first few months of the year. So, I began making the New Year's resolution of "I'm not making a New Year's resolution!" And guess what!? I started succeeding...hehehe
Fast forward to 2023. Again, I made the resolution to have none. Sure, it may seem like having a resolution to not have any resolutions is, in fact, a resolution in and of itself. But I think you get the point. 2023 had a twist! For the first time in my life, I truly fasted! Okay, so, before I get ahead of myself, my new church was starting the year off with 21 days of prayer and fasting to get the year started off right. At the time, I knew food wasn't something I could actually fast with. So, I had to come up with something I could cut out of my life for 21 days and replace it with extra time with God.
After a lot of praying and some soul searching, I actually came up with something! And bear in mind that I had never attempted fasting in almost 45 years on this earth! What was so important to me that giving it up would actually make an impact on my day-to-day life!? Television!!! If I wasn't working or sleeping, I was watching TV! For the first time in my entire life, I gave up TV for 21 straight days! What this did was set the tone for the entire year in ways I would have never expected. And I'll save that for another blog entry someday...
So, you might be thinking, "Why did he bring up all that and leave me hanging?!" Well, this entry is more about now than anything from the past. All of that just sets me up to talk about life a year later. You see, the previous year was when I started working on my "new" (at the time) website, bygregmarine.com. On it, I transferred some old blog posts over, a few recipes, and started work on my new book. I also posted a gallery with art and photographs. Then, in 2023, my life took an unexpected turn; which resulted in a total abandonment of upkeep on that "new" website.
2024 has now arrived and I wanted to make a new start on my website again. This time, keeping the top level domain of bygregmarine.com. But splitting up the content on subdomains like this blog.gregmarine.com. You see, the way I set up the previous version became way too complicated for me to maintain. By splitting different content types under its own subdomain, I am able to better focus and maintain the content. All of this is starting with my blog!
In this new blog, I plan to write about all my musings. Just about anything that comes to mind and can be shared, I'll write about right here. I'm mostly doing this for myself. However, I make it public to give a kind of "behind the curtains" look into how my mind works. I'll probably write about my experiences, talk about my writings (poems/books), and perhaps explain the inspiration behind some of my art.
So much happened in 2023. And I wish I had written it all down as the year progressed. Some of what happened will likely end up in one of my books. And it will definitely end up in my memoir; should I ever write one. I'm really excited I'm starting this new blog for 2024, though. We shall see if I stick with this one. I am making no such resolution to keep at it. To circle back around to that point, I actually do set goals each year. Goals are simply targets I'd like to hit. If I hit them, GREAT. If I don't, GREAT. There is not success or failure when it comes to goals. They are merely hopes of mine.
That said, if I make enough goals, I'm bound to hit plenty of my targets to feel great about the year. Last year, the big goal that developed from the 21 days of fasting was to improve my health. That goal happened in triplicate! My physical, mental, and spiritual health improved far more than I had ever expected when I set the simple goal of, "I want to feel good again!" I'll likely talk more about that in future blog entries. I love that journey and want to document how it happened and the results.
Although I have many goals for 2024, the main ones include a fully operational and updated website, and to finish my first book. Both goals are well underway here in the first week of the year. As I go into another 21 days of prayer and fasting beginning next week, I feel confident that this will be another great year! Other goals include art, writing, running races, cooking, new theme park experiences, travel, relationship changes, getting out of debt, and music (instruments and singing). Hopefully I'll hit some of those goals...hehehe
Happy New Year!