Promises, promises, promises

Valya - 122910

Many people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits.  ~Author Unknown

Never tell your resolution beforehand, or it's twice as onerous a duty.  ~John Selden


The new year begins in a snow-storm of white vows.  ~George William Curtis

A new oath holds pretty well; but... when it is become old, and frayed out, and damaged by a dozen annual retryings of its remains, it ceases to be serviceable; any little strain will snap it.  ~Mark Twain, speech in New York City, 31 March 1885 

But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty?  I live according to twenty-year-old habits.  ~Andre Gide
 
May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions.  ~Joey Adams

He who breaks a resolution is a weakling;
He who makes one is a fool.
~F.M. Knowles

I made no resolutions for the New Year.  The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.  ~Anaïs Nin

Oh, the old habit to make new ones takes to my mind this time of year.  What will I start doing?  Stop doing?  Do more of?  Do less of?  Who will I do more of with?  These are all parts of the resolutions I am looking at starting at midnight Saturday.


Health - A slow diet and increased activity to shed some unwanted Michelin affliction that returned last year.  The slow diets tend to work better since they help form better and longer lasting habits.  

I really enjoy getting out and being active.  I am vague about the type because I like doing many different ones.  The perfect activities include: hiking, biking, running, lifting, sex, kayaking, skiing, and many other activities.  The key is not to get into a rut of the same stuff.  I get bored pretty fast.

Valya-122910

Art - As I mentioned a few days back, I need to work on a few aspects of my photography.  
First, I need to take more photos.  I get rusty, complacent, and bored if I am not taking photos and creating *fine images from them.  I am trying to schedule time with a great model in early February. 


Second, I need to work on getting ready for my next stage of life and art, getting an MBA.  I've said enough about that journey in a prior post.  This includes financial planning and saving for paying for the jump to school.


Third, I need to see more art of others and learn what I can steal, appropriate, and use as influences in my stuff.


Fourth,  I need to increase my skills, especially Photoshop and other application abilities.  I don't believe in heavily manipulating my images and call it truth, but I don't mind messing them up and distorting their realities.  

As for all the other stuff... maybe 2012.

The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel.  Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.  ~W.H. Auden   

*"Fine" does not mean the same as the defined "fine print" for me.  It means I have refined it down to what I want it to be.  Whether it meets Ansel, Edward's, etc.,  criteria does not matter a whit to me.

PHOTO NOTES - God, how did I miss these?  I went through my photos of Valya tonight and these two were in the discard pile.  I found a bunch more that I tossed and am happy with.