Episode #91 Looking Forward

Happy New Year! Alvina and Grace have reflected back on the tumultuous year of 2020 and are now looking forward on their New Year’s resolutions for 2021. Thank you to all of the listeners who helped fill out the Book Friends Forever survey that was conducted at the end of the year! The book friends will be announcing some upcoming changes to the podcast in next week’s episode. Please stay tuned. If you haven’t yet, please rate and/or review the podcast and tell your friends about it! Thanks for your continued support into 2021.

First, “How have you been?”

Alvina is happy to get settled back in Brooklyn. She and Stephen were planning on traveling from Vermont on Christmas Day as they weren’t really celebrating the holiday this year. (Alvina’s late husband died on Christmas Day in 2015 so she’s usually trying to distract herself on this day anyway.) However, due to a big snowstorm, they decided to travel on Christmas Eve instead. They joked that they had a little Jewish Christmas because they bought bagels for lunch and had Chinese food for dinner.

Grace enjoyed a fun “Chicken Christmas” with her family as they got a tree for the chicken run, sang chicken Christmas carols, (ie; “Duck The Halls”, and “Jingle Beaks”.) Grace noted that Christmas can usually be such a hectic time but this year, her family really slowed down and was able to embrace it all.

They were still able to hold family traditions over zoom such as making gingerbread houses with her in-laws.

Looking Forward

Grace and alvina discuss what each of their “word of the year” will be. For Grace, last year it was a phrase “nourish and flourish”. However, this year she’s narrowing it down to a single word that is more realistic and the word is just “flourish”. She feels nourished and ready. She’s ready to write, ready to create, and like a seed…ready to sprout! Alvina’s word last year was “courage” as she wanted to do more things out of her comfort zone. That is still true and this year but she would also like to focus on finding balance in her life. When thinking about the word balance, she thought of the word “harmony” and liked the sound of that much better so that is her word!

The Resolutions

The book friends decided they would list four resolutions each based on the four tenets of happiness: Social, Physical, Spiritual, and Mental. These tenets were discussed in previous episodes of Book Friends Forever episodes #30, #31, #32, and #33. Grace wanted to follow the SMART GOALS guidelines to help make their goals more attainable. SMART is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals.

Social: Alvina shared her biggest news related to the social tenet of happiness: She and Stephen are engaged! He proposed this fall while hiking in Vermont. Her resolution is to plan a wedding and get married this year! Grace’s social resolution is related to her daughter Hazel. She wants to grow her social circle and get out of the house more for activities. They also want to teach her how to ride a bike by this summer!

Physical: Grace wants to start running again. Two years ago, she hurt her knee and decided not to run. She’s already taken the first steps into achieving this goal by going to the doctor and also starting physical therapy! For Alvina, she would like to continue on her path of exercising daily. She would also like to work on her goal of eating a pescatarian or vegetarian meals three times a week. While in Vermont, she ate the most meat she’s ever had in her life!

Spiritual: Grace lists her long walks in solitude as her continued Spiritual resolutions. Perhaps she will make them more intentional. For Alvina, spiritual connectedness means how she gets to a peaceful place. She would like to start writing down what she is grateful for at least four times a week.

Mental: For Grace, the mental tenet refers to her career. Her goals this year are to diversify her work with more virtual school visits. She also wants to write more books. She’s creating a novel and a picture book at the same time and wants them both to come out at the same time. She’s determined to make them her best books ever. Alvina is thinking of something mentally challenging that is totally new to her or puts her outside of her comfort zone. She has decided to publish an essay. She’ll come up with the topic by March and hope to have it submitted by July.

What are you grateful for?

Alvina is grateful for the Christmas miracle of achieving “Inbox Zero” on her work emails. She’s also grateful for being back in NYC where she loves living.

Grace is grateful that the chickens are alive and well! A hawk came down and scared the chickens and one was missing for a few hours. Grace’s daughter, Hazel, made signs around the neighborhood. Luckily, someone had found the chicken in their yard and texted Grace.