Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful time last night, because I am living vicariously through everyone else’s fun! <rant>I hosted two work events, the second of which ended at midnight-oh-five. And crazypants stuff tends to go down at 11pm in an inner-city space. Also, Instagram is one of my favorite things in the world, but when you can see EVERYONE ELSE YOU KNOW HAVING FUN, while you are decidedly not? Ho-hum. Let’s just say that it wasn’t my favorite New Year’s Eve, and move on, shall we? </rant>
I’m embarking on a fairly major house project today: swapping two rooms around. If it goes well, I’ll give you the before-and-after results in a few days.
With that, ONWARD, 2012!!! Last year, I made eleven goals, and made headway on nine of them. That’s not a terrible record! But the one thing that I noticed is that, yet again, I accomplished the Giant Responsible Project goals, and didn’t make much headway on the goals that were just for fun. This is a consistent pattern in my lists of goals. Double-you tee eff, Self?! So, this year I’m giving myself a higher ratio of fun-slash-happy-to-responsible goals. I’m great at working hard, but the “playing hard” thing always winds up on the back burner. NOT ANYMORE!
1. Buy a bike, just for fun. No pressure about riding to work, riding for fitness, or anything serious. Do it because it would be a riot.
2. Take a trip to another country.
3. Strive for a healthier work/life balance. Send more letters, take more pictures, make more fun memories. Refuse to let work have a monopoly on my energy.
4. Create a lovely home office.
5. Take a trip to another country.
6. Save two months’ worth of living expenses as a starter emergency fund. (We’d eventually like to have six months’ worth of expenses saved, but let’s start with something Not Insane, right?)
7. Put curtains – pretty ones! – in all the living and dining room windows.
8. Give myself a break, already! Try for a little less self-improvement, and a little more self-acceptance. This is the most touchy-feely thing ever, I realize. I tend to beat myself up about everything: too poor, too financially comfortable, too frumpy, too frivolous… It’s annoying, and it needs to stop. This year, I want to just BE. I hope that my resolutions are reflecting that.
9. Wear more beautiful shoes. I own some good ones, and they tend to see the inside of the closet for years at a time.
10. Host dinner parties again. It’s been about two years since I did this, and I love having people over for dinner.
11. Develop a friendly relationship with a local market and its employees (the new Bi-Rite, in a perfect world). Do more grocery shopping there. Care not at all about the yuppie factor.
12. Take the plunge, and write a draft of a children’s book. I’ve joked about doing this forever, and there’s no reason not to try!
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