It’s a new year, and I’m ready for a new leaf.
I am under no illusion that I am alone in this.
I am also no rank amateur at this. I’ve been making, breaking, and eventually keeping resolutions all of my adult life (except for last year, which ended with me being unhappy with the rut I’d stayed in all year), and it’s a process I enjoy. I must be unusual, for all the articles on keeping resolutions – which crop up routinely at this time of year – recommend keeping your resolutions limited and well defined to be successful.
Well, I’ll agree to the need for definition – without definition a resolution is a half-baked wish. Even Peter-Pan needed belief to get to Neverland and Wendy, the mortal girl, needed directions.
But I’ve never been able to limit my resolutions to the small number of goals I could sensibly achieve in a year.
On the other hand, I’m not the sort to get discouraged by nine-hundred-ninety-nine things not accomplished, if I do manage to accomplish a few. Running a marathon was on my list for years, and then one year I did it! And I enjoy the self-examination and planning that goes into my mighty-mighty resolution wish list.
And I like experimenting. Every year I think of new ways to approach my goals, and have fun trying them out until my attention wanders and the year is over, and surprise I have a new habit or two.
This year my experiment is twofold:
• Gain some accountability by making my resolutions and plans public – even if the public is the one lost soul who ends up on this blog by accident
• Try to maintain my enthusiasm by focusing on a different resolution each month. I don’t intend to necessarily ignore all the others, but I really want to focus on something new each month. I’m taking this idea from Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project – a blog I follow quite regularly
So without further ado – here are my preliminary Resolutions for 2009:
Finish Christmas letters (1/20/09)
Lose weight
Write
Keep my resolutions via a blog
Blog more regularly
Train myself to write in my journal at both ends of the day
Get into the habit of conducting a daily/weekly review
Create a 100-things-learned-in-2009 list
- set aside a finite amount of time and then power through what I can of a task – helps prevent me waste time trying to get the details perfect (1/12/09)
- it doesn’t pay at all to be over-optimistic over how little sleep I need. I will never regret getting enough sleep (1/13/09)
- Read a new recipe all the way through before beginning – to save time and screwups (1/29/09)
- Vellum is no good for ink or glue (2/6/09)
- I am not an emotional risk-taker (3/18/09)
- When you cannot focus, start something for 15 minutes (3/25/09)
- I am not good with long-term planning (4/2/2009)
Create better work habits
Make an album/story for Elizabeth (6/18/09)
Get on top of Health Maintenance
Develop a style and build a new wardrobe
Get a tattoo
Be creative .. WITH A PLAN
Simplify life and apartment
Develop a style and polish apartment
Light candles more often
Organize and maintain organization on my computer – especially photos
Put good photos on ipod
Develop the habit of being tidy
Take a photo a day
Write one letter a month
Call at least one long-distance friend each weekend
Host more social events
Learn more about photography and take better photos
Learn to think
Read more
- Third Girl by Agatha Christie mystery
- Echoes in the Dark by Robin D. Owens fantasy-romance
- The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster children’s
- Blood Sins by Kay Hooper suspense
- The Sharing Knife: Horizon by Lois McMaster Bujold fantasy
- Love Me Not by Lindsay Armstrong romance
- Running Hot by Hayne Ann Krentz mystery-romance
- The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O’Neal fiction
- Naked in Death & Glory in Death by J. D. Robb futuristic mystery
- To Play with Fire by Flora Kidd romance
- Promises in Death by J. D. Robb futuristic mystery
- Green Grass Grace by Shawn McBride fiction
- Yesterday’s Island by Anne Weale romance
- Dark Summer by Iris Johansen romantic thriller
- Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates: by Stewart Evans and Donald Rumbelow true crime
- Pursuit by Karen Robards romantic thriller
- Nightwalker by Heather Graham romantic thriller
- Ender’s Exile by Orson Scott Card science fiction
- Fire and Ice by Julie Garwood romantic thriller
- Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter memoir
- Host by Stephanie Meyer science fiction
- Slave to Love by Michelle Reid romance
- Vision in White by Nora Roberts romance
- The Disobedient Mistress by Lynn Graham romance
- Man Hunt by Charlotte Lamb romance
- Wicked by Gregory Maguire fantasy
- Lavender Morning by Jude Devereaux romance
- Perfect Poison by Amanda Quick romantic suspense
- Savage Atonement by Penny Jordan romance
- Deadlock by Iris Johansen romantic suspense
- The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp non-fiction
- Guilty by Karen Robards romantic suspense
- Confessions of an Eco-Sinner by Fred Pearce non-fiction
- Chances by Nora Roberts romance
- The Thirteenth Pearl by Carolyn Keene mystery
- Burn by Linda Howard romantic suspense
- Black Hills by Nora Roberts romantic suspense
- The Strange Message in the Parchment by Carolyn Keene mystery
- The Spider Sapphire Mystery by Carolyn Keene mystery
- The Message in the Hollow Oak by Carolyn Keene mystery
- Green Rider by Kristen Britain fantasy
- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman childrens, fantasy
- The Devil’s Eye by Jack McDevitt, Science Fiction
- What You Made Me by Penny Jordan, romance
- Storm Glass by Maria V. Snyder, fantasy
- The Magician’s Apprentice by Trudi Kanavan, fantasy – not good
- First Rider’s Call by Kristen Britain, fantasy
Watch more movies
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 ) – 1/4/09
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 ) – 1/25/09
- Pride and Prejudice (1995) – 2/21/09
- Pride and Prejudice (2005) – 2/22/09
- August Rush (2007) – 3/2/09
- Lost Holiday (2006) – 3/21/09
- Iron Man (2008) – 4/6/09
- Star Trek (2009) – 5/13/09
- Goodnight, and Good Luck (2005) – 5/16/09
- Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull (2008) – 5/18/09
- Wolverine (2009) – 6/9/09
- UP (2009) – 7/12/09
- Jumper (2008) – 7/19/09
- Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009) – 8/17/09
Watch television with a purpose
Learn to focus
Learn to meditate
Get on top of my finances (organization and planning)
Limit book spending
- $5 on Library book sale bag of books – 1/25/09
Spend less
Plan big trip
Learn to take full advantage of my hobbies
Go to Vermont for a week
Meet new people
Get fit
Run another marathon
Learn to fail
Do 12 new things
- Karaoke (6/16/09)
- Go to the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Mann (7/1/09)
Create a list of 40 things to do before I am 40
Learn to make Chinese noodles
Make mozzerella
Learn to define and respect boundaries
Send next year’s Christmas Cards out BEFORE Christmas
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