New Year Goal Time!

Okay. So, I know I promised New Year’s goals ages ago and I’ve told so many people about them and typed them out so many times that, frankly, I’d kind of forgotten I hadn’t shared them here yet! So here they are in a nutshell, so that you can all ease your curiosity.

1. Lose 20 pounds.
   • Yes, I know I always have weight loss on my goals. But here’s the difference. Usually I make it a goal to REACH my weight goal for the year. This year, all I want is 20 pounds. half a pound a week. Which equals about half of my ultimate weight goal. Maybe this more obtainable goal will actually happen?
2. Write More.
   • Specifically: Write 2 books of 50,000 words each, get one thing published, edit DIL and submit for publication, and write the equivalent of three short stories a month. And, recently added, write a collaboration novel with some friends.
   • I know. this seems outrageously ambitious, but I’m tired of putting writing on the back burner, and I have calculated out the exact number of words I need to both write and edit per day in order to obtain this. I”m already behind (partially due to moving), but that’s besides the point.
3. Spend More Time in Prayer
   • I say it a lot. Prayer is important. Possibly the most important thing in your spiritual life. Why, then does it always fall to the last of my priority list? So my goal this year is to spend a minimum of 50 minutes in prayer a week. about 10 minutes every weekday. I would hope to reach more than that, but it truly is amazing how low a priority it seems when I’m working on packing or writing or making food or a million other things.
4. Be able to do 10 push-ups.
   • Based on how well this has gone so far, I’m thinking I should lower it to five push-ups. Or maybe 1. Really, I’d feel accomplished being able to do just one full, real push-up.
5. Write in blog on regular basis.
   • Yes, this means you. My goal is to write a blog post here every second and fourth Wednesday and a blog post in Ingleside every third Wednesday (I know that one is supposed to be more of a spur of the moment, share every day life, but sometimes you just have to schedule things to remember to share every day life!).
6. Learn Calligraphy.
   • This could probably be more accurately described as “improve handwriting to the point that I can read it myself”, but I have a calligraphy book with which I an attempting to accomplish this, so “learn calligraphy” it is.
7. Learn 15 constellations.
   • Knowing the constellations has been a lifelong goal of mine. You’d think that by now, in my thirties, I’d know more than the big dipper, Orion, and Cassiopeia. But nope. I always sit down and try to read a book on how to learn constellations and figure it all out before attempting to see stars in a city sky. So I took a new approach that thus far is working quite well and I have no idea why I haven’t done this before. I am learning one constellation a month. I look it up, where it is, and go out and search for it. I even downloaded a star app that I can lift up to the sky and it shows me what constellation I am looking at. Sure enough, I’ve already learned to identify Taurus and Gemini. Not that I know every star in the constellation, but in general the shape and where it is, yes.

So, in case you didn’t catch it – I am in the middle of moving. To a real house. Outside the city (though in the suburbs). This has had a negative effect on my New Year’s Goals. Well, that and my normal lack of discipline probably. But when you start getting super stressed because you can’t fit in the daily assignments for your New Year’s goals and working out and making food and a stressful work environment every day, then it’s time to cut something. So, for the next week and a half, I’m cutting everything except food and packing (and now that I’m thinking about it – I should also keep prayer in), and I’ve made more progress packing than the previous four weeks combined. And have been far less stressed. So I think it’s reasonable, and, come the first week of March, I’ll pick back up. Because, as my best friend once told me (paraphrased), we don’t have to always wait for the first of the year to come around to make a goal for a new start.