A year ago, after coming back from my family's New Year's Eve party in the wee hours we sat in our white apartment with our friend who last-minute spent the night with us, telling us about how she tried not to like this guy so-unlike her imagined man but couldn't help it, while I was either wondering if I was pregnant or a bit sad that the (one of way too many according to my husband) pregnancy test I took said I wasn't.
This New Year's Eve, we sat in our white living room (we were surprised how much painting it white made it feel like home) with our family and our soon-to-be-three-month-old baby in a quiet party (the next pregnancy test said that this time my wonderings were right), while I missed our friend but happily thought about her spending New Year's Eve with her fiance's family.
Some things, like my love for long sentences and Marie staying up later than about any other baby I know, never change.
This year, as always, I want to do many things. I decided to get a planner in hopes that keeping it will help me be organized. I am excited.
Focused.
Purposeful.
Don't those words just look right? They look what they mean. I just wrote them to see what they looked like and how they struck me, but now I see that it says I am focused. I am purposeful. That may not be very true, but that is my goal for this year. Perhaps the biggest thing I learned last year was that I need to be purposeful. Being flexible is good, but I need to have a vision and work and make things happen, not just ride the waves.
Perhaps one of my goals will help with that: writing a blog again. Writing, at least a personal, blog sort of writing, always makes me think about what I'm doing and why. And evaluation is essential for being purposeful.
So, because I know that I need specific, measurable goals:
1. I will write at least one blog post per week. Posting on Monday.
Ha. I already know that isn't going to happen. But I am okay with that. Goals help me grow. They are not an end in themselves. Striving for every week and missing it half the time is still more than saying I'll do it once a month.
2. I will check my planner every day (except maybe Sundays) and do a major preview/fill-in each month.
This I do mean to maintain.
I have other goals, of course, and since I haven't made them specific enough yet, maybe I shall now.
3. Exercise...
Never mind. That will be made more specific later. I need my husband's drive for that one. Hmm...but maybe a contest...because last time if he didn't exercise I lost my motivation to. And he didn't think having ice cream as a reward every time I exercised was a good idea.
4. This is a fun goal: to do a mini session day for Cornwell Camera. I really want to do this. And now I'm thinking about doing a snow one. That might be the only way I can convince people to do a snow session, and taking pictures in the snow is really great.
5. Keep the house clean and organized.
I'm not sure how to make this specific. But these past few days, after making sure (almost) the whole house was clean and presentable, I (and Parker!) have been loving the feeling and look and peacefulness of having an orderly home. So I want to remember this feeling to give me motivation to keep up on things.
And I think that is key. Once I get behind, I give up. So my goal is to maintain orderliness, and gradually add to it (the backroom, the office area, the garage, the closets...). So I perhaps need to add something I've realized (as Parker points it out). Small decisions. So put away my mug when I'm done. Wipe up Marie's tray after every meal. Put the clothes away right away. No laziness and putting things off. PROMPTNESS.
6. Never be late.
Woah. That would be impressive. I just added that on a whim after writing prompt in all caps. So...plan ahead, crunch time numbers, add more and more and more built-in flex time, lay out clothes the night before, make food early and let it cool off if necessary.
I'll let you know how that one goes.
7. Never say interesting.
Ouch. That may be the hardest one yet. Maybe even more than not being late and exercising and keeping the house.
Or, maybe not.
Anyway, I like to use interesting. People always think it's negative when I don't mean it to be. "Thanks for the shirt," I might say. "It's interesting." They hear, "Thanks for the shirt [sarcastic voice]. It is strange and I don't like it." But interesting merely means arousing curiosity or catching attention, and that can be a good thing. I like interesting things.
I will admit there are times when Parker will say, "What do you think of that song?" and I'll say, "It's interesting," and that will mean, I like thinking about it, but not enough to desire to hear it again.
But that isn't why I want to stop using interesting. The reason is this: it's lazy and, well, as illustrated above, it can mean just about anything and thus means nothing. A "non-word," as my father-in-law recently informed me.
If I don't tell Parker that the movie he wanted to watch was interesting, I have to think of a real description. And I might say that I didn't like it because it made me feel sad even though the story line about the dad betraying his daughter did interest me. And that might lead to an....in-depth...conversation (it's already so hard!) and we might end up understanding each other better. And that is a very good thing.
Perhaps very should go next.
That is an excellent thing. A profitable thing. A beneficial thing.
8. Make something from my new cookbook, Extending the Table,, at least once a week.
I think this will be a good way of expanding my cooking abilities and our interests in general, as it is a multicultural book; it also is generally cheap cooking, which is good. Perhaps there is a blog post about it in my future.
9. Teach Marie verses.
Marie will repeat almost anything you tell her, though it will sound exactly the same as something else you tell her to, and she knows m, o, and a. This year she will turn 2. So I want to starting teaching her verses. I need to look into what ones would be good for first verses to memorize.
10. Read books.
I have hardly read a book outside of Bible studies in a few years. I am not sure what a good goal is. Every choice to do something is a choice not to do other things, so I'm not sure how much this is a priority. One per month? I don't think I would come close to a higher goal. Perhaps that would be good. I will write the book that I want to read each month on that page in my planner.
I could keep going on forever. However, eventually I would come to 1259. Be disciplined in going to bed. Actually that would probably be more like 19. I was going to say thus ends the first day of 2018, but it's already the beginning of the second. I'm not sure if that is an auspicious start or not.
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