Making Lists

Okay. After a day of obsessive blog reading, I've decided that it would be an interesting challenge to set a number of goals for myself for this year, and try (emphasis on try - I don't always do so well at the follow-through...) to keep track of how well I accomplish those goals. Plus I can write down anything else I feel like recording here, always a useful thing. Right? Right.

I figured that if I didn't make my goals reasonable, I wouldn't even get close to crossing them off my list. Also, some of them will be monthly goals, and if I make it in February, but not January, it's still an accomplishment. Or that's what I tell myself, anyway.

So, here it is. To Do, in 2011.

1. Every month, hand write two cards or letters and actually mail them. The USPS is making Pixar stamps this year; they're too adorable to pass up! (Which is probably exactly why the USPS is making them.)
2. Take some kind of exercise class, whether that be Zumba at the Y or yoga at the rec center or something else interesting that comes along.
3. Make at least three new recipes each month.
4. Visit one new state.
5. Read one "good" book each month. That means no trashy romance novels or junky sci-fi/fantasy. Now, those books are great and totally essential to my mental health. But I'm an English teacher. I need more of the "classics" under my belt.
6. Do something really fun for my birthday.
7. Have my friends over to hang out at least twice during spring semester (for more than just Glee on Tuesday nights - a gathering that requires me to clean up both before and after!).
8. Collect addresses of friends and family for monthly cards and letters, and possibly other fun purposes.
9. Frame and hang my Constable print.
10. Buy a crock pot and cook four good recipes in it (I debated a lot on how many recipes to make my goal... three seemed too few, five seemed super ambitious... four it is!)
11. Keep up the tradition of Thursday night dinners, even during basketball season, and into the next school year.
12. Add at least one regular attender to Thursday night dinners.
13. Buy a new digital camera (and use it).
14. Buy a printer.
15. Add one new blog to my RSS feed each month.
16. Make some sort of financial investment.
17. Research tuition reimbursement programs at USD 457, so I know what my options will be, as grad school is currently planned to start in 2012.
18. Make a $60 donation to a deserving charity, in place of a certain donation I did not make.
19. Answer the 50 Questions that Will Free Your Mind.
20. Clean the gross, rusty drain on the right side of my sink.
21. Give up something for Lent.
22. Update my alumni information at both my high school and my college.
23. Do the 30 Hour Famine with the kids at GCPC.
24. Participate in Relay for Life with the Teachers for Hope.
25.  Do some kind of writing challenge - probably the 30 day letter challenge - probably here on this blog. Because I don't write anymore, and that's sad.
26. Work in the summer - NOT as a server.
27. Not have knee surgery.



So that's the list as of 1/1/11. I may add things as I go. I want to push myself to be a "better version of myself," a phrase I've come across that I really like. No reason not to do it right now.