11 for 2011

I'm sure that everyone who has a blog is posting their new year's resolutions. I think we do this to guilt trip ourselves into following through, because now that I know you know what my resolutions are, I feel like I have to actually keep up with them. Because what if I see you in real life, and you're all "hey, did you comb your hair today?"


11 for 11: My New Year's Resolutions
1) Leave the tragedies and losses of 2010 in the past.

2) Comb my hair everyday, even on the days I wear it curly, because otherwise I really regret it on like, day 3.

3) Pack a vegetable for lunch everyday and actually eat it. Seriously. I've been a vegetarian for nine years and I'm terrible at it. I should be called a carbotarian.

4) Spend more time listening to God. Shut my overactive imagination and thought processes off and just try to hear Him.

5) Pray more effectively. Like, not right before going to sleep, and not with my eyes closed, because then I just fall asleep. During the day time with my eyes open would be the ideal time for longer, concentrated prayers.

6) Fight harder for my kids. Every day I go to work is a day I go to war. And so far this school year, I've just been fighting for myself trying to survive. I need to start fighting for my students.

7) Write more. And I'm not talking about blogging. I need to actually open up the word documents I have my novels saved on and write. Okay, so mostly I have a lot of revising and editing to do.

8) Start going to the gym on Fridays again. Because I can count on one finger the number of times I've made it on Fridays since September.

9) Take vitamins regularly. Specifically, calcium and iron. Plus fish oil if I want to be an over-achiever and could stomach it.

10) Keep the inbox of my work e-mail account to less than 25 pieces of mail. This is going to take a lot of effort, I can tell you that already. But I fully spent 45 minutes of my winter break whittling it from 133 down to 8.

11) Do one thing a month that makes me want to throw up. I'm talking daring things-- those things I cringe thinking about but ache to do.

If you've made resolutions as well, I wish you the best. If you want to be guilt-tripped into following them, leave a comment or e-mail me or something, and I can harass you about them later. One thing I used to do for a self-guilt trip is I would send myself scheduled e-mails that would have my list of goals or resolutions on it, with a message like "are you actually doing these things?!"  I'd have them sent to me like every Tuesday at 4pm or whatever. I used LetterMeLater.com to do the advanced scheduling.

Happy 2011.