New Year, New Plans
Well friends, it’s
that time again. It’s the new year. Congratulations
on making it to 2014. I had a really excellent year in 2013, but it’s always a
goal to do better next time, right?
What’s the plan for
this year, then? Here are my ten resolutions for an excellent 2014.
1. Read 52 books.
I finished up a year
of books at the beginning of June, and after taking half a year off, decided
it’s time to go again. This is certainly doable, and if you have any
recommendations, please do not hesitate to leave them with me. You can also
follow along with me on my Goodreads page, here.
2. Eat less meat.
I made the decision
to spend this year cutting out meat as much as possible. My goal is to eat meat
in my meals once a week or less. I already don't eat meat every day, so it won't be a big stretch. It will require some ingenuity on my part if my meals are both meatless and gluten
free. Last night I made some chickpea curry to kick off the new year and it was really nice.
3. Practice a language every day.
I have been poking
away at learning languages for a while now, but I need to buckle down and
actually make a concerted effort. I read recently that people who can only
fluently speak one language are now the minority in the world, and I think that
I should do my part to become part of that majority.
4. Walk or run at least three days a week.
There have been days
where I haven’t left the house...in a lot of days. I’m going to go for a walk or a
run every single day, even if the weather is crappy, even if I feel crappy. I
am still going to go.
5. Stop letting my dishes add up.
Our sink is always full. I do mean always. I'm going to stop letting that happen. My kitchen in general is really untidy, so I think that is a big goal to work on.
6. No more napping.
This is more about
getting a healthy sleep schedule established. Right now I spend about three
hours of my afternoon asleep, because I didn’t sleep at night. This needs to be
fixed. No matter how tired I get in the middle of the day, there is to be no
napping. When it’s time for bed, that is when sleep will occur, but not before.
There will be a few exceptions I am sure, but generally, no more napping.
7. Schedule unplugged
time.
The first step in
this is to stop using my phone as an alarm so I don’t have an excuse to sleep
with it anymore. I’m also going to make an effort to be less accessible every
minute of the day, because no one really needs me that urgently. They can wait
an hour. It’s also quite a large time suck, being able to send emails all the
time from my phone, so I spend way longer on them then I should. I deleted the Facebook app off my phone for this reason. I’m also going to cut down
computer and TV time. I’ll probably use this time to do my weekly novel
reading, but you never know. The important thing is that it will be
electronics-free.
8. Make my bed every
day.
I never make my bed,
except when I know that people are coming over who might see it. My room is
generally very untidy, but it seems somehow more pulled together with the bed
done, so I’ll start there...so I should probably go make my bed now...
9. Try a new food
every month.
This goes along with
my lack of meat eating. Plus there are always those weird fruits and vegetables in the grocery that you aren’t sure how to eat. I thought it would be worth a try to test out
a few new things.
10. Blog twice a week.
As noted, this was on
last year’s list and I failed. I thought that we could try again, yes?
Well. There we go. I think I can do it. A lot of my goals are mostly about being more organized. I know that a lot of people make 'get prganized' their goal, but that was too vague. I think we'll have a good year. I'm ready for 2014 to be even better than 2013 was.
What are your resolutions?
What are your resolutions?