Here are my hopes and goals from last year. I like to review a little bit and just see how these things are panning out.
1. I would like to find a publisher for my female casanova book this year.
This did not happen, and it took me most of the year to come to peace with this fact. I have accomplished a lot towards my writing career this year, doing spoken word at several venues, working on name-recognition, widening my sphere of influence, and generally getting my work out there and appreciated. That’s been a lot of fun.
2. I would like to get pregnant before the end of the year.
Also did not happen, but rest assured, we are working on it.
3. I want to take a vacation with my husband. Not a whirlwind trip to visit relatives and sleep on various couches, but a romantic vacation to somewhere beautiful and relaxing.
This did happen. Ben and I took a fantastic vacation for our fifth anniversary. We went to the Vineyard National Conference in Galveston which was a rocking awesome time, and then took a week-long cruise to Jamaica and the Grand Cayman. It was totally great, relaxing, and romantic.
4. I’d like to get a draft out of my next book.
I did also accomplish this, and I am super excited about this book now. I know I always say this, but I think it’s far better than anything I’ve ever written, and I’ve heard confirmations of that from people who’ve read this and other things I’ve written. Here’s to hoping it’s fate is also different than the others.
5. I would like to lose 20 pounds for real.
I did lose 20 pounds, and kept it off all year. Ben has lost about three times as much weight, and we’re still working on exercising regularly and eating healthy despite our busy lives.
So, three out of five isn’t so bad, I think. Appropriate to the general feeling of my 2009, which was consistently both hideous and glorious. My new year stuff are not exactly goals, they’re more like hopes that I can help with a bit.
1. I would like to finish the book I’m working on, and possibly do a draft of my next project.
2. I would like to get pregnant this year.
3. I have several goals all related to handling my schedule a bit better. If I successfully implement all of them, it might result in the ultimate hope of having some margin in my life.
a) Take a sabbath, which will be at the least a half day every week where I am free from the constant need to be productive. Since I’m an introvert, this will probably also consist of some alone time.
b) Make a date night a priority again. VLI students and graduates, laugh if you must. I am a determined little person and I like my husband a lot.
c) Keep to a 40 hour work week between my nanny job and my writing. This will serve both to keep me accountable to working consistently on whatever writing project I have going, and let me know when it is okay to stop working on whatever writing project I have going.
d) Make no more and no less than one appointment to connect with someone every week. I love to say, “let’s have coffee some time!”, but I need to be more realistic in my planning.
4. I want to work out three times a week. I tend to have a few months in every year where I work out 5-7 times a week, and then not at all the rest of the time. I’d like to even that out a bit.
5. I would like to get published this year. It would be pretty rocking awesome if the book I’m working on now would be my breakthrough book, we’ll see how that goes.
So there they are, my big hopes for the coming year. Here’s hoping that your 2010 is fantastic and full of fun God stuff.