I failed to set any resolutions at the start of 2017 and while I doubt I would have met any of them anyway, given the unexpected turn my life took this year, I still feel like it is important to set them and this year, there are definitely tangible goals I have in mind.
Here are some things I’d like to accomplish in 2018:
- Study & Sit for my CST 1 in April. I’ve put this off for too long. I’ve got to take it seriously this year if I plan to have a future in this career.
- Finalize my degree. My company was bought out by a mega corporation in 2017 and let’s just say that the status of my career has been scary these days. In an effort to make myself more valuable I started looking into what I’d need to do to at least have an associate’s degree to make my resume a little more worthwhile and it turns out, I already have all the courses necessary to have an associates, I just have to apply for graduation. I mean, it’s nothing fancy. It’s not a bachelors or anything. But it will put a bit of the guilt I’ve carried since college over wasting my parents money and having nothing to show for it aside. And definitely gives me more power to find a new job if this one fails me.
- Reacquaint myself with my piano and perfect at least 1 song. Now that I have my piano again, after being without it for nearly 15 years, I’ve just gotta get a key fixed and the piano tuned to start playing again. I’ve been listening to Ludovico Einaudi a lot, dreaming of making such beautiful sounds myself. I’m gonna start with that and we’ll see what else I can do by the years end!
- Read & Redline Dreamsters. It’s truly been too long since I’ve written something new. And anytime I pick this story up to read, I still love it as much as I did when I wrote it. It’s time I finally tried to do something real with it.
- Read at least 12 books. I miss reading almost as much as I miss playing the piano. I’ve got to make it a priority again. To escape. To learn. To refill my creative well.
- Have more Sex. It’s a weird resolution, I know. Believe me, it was even weirder for me to actually type it out. But I really want to be a mother and the only way that’s going to happen is if I try harder. I’m a super busy person and it doesn’t help that for the most part, sex is something that almost never crosses my mind. These sorts of things really get in the way of making babies. I don’t want to make it to 40, still childless, and the reason be that I just didn’t make more time to try.
- Save for Disney World. I can’t tell you how many times a week Heath asks me, “What if we made [some obscene amount of money] a year?” or “What if we won a 100 million dollar lottery?” What’s the first thing we’d do, he always wonders. And always, ALWAYS, my answer is: Go to Disney World. Or some variation of going to the Disney’s across the world depending on how much money we’re talking about. Since those questions are a dream and not our reality, it’s time to just start being smart and saving because (insert dramatic LOST quote) WE HAVE TO GO BACK! Also, my sister wants to take the kids soon and I want to be prepared to join them!
- Customize a doll into Star Butterfly. My love for Star Vs. the Forces of Evil is still as big as the day I fell in-love and the same could be said about my frustration for the lack of merch on the series, too. I’ve been feeling compelled to customize a doll for a few years now and Star seems like a good one to start with. In my head, it starts with a Sailor Moon Pullip doll as the base. 😉
- Give my hair a break. I LOVE having fun hair. In fact, it’s been so long since I’ve had normal hair, I’m not even sure I remember how to. But I bleached my hair more than usual this past year in the name of having “fun” hair and I’ve experienced a ton of breakage as a result. It was bound to happen and I’m lucky it took this long to, but in order to keep enjoying “fun” hair, I’ve gotta give my hair a break. No bleaching for a year will help it grow (because it’s far too short now) and let it remember how to be strong again for when I try to shift out of red. I’ll hate being stuck in this color for a year, but I’ve gotta do it before I ruin my hair for good.
- Lose Weight. This one’s so typical and on most everyone’s list, but it’s serious for me. I gained back everything I worked off over the past few years and then some. And I want to be healthier, to have more energy, to have a body worthy of housing a baby if/when the time comes. I almost don’t even care how much I lose, just that I start to lose. That I create habits of eating clean and working out again like I had in the past. We have an entire gym in our new house’s basement. There is NO reason I can’t make this happen.
- Spend more time with God. This year I failed to find a devotional and with moving to another state, church became a thing of the distant past for me. I tuned in to YouTube to their services when they’d post them, but they’re not consistent and neither was I. When packing for the big move started, I set my prayer journal aside and haven’t picked it up since. It’s not to say I didn’t do a lot of talking out loud to God, because boy did I ever, but I want to get back into developing a deeper understanding and connection with Him. Not solely calling out to him when I’m desperate or afraid or overwhelmed with emotion (good and bad). I’m not quite sure how I plan to do this yet, but it’s been heavily on my mind and I’m open to suggestions.
- Commit to volunteering at the animal shelter on a regular basis. Best Friends of Harford County helped me immensely not once, but twice this year with my stray cat colony and I want to give back. I want to spread some love or service to some other unloved cats as a show of gratitude and also just to humble myself. Volunteering, no matter what for, teaches us to live for someone more than ourselves, and we could all use that reminder these days.
That should be more than enough to keep me busy in 2018, especially since it doesn’t even include the side job of being a photographer or all the house projects we have on our to-do list for the year ahead of us, but I’m pretty amped about checking off these things on my goals list.
What do you hope to achieve in 2018? Whatever it is, You’ve got this, GOOD LUCK!