Have you ever woken up one morning and felt a bit 'off', and by the afternoon you realise you've become somewhat 'stuck'? Stuck in life, that is. That's what happened to me this morning. So I've decided to make a list of things that I'm going to do this year. Not that I will try to do, but that I am GOING to do, dammit! Think of it as a list of New Year's Resolutions. So here it is, a list to make this coming year as unstuck as possible.
1. 9 to 5.Finish a frickin book already! I've been falling back on the "I'm not working but I am writing a book" excuse for way too long. This year, I'll finish one! The goal is to have 240,000 words by January 1st 2012. That's 20,000 per month. 5,000 per week. 1,000 words per weekday. On average. Easy. How am I going to do this? By giving myself a timetable. The most sensible seems to be to treat it like a 9 to 5 until I get into the swing of things. We'll see how this works out.
2. Veggie Bites.A while ago I asked people what they thought I should have as my NYReso's, and one that came up was 'be a vegetarian'. Well... no. I won't. But I'll give it a try. One month this year I'm going to be a veggie. Who knows, maybe it'll help me with #6 down there...
3. Chocowhat?I eat way too much chocolate. So in true Veggie Bites fashion, I'm going to quit chocolate for a month. I'm so determined about this one that the Chocowhat month is now. January 2011. Maybe it'll stick. I gave up chocolate in school for a long long time and I miss how great it was. The energy, the high spirits... that stuff is bad for you, you know!
4. Slurp'n'Burp.Carbonated drinks. Devil food. Ok so I can't quit these entirely I don't think, because I really don't fancy having to spend 5 times as much on juices. Instead, I'll only drink diet or sugar free stuff, but I'll only drink that on occasion, when there's nothing else. Even at that I'm talking about one or two cans per week, max.
5. There's Always Water.Just writing that '...when there's nothing else' I felt guilty. Ok, so there is always water. I'm going to drink as much water as I can, when I can. I don't drink enough, that's for sure. I can go days without drinking the stuff and then end up in a mood because I'm dizzy or weak. Really, Rinara, you think there's a connection?
6. Ditch the belly...and the bum, hips, thighs, arms... you get the picture. Over Christmas week I gained half a stone. I mean, that's how you know it's Christmas, but really, it was just two steps forward and one step back. So I'm really kicking it up a notch this year. I'm going to lose 50lbs, which is roughly 1lb per week. This time last year I was losing 2-5lbs per week. We'll say 5lbs per month is my goal. I can totally do this.
7. Rinara Reads.You may or may not know that I have a second blog where I review books. No? Well it's called Rinara Reads. Catchy, huh? But I've been slacking a bit. This year I fully intend to read at least one book per month.
8. Gamerpoints!I'm the kind of person that unless it's scheduled, I'm likely to forget to have fun and take a break. One of my friends suggested one of my NYReso's would be to earn another few gamer points on xbox Live. Since I'm not an achievement whore (*cough* Robert *cough*) I'm going to call it an even 100 per month. That won't seem like much but for me that's half a game or 10-15 hours per week gaming. I live in a gaming environment most of the time anyway though, where gaming for us is like watching TV for most people (we don't actully have a TV... WEIRD right?)
9. The Morning Pages.This probably should have been the first one I listed. I read somewhere that to get the creative juices flowing it's important to just write. Especially if it means clearing out your head so you can get something done. One of the ways I've seen people doing this is to keep a diary-like book on hand, called the Morning Pages (or at least mine will be called that) where every morning a set number of pages (I'll say three) has to be written. It can be about anything, everything, whatever, but it has to be written into. I can really see how this will help me. It's like an entire notebook of doodles and brainstorming. How could it not help?
10. Cook More.Self-explanatory. It ties in with half of what I've already mentioned to. And it'll save money. Why do I need to save money? Because we're going to...
11. HOGWARTS!Well, Hogwarts, Florida... which doesn't really have a nice ring to it but hey, I'll take it. It means that I have to put some money aside per week before we go, which is in October. Eight months away. I worked out that I can manage €20 per week (how pathetic...) which will give me €650 ish by then. Which is about $870. That's a nice sum of spending I think.
I think that's all I have for now. If I have more I'll add them later.
So here's the deal... I'm going to check in here on the last day of every month and let you guys know how it's going. If I'm falling behind on anything you need to kick me in the ass and yell at me. Ok? I mean, what kind of friends wouldn't do that for someone?
