Ode to New Year's Goals (2011)

(I just like this photo taken in Santa Monica!)

1. Get my family moved down to Kentucky!!!!

2. Purge the clutter, the broken, the out-grown, the unloved and unneeded.

3. Organize the rest.

4. Pay extra on the debts, less on unnecessary stuff.

5. Be creative, crafty, find art in what is around me.

6. Read more. Write more.

7. Exercise again. Find myself lost in nature. Eat better.

8. Try Ebay or Etsy. Or maybe just a yard sale.

9. Finish the Works-in-progress; begin no new ones without attempting to complete the old ones.

10. Photograph more...especially the family I want moved down to KY this year!

Ten simple goals with a whole lot of room for interpretation. In the past I have listed items under categories with sub-parts and specifics. It just didn't work for me. I need flexibility because my life is so wild, so uncooperative to the whole goal making process. I like my ten simple goals. All can be expanded and I hope to make my quarterly lists of "to-do's" and whatnot (this is where specific enters the picture), but as long as I stay focused on these ultimate goals, I can breath and feel I accomplished the bottom-line of "staying focused" in 2011.

I placed the largest goal at the top (in bold, ginormous letters). I need my boys back in my everyday life. I need to check homework and make cookies and take walks after work/school with them. I miss them terribly and the four-hour distance from them seems like I am on a different continent during the week. It has been a joy to be home this week and let them sleep next to me, watch movies together, read together. If you find yourself overwhelmed, wondering how in the H*ll you ended up a married mom of two (believe me when I say my Barbies of youth never had these goals in mind), separate yourself from them and the original focus will resurface stronger than you could ever imagine. Not that I recommend this method.

Moving to another state is going to be difficult. New schools, no extended family, new jobs (I am four months into mine), new home. I love KY and I think my boys (including Dh) will too, but it is a gamble. I hope I am not making bad decisions. I keep telling myself it is four hours only from grandmas and our hometowns (I mean it is not like we are moving to Paris or London or even Los Angeles!), but it is scary. The good kind of scary in many ways.

So, here is to New Years and the return of the light in the Northern Hemisphere!!