I didn’t make any real “resolutions” for 2011, since I’m fairly certain that I was mostly just focused on surviving the second half of my pregnancy and the first 8 months of Evie’s life. It was an adventure, even without any specific resolutions.

Now that we’re in 2012, I feel that it’s time for me to get back to goals. I’ve accomplished a lot of what I had hoped for in my life, but not everything. In my high school yearbook (10 years ago…), I’m pretty sure I said I wanted to have a book published by now. While that hasn’t happened, I do think that’s mostly because I’m not a writer by profession like I thought I would be. That said, I still have it as a goal for “someday.” My “someday” list is getting long, but I’m okay with it. I may be turning 30 this year, but I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, done with “the best years of my life.”

So, here are my goals for 2012:

• Launch our new business website
  We first announced it last year, and then got caught up in the baby stuff. We’re plugging away in our “spare” time to get it done. I’m excited to get it launched!
• Take a business class
  I’ve been running a business for over 5 years now; I think it’s time to see what I can do better.
• Teach Evie to say or sign the names of all immediate family members
  Hearing my nephew say my name is such a blessing to me! I want to hear Evie say Momma, Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa, Devon, Seth, Kirsten, Mom-Mom, Poppy, Kelley, Matt, Lincoln, and Nina (Caryn) by next Christmas… Doable? She’ll be 20 months old, so I hope so!
• Go snowboarding with Joel at least once
  Joel and I got each other snowboarding gear for Christmas in 2010, but I was pregnant last winter, so we couldn’t go. Now, I’m very unmotivated to relearn… But I love Joel, and I want to have stuff to do together, so snowboarding it is!
• Finish a writing project
  I have so many half-finished projects… and only a few finished ones. This is the year to have a project come to conclusion. I had been working pretty steadily on a novel in 2010, but then my compy crashed, I lost 2 hours of work, and I lost motivation to rewrite. Time to get back into it!
• Bike the 35- or 60-mile Bike:MS Cook Forest River Ride in September
  I’m giving myself both options for the River Ride, since I’ll have to see how bike riding goes with Evie. If she likes the bike trailer, I’ll aim for the 60-miler. If she hates it, I’ll be lucky to get to do the 35.
• Raise $5,000 toward our adoption fund
  As for the adoption fund, I know it’s ambitious to try to raise $5k, but it’s only a little over $450/month (since January is almost over and I haven’t raised anything yet). That’s going to be the hardest one, I think. It is going to take some creative thinking and the support of those around us, but I think we can do it. I feel called to adopt, so I know that it will happen if it’s the Lord’s will.

So, we’ll see how this goes…

As 2010 comes to a close, I have been thinking about New Year’s resolutions, so I thought it might be a good time to check in with my progress on last year’s January musings…

1. Run a half marathon. CHECK. I ran the Garden Spot Village Half Marathon in April like I had wanted to and did pretty well. I ended up not running another one, but I did complete the 35-mile Bike:MS Cook Forest River Ride for the second year in a row… and this time I did it 8 weeks pregnant!

2. Eat more leafy green and less chocolatey brown. Eh… Not so much. But I’m still working. We did switch to organic and locally-grown foods as much as possible, but I still eat WAY too much of the fun stuff and not enough of the good stuff. This one might be a resolution for many years to come… Although, I’m hoping that it will make it easier to lose all the post-pregnancy weight next summer.

3. Teach Roxy to stop pooing in the house. CHECK! With a few exceptions because we were gone for 5+ hours, Roxy is completely house-trained. Yay!

4. Shut up. Umm. Not quite done with this one. Despite most of the year having been handled perfectly well with one hand firmly clapped over my mouth, a few moments lacking in patience and self-control in the past may have set me up for a lifetime of apologizing. It’s agonizing, horrifying, and humiliating, but I know that if I can keep working on it, there may be a day in the future that will allow me to relax a bit, confident that God has done His work in me. I’m eagerly awaiting that day.

5. Be a better saver. Woo! We did a great job with this… Larry Burkett would be so proud of us! Looks like we are going to be able to get the new vehicle that we’ve been saving up for with only a few months of payments afterward. But this one will be on my list for at least 10 more years, because this year I added a lot more debt to our load with grad school. But I’m confident that we can do it!

Speaking of goals… I was looking back on the goals I had for myself when I graduated from college back in 2005 and realized that I’ve accomplished just about all of them in 5 years.

1. Get a job. Check. June 2005
2. Move out of my parents’ house. Check. June 2005
3. Live by myself for at least 1 year. Check. April 2006 – June 2007
4. Get married. Check. June 22, 2007
5. Buy a house. Check. May 2007
6. Earn my Master’s degree. Check. April 2010
7. Be in charge of my own work. Check. April 2008
8. Go overseas. Check. December 2008 (India) & November 2009 (Haiti)
9. Get published. Still working on this one… Guess I need to get cracking!
10. Have a baby. To be checked off in spring 2011 (Lord willing)!

Seeing that list helps me to feel that I’ve accomplished something with my life in the last 5 years. I guess it’s time for a new list… Stay tuned!