Thursday, June 20, 2013

looking back at a to do list and making a new one.

I took a moment to review my New Year's Resolutions earlier this month. The half-way mark is always a good time to reevaluate. (Unless you have fallen completley off the wagon and have nothing to show for your hours of carefully documented goals, then it just makes you feel like a failure!)
 
Ok, not a complete failure. I've made a bit of progress in some areas (my scripture study, shockingly enough has improved leaps and bounds) but other areas, well, you'd never know I'd made a goal for as little as I've tried to do anything about them. Let's take a look.
  
  • Visit 5 new states and 1 new country--I've got the goal to visit all 50 states by the time I'm 40 and all 7 continents (and at least 25 countries) before I die. The way things are going down this year I doubt I'll get more than 1 new state in but I'll have 1 new continent and at least 4 countries for sure.
  • Start a bookclub--check! (it still counts even if I'm abandoning it, right?)
  • Take a yoga class--check! (though unfortunately I've had to abandon that too)
  • Play the piano every day--uh, what I really meant was 'look at the piano every day but never actually touch it, ever'...check!
  • Finish a book--writing one, that is. Hmm, I did do a bit of work on it so that's got to count, but I'm not really any closer to finishing than I was in January. I am hoping for some good time to work on this come August though.
  • Catch up my scrapbook--uh, nope. 2 years behind and counting!
  • Attend at least one performance per month--done! Though I haven't made it to as many concerts as I'd like. Curse all you concert buddies who moved on me! I blame you! :)
  • Take a photography class--nope
  • Make pickles--wha?
  • Complete a Pinterest project each month--if by project I meant spending hours and hours pinning stuff and then never looking at it again then I'm a winner!
  • Be on time--Ok, this one I really did put some effort into at first. I'm at least more conscious of the times that I'm late even if I haven't quite transitioned that into actually being punctual.
  • Stop swearing--again, I've made a bit of effort. It still comes spewing out unbidden as a gut reaction to various circumstances but I've gotten better at thinking before I speak and more often than not I think of something besides a curse to say.
Now that I look at it it's really not too shabby after all. Often the goals that are more project oriented are easier to accomplish and dominate in the finished results category while the character building/habit forming type take a backseat or get abandoned altogether and kind of the opposite has happened this time around. There's added proof in the accomplisment of the biggest and least defined goal of all which has taken more of my time and mental energy than I'd anticipated but has surprised me in so may ways. On one sheet I had it listed as 'make a decision and stick with it' and somewhere else I wrote down 'find a new job'. Those were not necessarily the same goal to begin with but they've morphed into my Thailand decision and I'm excited and hopeful with what else will come with that.

So, this brings me to the next, and more immediate quest. Summer goals.
I've got about 6 weeks left here in DC and while there will be a flurry of packing and last minute preparations for Thailand I've also decided I need to make an effort to squeeze in some last minute fun as well. It is summer after all. And summer should be filled with all things good. Things like lemonade and movies under the stars and trips to the beach. There's not enough time to do all the things I'd like to and I'm not even going to start on the list of things I want to do one last time before I leave but here are the few things I'm going to do to make this summer count.
  • frozen custard at the Dairy Godmother
  • screen on the green
  • watching a parade
  • seeing the monuments by moonlight
  • a trip to the beach
  • a concert under the stars
  • fireworks
What's on your list?

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