Thirteen New Year’s Resolutions

Sorry for the late posting. I don’t really have many specific New Year’s resolutions because I am working on my 101 in 1001 - and I’m more than 40% through it! I’m right on track with the amount of time I have left, so that is very exciting! However, I do have a few clarifications about some of the goals in my 101 in 1001 . . .

1. #5 on my list is to officially join the Episcopal Church. So far I haven’t done this because I’m never home at the time that they’re offering the courses. I’m going to make a serious effort to see if I can somehow work that out this year.

2. #50 is to sponsor a child. This was actually one of the first things I completed. However, I would like to become more involved, so a resolution of mine is to try and maintain regular written correspondence with my child.

3. #47 is to stop biting my fingernails. This is one of the things that is the hardest on my list . . . I’ve been biting my fingernails for 22 years! I had stopped at one point my freshman year, but then I started to date a guy who bit HIS nails, and that got me started back again, and it’s only gotten worse since. However, Mama recently told me about something that she heard on the radio. One guy said that biting your fingernails is an addiction just as bad as smoking (which I think is probably true - no chemical dependency, but mentally . . . geez). The way that HE stopped was one finger at a time. He was allowed to bite the nails on 9 fingers, but not the tenth. Then 8 fingers. 7. All the way until he was down to only being allowed to bite one nail. And he said it took him a loooong time to get off that finger, but when he did it he had completely kicked the habit.

I’m starting with my right thumb. Here’s hoping.

4. Since I haven’t made much headway on reading the books for #76 and #87, I’m going to try and keep a list of the books I’m reading this year here on my blog. Hopefully that will make me a little more accountable!

5. To aid in my reading the Bible for #4 I have just purchased the The One Year Bible Companion: Questions and Answers to Help You Make the Most of Your Daily Bible Reading. It leads you through reading the Bible in a year - every day a little New Testament, a little Old Testament, and some Proverbs and Psalms. And this version of the book has questions and things. I like it ;-)!

6. To go with SEVERAL of my health 101’s I am going to continue further implementation of FlyLady’s principles. While her main thing is cleaning, decluttering, and organizing, everything is built on routines, something that I have found is leading me to healthier eating and (gasp!) daily exercise!! Through the FlyLady way and through her book Body Clutter: Love Your Body, Love Yourself I am going to work to have a healthier lifestyle. And if that gets in place, the weight will come off :-D!

7. #27 is to get a job. Now that I am no longer in grad school, this is priority numero uno for the new year!

8. As listed in #42, I want to begin creatively writing again. In the past month or so, I’ve actually felt like I think I can do this soon. I’m slowly working on ideas for a new book, and I’m excited that my little creative spark might be ready to go after a looong hiatus!

9. My books are out of control. I’ve got my closet cleaned, so it’s time for the next step! Not only will this help me declutter and make my room more pleasant, but it will help me through reading my books AND it will get me to the point where I can add them to a database (#56). Lots of goodies rolled into one.

10. I am revamping #61 a bit. Up until now it has said “Get Mama’s bead business online.” While I would still LOVE to do that, it appears as though my big resolution from last year is not going to be completed by the end of the year. However, I don’t consider this to be a complete failure. Mama isn’t ready to go online. However, I have helped her to figure out a system for keeping track of her records, which is just as valuable as getting the business online. I’m not sure when we’ll be able to get her online, but I can help her get completely organized . . . taking inventory of probably somewhere near a million beads. This is just as big a task as getting her online, and it’s something that I have more control over. I don’t want to push her into going online if she’s not ready just so I can complete my list. So, the new #61 is “Get Mama’s beads inventoried and make the inventory something she can easily work with daily.”

11. If I plan on writing 1001 blog posts on this blog and Reading Red Letters in time, I need to get busy or #75 won’t happen!

12. Now that I am getting a little control over my life and I am establishing routines, I am cooking a lot more, so I am really hoping to get my “In the Kitchen” goals completed this year.

13. And one resolution that isn’t addressed in my 101 in 1001. When I was younger I had a little bit of an environmentalist in me, and I pushed that aside when I turned 13 because it made me “uncool” - yeah, such is middle school. Then when I was in high school and college I was so super busy that I didn’t even consider making time for caring about the earth. But as I’ve been out of school and have slowly started to become “a grownup” (like that will ever happen), I’m realizing that this is something that is a part of me. I am going to work on green living this year, and try to conserve and reuse whenever possible. I’m researching cleaning products and clothing lines, as well as how we can make up for energy expenditures. I’ll be posting more about these things throughout the year, and hopefully I will have started some great new habits by the time we get to next year’s resolutions!

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“Did you make a New Year’s resolution this past year? How’s that coming for you? Post what your resolution was and how you’re doing now that we’re 3/4 of the way through the year!”

Julie at Another Chance Ranch took the easy way out this year. Is it fair to make resolutions that you know you will stick to? Check out her “planned” resolutions.

CyberCelt discusses a problem with Compulsive Planning Disorder, and how it effects New Year’s Resolutions for next year!

Rachael looks at her new years’ ponderings and talks a lot about pain and fear, but in a good way.

I talk about my resolution, and for once looks like I’ll be able to achieve it!!!

Gattina writes about how her resolution changed her life!

Thanks for joining us this week!

So, we’ve got about 2 and a half months to do good on our New Year’s resolutions. How are you doing? Did you work on yours for a little while, then slowly dwindle off? Are you making good on your resolution? Or did you flop in the beginning?

I posted my New Year’s Resolution here. The long and short of it? I resolved to make a dent in my 101 in 1001 (and I’m at almost 30% complete thus far, I think that’s pretty good!) and I wanted to get my mother’s bead business online. I’ve just come from a weekend at home discussing that very issue, and while I’m not 100% sure it will be up and active within the year, I know that it will be very close to that. And that’s worst case scenario - most likely, it will be up!!

So I feel like I’ve done pretty good this year! How about you? Make sure that you submit your progress report to the Blogging Chicks carnival, which I am hosting this weekend! Please turn in your submissions by Saturday night - my email is listed to the right!

Well, I have several resolutions on my 101 in 1001 that I will be working on this year, LOL! However, one of those items in particular is my really big resolution for 2006.

Mama has been making beaded things (bookmarks, prayer beads, etc.) for just over a year. She’s gotten really good at it, and these beads look AMAZING. Seriously, she’s really got an eye for what goes well together. Plus, she makes them in quite a range - from inexpensive but classy to antique beads and antique crystals that get quite pricy (family heirloom quality).

She decided that she wanted to try and start selling these beads. She enjoys them so much that she wants to keep making them for people, but it gets pretty pricy to be completely footing the bill! She is currently making them for our church and selling them at cost (no profit), but she also wants to sell them to the community.

My suggestion? An online business of course!

This is where my resolution comes in. Mama needs help. She hasn’t got a good inventory filing system yet, and it will take WEEKS for her to get everything filed. So resolution part A: help Mama inventory all the beads.

Next - photographs. She needs to have pictures of her stock to go on the website. Resolution part B: create an easy system for photographing and uploading the pictures so that my techno-NOT savvy mom can do this while I’m at school, which is 8 hours from home.

And the most important part of all - part C. Actually getting the website created and organized. I haven’t yet inquired about having the design and layout created by E. Webscapes yet because I don’t have enough concrete ideas about colors and graphics from my mom yet, but the plan is to get her to stop going for 2 seconds so that I can talk with her about these things, then contact E. Webscapes about the design (I absolutely LOVE the business design they’ve done for Leanne, and I’ve played around with other types of “online stores” and have been completely unsatisfied by the look). Then, once we’ve got a site to work with, my job will be to get all the content online - the items, pricing, management of all that.

Basically, my new year’s resolution is to get Mama’s business online.

So far I’ve got the domain (www.seasidespirit.com), but that’s about it, LOL! However, I am very optimistic about this goal. Mama just signed the paperwork at the lawyer’s office last week, so she’s legal now, LOL. It’s getting to be the time where I need to step in and start doing my part. The only real challenge is the fact that I will be doing this all long distance (which wouldn’t be such a big deal except that my mom really is computer illiterate - she does things in baby-steps, which is fine, it just takes us a little longer to get where we need to be).

Why the long rambling post about my New Year’s Resolution (and a few days early at that)? Because I would like to enter my resolution in the competition that E. Webscapes is doing - it’s their New Year’s Blog Give Away! For more information, here is the link about the competition:

New Year’s Blog Give Away

And the trackback.

So . . . good luck to me! And even if I don’t win, this is a resolution that I have thought long and hard about. I’m not just posting this resolution for the competition - I’d also like to get this out here on paper . . . er, screen. If this is posted, it makes it more concrete for me, and therefore it becomes a goal that I can’t just file away under “I’ll do that later.” This is going to happen this year, and I am super pumped!!!