Thursday, January 26, 2012

New Years Resolutions Revised

In the spirit of today being a Thursday, aka the start to my weekend, I decided to do absolutely nothing but still attempt to be productive while curled up in bed with my computer. Sounds difficult, right?
So far I've refreshed facebook a bazillion times (not productive), read a short story aloud in Spanish (yay for Spanish practice), stalked everyone's pinboards on pinterest (again, not productive) and started seriously creeping on people's blogs. As in, who-are-you-where-are-you-from-tell-me-all-your-interesting-stories. Creepy. But in the process, I discovered my productive goal for the day!

I found Liz's blog! Liz is an expat in Amsterdam enjoying life with her husband and puppy, and she had a unique post about New Years resolutions. Rather than making a couple year long resolutions and promptly forgetting about them by the end of the month, she decided to stick with 1 resolution for each month of the year. Genius!



Therefore, my productiveness for the day will be to nail down my productiveness schedule for the rest of the year. A little long-term planning, if you will.

January. This year is all about me being a better version of myself. I tend to be lazy whenever the option is there, and this results in me looking back a month later wondering "why didn't I just put in a little more effort?" So this year, I will put a little more effort into the things that matter. With that mind, although there are only 5 days left of this month, I resolve to stretch and do some sort of exercise everyday.

February. Work out at least 3 times a week. I don't have a gym membership and I don't really feel like paying for one, but since I do live in a very hilly city, I might as well take advantage of it! I also want to keep stretching every day.

March. Practice photography. I bought a nice, fancy(ish) camera right before I came to Spain, in the hopes that it would suddenly make me a better photographer. It didn't. And now I have a couple-hundred-dollar camera sitting on my desk taking up space. So this month I resolve to actually put time into learning how to use it, and into learning how to frame shots.

April. Learn how to cook. I want to successfully make all sorts of dishes, from homemade soups to chicken dishes to fancy pasta. (Fancy pasta, yes, that is my idea of cooking.) I also want to use lots of vegetables, and whole grains instead of white grains.

May. Practice Spanish. This might sound stupid, after all I'm living in Spain. But especially because I work as an English Language Assistant, I don't speak as much Spanish on a day to day basis as I'd like. Since this will be my last full month in Spain, I want to take full advantage of it and practice speaking and listening to Spanish as much as I can.

June. Pack all of my belongings into 3 suitcases and 1 purse. Oh, and go on a killer end-of-the-year trip to anywhere and everywhere I want to go in Europe, because once I leave, it will be quite a while until I come back! And also, spend as much time as possible at the beach. (This is kind of my slacker month, in case you couldn't tell.)

July. Drink more water. I hate water. Tea, yeah sure. Water with lemon and honey? Okay. But plain water? Ew. So this month I will make an effort to drink a little water first before getting something else, and especially to always substitute water for soda. And since it's summer now, drinking water is more important than ever.

August. Don't complain. (I stole this from Liz.) I tend to whine a lot. Recently I've started making an effort to bite my tongue when I realize I'm about to say something negative, but for this month I want to make an all out effort to comply with the phrase, "if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all." It'll be tough. I am a very sarcastic complainer by nature.

September. Make new friends. By this time, I will most likely be living in a new city, while my boyfriend goes to school and I try to survive by working back in the 'real world', aka the U.S. I have the tendency to stick with the few friends I know and not make an effort to meet new people, but for this month, that's my goal. Do whatever it takes.

October. Read at least 3 good books. I'm a bookworm, I admit it. I love reading. There's just something about that feeling that you get from being completely wrapped up in another world. For this month I resolve to read 3 really good books, either from the best seller list or that people have recommended. And preferably books that will make me feel more world-aware, versus quick beach-read books. Any suggestions?

November. Start writing Christmas cards. This year I vow to send out Christmas cards to all my family and friends, because it will most likely be my first and last year doing it. I figure I should do it at least once. And I know that if I start writing them in December, they'll get done somewhere around the end of February. I need to start them early and give myself a deadline!

December. Spend the month filling my kitchen with delicious Christmas smells. I want to learn how to make everything from sugar cookies, to pumpkin spice lattes, to peppermint stick ice cream. Yummmm can't wait!

What are some resolutions you've made? How have you been at keeping them so far?

3 comments:

  1. As a fellow blog-creeper, hi. Also, I love your resolutions!

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  2. I second loving your resolutions!

    Also seeing you have 10 posts already for this year and I only have one has inspired me to get back into keeping up with one of my resolutions, write more.

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  3. Thank you guys! It's day 2 of my resolution process and I've actually stuck to one resolution both days. That's progress for me.
    And Cathy, that just shows how little I've had going on in my life lately...I can be such a couch potato!

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