Hello, 2011

I love making New Year’s resolutions. I’m not as good at keeping them as I am at making them, but I do OK. I don’t remember making any last year, though. It was a weird year in many ways, and I had no idea what life with a baby would be like. Here are a few of my loose resolutions for this year:

• I would like to continue reading consistently with a goal of reading 52 books by the end of the year. I am not a natural reader. When I got to middle school or maybe high school, I pretty much stopped reading anything other than SparkNotes. I was an English minor in college but rarely was it necessary even then for me to read more than SparkNotes. I am a slow reader, so about a book a week is a reasonable goal for me, I think.
• I would like to continue blogging consistently. Obviously, I may have weeks like last that I did not have time or access to the Internet to post anything. But it has been a great discipline for me to try to write down things that I want to remember or things that I’m thinking or reading about as much as I can.
• I want to try to get together with a friend once a week. I enjoy just hanging out with Nathan while Gus is at work, and the days and weeks go by so fast that I just keep putting it off. And then I feel so terrible that I haven't called them that I’m too embarrassed to ask them to come over. This will be a good way for me to keep up with old friends and make new friends.
• I would like to try to have a couple or family over for dinner once a month. This is hard for us right now because we don’t know Gus’ work schedule too far in advance, and he works many weekends, which are usually better for everyone else. So I’m not sure how this one will work out, but I would like to make the effort.
• In July, we made a resolution not to spend money on eating out for the rest of the year, and I would like to continue this. We did eat out some, but very little and only in emergency situations. Some months, we did not eat out at all, and others we only spent $3 to $10. Emergency situations include when I am about to pass out or when a friend is moving away and we’re getting together at a restaurant. This resolution will not be that hard to continue since we don’t even consider eating out as an option any more. We got some restaurant gift cards for Christmas though, so that will be a special treat.
• I’m not quite ready to make any fitness resolutions after my Couch to 5K fail last summer, but Gus got P90X from his parents for Christmas. I might decide to join in.