52 Weeks in a Year

Fifty-two times, I am committing to blogging—to writing down the week’s highlights, to musing about everyday goings-on and life’s inspirations, to digging from among my web of foggy memories which I always find to be a delight. This week, as what any normal person does (yes, sweetie, we’re not as weird as we think), I’ve thought about outlining my goals for the year. It begins with, as I’ve earlier indicated, a commitment to find more time for personal pursuits. Before I go on though, I like to go over what I’ve completed on last year’s list.

• Did find time to write, and then some.
• Was able to improve on the house; a few bookshelves here, more storage systems there.
• Was able to spend a lot of QT with my babies.
• Spices, check.
• Yes, summer holiday with my family, including my mom and sisters!
• Met up with my best buds as often as I could but I missed this year’s Christmas parties…
• Savored my crosswords.
• Did turned off the TV before sleeping, methinks.
• Did watch a couple of movies with Rich.

Nine yeses—however, I have seven "have nots"…

• Fix my kids’ study space.
• Create enough art.
• Invest in a serious stove.
• Stop smoking.
• Save much—no tiangge, which really got me excited for a while, but.
• Learn how to drive, no art lesson and what business school?
• Finish my jigsaws, in fact, some are still unopened.

9 is still greater than 7, right? Right. So, to continue, here are my top three 2009 musts.

• Draw the line between work time and me time. Learn when to say no so that there’s more time for family, friends and favorites (like blogging). Life is like a checkbook—balance it! (And that, friends, is my first Dee nugget of wisdom for the year).
• Enjoy life by complaining less and laughing more. Never mind if there’s a major hiccup or there’s serious pain on your back or if your shoes feel funny. Smile, laugh more than you did yesterday!
• Save for the next rainy day.

I will not go and follow advice given by some serious nut heads about “adding numbers to your goals” because my personal targets, except the last bit, are a bit hard to quantify. So ten days into 2009, I hang on to New Year’s feverish optimism, excited to put big check marks across these three goals by the time December comes around.

And so it begins.