My pseudo New Year's Resolutions

I don't believe in making New Year's Resolutions. I used to, but years of setting the bar to high to simply fail in most of them within a month taught me otherwise.

But last year, I set goals -- things I wanted to do for myself, things I wanted to accomplish, or just things for the hell of it.

In 2011, I set out to do five things. Want to know how I did?

Run two 10-kilometre races: Check. I wanted to take my running up a notch last year -- after running a 10K race in 2009 and another in 2010. So, I ran 10K in May and in September of 2011 -- one of which was my best time by far.

Finally lose those extra 10 pounds. Check. I know this sounds like a silly New Year's Resolution -- the one that every other person makes on Jan. 1. The "this year, I'll lose weight." But last January, I decided that with an almost 3-year-old, I didn't want to be hanging on to the baby weight. And I was the heaviest I had ever been, with the exception of being pregnant. So, in the Spring, I lost 10 pounds. And it wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. But better yet, I felt good and I felt better about myself. And so, in the fall, I decided that I could stand to lose a few more. As of Jan 1, I'm 16 pounds lighter than I was last Jan. 1. That's the same weight I was when I got married -- and I haven't been that weight since, well since I got married.

Get organized. Hmm, this is where I over-stretched a little. It is, afterall such a broad statement. So maybe I'll tell you where I am more organized. I finally purged all the old kids' clothes that I've been hanging on to and can now actually get into the storage closet under the stairs. I emptied out a junk room and turned it into an office. But there's so much more I wanted to do.

Get the house painted. Nope. I hate the paint in my house. It's flat, it's cheap, it's boring beige and in places it's dirty as hell. I didn't like it when we moved in 7 years ago, now I really don't like it. But other than in my new office, not a drop of paint touched a wall in this house last year.

Read only books on my bookshelf. Not quite. Sounds like a silly goal, really. But it was just a personal challenge. You see, I suddenly realized that I had more than two dozen books on my book shelf that I've been wanting to read, yet haven't for various reasons. So I told myself, no shopping for books allowed. But I did buy three books this year -- just three, which is pretty good for me -- and I did read each of them right away, so that's got to count for something, right? (By the way, if you want to see what I read, check me out on Goodreads.)

So there's my 2011 in a nutshell. Here's the things I want to accomplish in 2012.

Run a half marathon. I blogged about this one last month, so there's not much more to say. I do think I'll register soon though, so I can't back down.

Keep the weight off. Now that I worked so hard to lose it (and did I mention I bought smaller jeans last week!), I intend to keep it this way.

Get organzied. Hmm, sound familiar? So I'm going to be a little more specific. This time, I want to organize and clean our file cabinet and turn as much as I can into paperless. (Yes I know, we're still not paperless and get all our bills the good ol' fashioned way.)

Paint. Seriously. This year, I really want to get it done.

Scrapbook more often. I like scrapbooking. And even though I blog (here and over on my family blog) and post online photo albums to share with friends and family and to 'document our lives', I still like to have and do scrapbooks of our lives. I started the year Austin was born and have plans of doing one every year. The problem? I'm woefully behind -- and only now am I ready to start 2010. That's right, here it is, January 2012 and my scrapbook life is back in January 2010. So my goal this year is to start and finish two scrapbooks -- 2010 and 2011 -- by December 31.

So that's it. Nothing earth shattering. Just a few things I want to do this year -- among all the other things I do in my every day life.