Goals for 2009

I think I covered everything below... The whole year is mapped out below. Heh.

1. Continue to work on a healthy diet and learn more about vitamins and nutrition. One trick I'm learning is to make sure I eat the good stuff before I eat the "extra" less good stuff. When I do this, I often am not hungry for the empty calories. I do this with the girls and it works with them. Why didn't I think of trying this for myself sooner?

2. Hang more pictures on the wall and just get more organized (e.g., loft and our bedroom)... (Maybe start to figure out new furniture for our bedroom--don't panic MWH!.)

3. Try to not get stressed out at work. Figure out how to have fun at work again. The first 5 years I worked where I work were THE BEST ever. I guess that the next 6 needed to be hard and not so much fun to make up for the first five. (You know, balance and all.) When I teach again, try not to get stressed out by it. I am getting better at it (because of experience) so I will make it a goal to have a little more fun with it and not let it consume me quite as much.

(Actually part of the reason the last 6 were so hard was because of W. Seriously. He took away a lot of funding for innovative projects in the field where I work. It is very sad.)

4. Workout-wise, I'd like to add more strength and flexibility training. Adding a yoga class would be super good for me.... or, just taking some classes (to get the basics) and then finding a good video. I'd love to add in a ballet class, but I know it will be really painful. (I used to dance and it is much harder than working out....) The last few nights I've made myself stretch for a few minutes before bed. Maybe I can get into a routine and stretch at night....(or find a yoga class). I need to make myself do weights after my aerobics and zumba classes ... Maybe I can start with 10-15 minutes after T/Th class and work up from there?

As a related point to this goal....I don't know whether I want to get certified to teach Zumba or not. I can't decide. This sounds so wimpy, but my numbness is limiting me and bringing me down. I am so tired after a class. It's not like I'm not in good shape tired, it's my numbness tired. I can feel it in my head and in my body. My body feels a little less connected to my brain as it recovers, my head feels really fuzzy, my hands are more numb, and I get tingling in my legs. It goes away and I think it's just because I get so warm when I work out, but it's a problem. I know I can't push it as hard as I want to push it. Maybe I'll get in better shape, and not notice so much, but I don't know. Maybe I just felt it more (last Friday) because I hadn't worked out that much over break.... I'll give it a couple more months, do a little more reading about the problem, and think about what I should do.

5. Work on being more green. (Yea, I use re-usable shopping bags, SIGG bottles (so I don't have to use plastic water bottles), a re-usable coffee cup, and do some other things (I should do a post about this) but I know I can do more. I need to think more about this. If you've made decisions about how to be more "green" what are they? Please post a comment if you have ideas!

(MWH tells me he can't believe with how "green" I am that I forget to turn off the lights all the time... I am embarrassed about this... Sigh. We have lights on timers and on motion detectors, so that helps, but still I should be more responsible--especially where we don't have times/detectors!)

6. Spend more time reading with the girls. MWH usually does bedtime reading. If I pick a chapter book and read with the older two during the day (like HP) (or some of the fun ones we've gotten for Christmas) it will be good.

7. This is a tough one... Spend less time just goofing around online. I can still be online a lot, and I will, but I think, especially when I'm not teaching, that I need to limit myself here and do more #6 and being silly with the girls. I want to read more too (more fun, novel-type books. I read lots online and I learn lots online, so that kind of being online is okay, but sometimes I find that I've spent 1/2 hour looking at pictures in Facebook of someone I don't even KNOW when they were at a party. That seems a little, ummm, unnecessary to me...) (Does this happen to anyone else?)

8. Send in more blog posts from my iPhone. I need to get better at texting on it. I figure the only way I will is to practice. If I make myself send in one post a week from the iPhone, it ought to help to post a blog entry once a week from the phone.

9. Spend more time with friends and family!

10. Keep learning! (I want to read a lot more about brain research, exercise and aging.)

11. Spend more time hangin' with MWH. When we do get to hang, we laugh a lot. Sometimes, when the girls are around, they don't know why we're laughing, but they start to laugh anyway. I love it.



Okay... I ended up with more goals than last year. Oops. I don't think I've set up anything too unreasonable, but now is an appropriate time to say, Good Luck with all that!