A New Year

Happy New Year everyone! 

New Years always makes everybody think about resolutions.  I do think the idea of having a time to reflect on what we want to accomplish is a great idea, on the other hand I think it can be a bit depressing to realize that at least half your resolutions are the ones you made last year.   I have, once again, pledged to give up soda and deep fried food, and to match my husband's resolution of 15 minutes a day on the treadmill (that one started today).  Now, I have already set these goals, accomplished them, and then slowly faded back into bad habits.   I also want to have a draft of my dissertation completed and my current novel finished, also both goals, that in some way, are hold over, or at least extensions of, last years goals.  I'd also like to at least crack the second level piano book that I've had for five years (to be fair, I'm nearly finished with book one after three years, ugh).  

I've always considered myself good at setting goals, and at least mildly successful at achieving them, so taking stock of the last year, in which I feel like a lot of wheel spinning went on, is a tough look at myself.  Granted I have excuses - surgery, lots of traveling for my job, having what amounted to a full time job for most of the year etc.  Still, its sobering to feel like I could have done much better.

Yeah, this is depressing blog post.   So to make this blog and myself more cheerful, I'm going to end with a few things I did accomplish.

-  Defending my dissertation proposal and acquiring at least 3000 pages of research in Washington, D.C.
-  Writing least 150 pages on the first two Capstone books. 
-  Reading the Book of Mormon again
-  Maintaining, for another year, my ridiculously happy marriage.  (Of course I can't really take the credit for this, I'm married to an awesome guy.)

That's not such a bad list, right?

Here's to 2011, may it be a great year for everyone.  We all could use it.