A New Year

Well I say that New Year's Resolutions really don't have to start until January second because you spend the first recovering from whatever you did the night before (OOSG, the Jayhawk who runs, me and the cutie hubby having fun on NYE), preparing for the upcoming week of work and lazing around watching football bowl games.

Right then. New Years Resolutions. I don't usually do this. Should it be things like :

• floss every night?
  
• work towards world peace?
  
• spend less money?
  
• eat out less?
  
• drink less?
  
• wake up earlier?
• go to bed earlier?
• read more?
• work harder?
• something that contains all of that?
  

I'm so NOT doing the floss every night thing...that hurts to much...maybe I can pull off every other night though.

Work towards world peace? I was asked back for this Washington DC trip (I still don't know if I am going to be able to go because of our two week trip to Florida and the Bahamas, but I am really hoping to). So maybe while I'm there I can work on the world peace thing.

Spend less money. This is a biggie. I spend way too much money on eating out...which brings us to the eating out less bullet point. Jason and I were eating out almost every lunch & dinner and were starting in on breakfast. I have a goal for the next two weeks (I have heard that it takes two weeks to make a habit) to make all three meals and skip the going out stuff. So far so good. I realize that it's only the second, but I made a big batch of chili last night and I am on par to have those leftovers plus some pasta later in the week.

Drink less? Are you kidding! Screw that. I am still going to be enjoying my glasses of wine at night.

Wake up earlier. This is another big one. I am working towards moving back to my early work schedule. It just ends up making more sense. Again, we are going to work on that for the next two weeks and hopefully get it through our heads that when the alarm goes off at 5am that does not mean that you can hit snooze until 6:30am....at which point you realize traffic is so bad that you just say Fuck It and turn the alarm completely off and end up leaving for work at 9am.

But to get up at 5am, I cannot be going to bed at midnight to 1amish. So there is a definite need to get into bed and get alseep much earlier. I think I can get this done by just getting into bed too early to sleep but reading for about an hour to get calmed down and then using the new portable DVD player that Jason's brother gave us for Christmas watching part of a movie or a TV show on DVD. That's what we did last night and I was up at 4:50 am. Isn't it the best when you wake up before the alarm?

The reading more thing has to happen. I have been having a very nice relationship with my DVR, which as wonderful as that is takes away time from reading. I'm going to try and keep the TV/DVR thing for Saturday and Sunday mornings and stick with the reading at night thing. That's why I have DVR anyways right? So I'm not some kind of slave to the ole TV shows. (By the way, how sad was I when I ran out of Ugly Betty recorded shows...um...very).

Work harder....hmm....right. Well yes. I have to get more in tune with this physics analysis. I really want to graduate and while not quite ready to throw in the towel, I got scarily close the week before Christmas. I took the week of Christmas completly off to...oh I don't know....reset I guess. So here we go. I have realized that my weakness with this work is not that I'm not smart enough or good enough or whatever. But rather that I am not patient enough. I like to see results, so when I come in and work an 8 hour day and feel farther from the goal than I was when I came in that day, I have to treat that as clues to the puzzle and go from there and not bitch and moan that the world is coming to an end and that the analysis can never happen. That's the idea anyways....

Run more. The end of the year saw my love and my desire and my drive for running come to a complete halt. I am somewhat ok with this considering I was figuring our weekly numbers were going to take a dive around the holidays. I know that this marathon is not the Chicago Marathon and I'm doing it so my mom can see me run a marathon and to just stay in shape during the winter. However, making it one mile in a 16 mile run is a bit disheartening. A new week though, and a new year is here. I didn't sign up yet for the marathon which is a bit annoying because it was cheaper to sign up before the end of 2006. However, this gives me some room and if I end up wanting to only do the 1/2 marathon I can still do that. I really would rather do the full though, so that means we have a 10 mile run with 5 at LT tonight...wait no, I want to do the 1/2.

Something that contains all of that....well shit. I just want to live a life that I know I am capable of living. Life is too fucking short for me to be as miserable as I was at the close of 2006. I think the changes above are less resolutiony and more just paths to live a bit healthier and happier.

So here's to 2007. May I not be listing the same things next year.