13 days in and I think I have finally come up with a workable plan, list, collection of work in progress collection of lists that sum up the goals that I want to accomplish in 2009.

Instead of making that long list of "things I'd like to change" or "things I'd like to accomplish" or the dreadful "2009 resolutions", I decided that it would be more systematic to view my life in terms of specific areas, in order to determine the things that I'd most like to improve. Right now, the areas of priority in my life are:

- Academic
- Career/ Financial
- Personal
- Motherhood

As I looked at these areas I started obsessing a bit over all the ways that I felt I have been failing in these areas. Right off the bat I started condemning myself, when there was really no need. Life is a work in progress, and each year, month, week, day, hour, minute and even second that goes by, we are growing. You can't know exactly what needs improvement until you have lived a little and allowed yourself to experience and learn from those experiences. So, with that in mind, I chose to only set 5 goals for each area of my life. Why overwhelm myself when I know I am clearly not one of those people who should be overwhelmed? In fact, an overarching theme of my goals is to underwhelm myself throughout 2009 and hopefully this can be implemented into a concrete lifestyle change.

Here are the goals that I have set for the 4 areas of my life:

Academic
- Stay ahead of assignments: I have a huge problem with this. From everyday responsibilities and time restraints, an abundance of reading, to my ability to have to work at my own pace... I often find myself with materials that I never even get to. This has gotta change. I'm going to strive to stay ahead of the game by using my spare time and weekends more wisely where readings are concerned. Besides, if "ahead of schedule" IS the schedule there will be plenty of time left to rest my mind, instead of stressing it trying to cram information at the last minute.

-Keep Organized: Remember to take my well kept planner out of my bag when I get home!

- Attend professor office hours at least twice a month: Professors are required to be available to provide guidance, answer questions, etc. All I need to do is make sure I take advantage of this by keeping the lines of communication open at all times with my professors.

- Develop my writing: Spend some extra time (ie, blogging, free writing, journaling, etc) to just enjoy writing again period. I still see it as more work than fun, when it was always fun before.

- Complete my thesis: The down time is coming to an end and its time for me to put my thinking cap back on and get that draft done. Then the rest will be a peace of cake.

Career/Financial
- List my skills: I still have NO idea which direction I will be heading in May, but I do have various useful skills that should place me in a good place. The task is to group these skills to see if they lead in a specific direction or if the sky is just the limit for me.

- Find a job with a livable wage: Kind of a no brainer, but, its a must because its very expensive to live in the Bay Area. Money will be important when making my transition.

- No more credit card debt: Thankfully most of my cc debt has been paid and the rest can be paid off as soon as my financial aid refund hits my bank account!

- Budget, Budget, Budget: Should be simple since my current budget doesn't allow for senseless spending.

- Start an emergency fund: Gotta take Suze's advice on this one. Since finances will be changing, this should get off to a good start.

Personal
- Exercise everyday: Moving my body will help regulate my mood and keep both "the taupes" and the pounds off my ass.

- Healthy eating: I am on a quest to fall back in love with my long lost salads!

- Heal the pain of the past: This involves a lot of writing and detoxing of the mind.

- Rediscover myself: Its true, I still don't fully know who I am, but I am determined to find out.

- Make time for therapeutic writing: See how some of these goals overlap!

Motherhood
- Read to Miss J daily: Sadly, during the semesters, I read sooo much stuff that I get burnt out. Crazy, I know. One should never get tired of reading, right? Well, I do! Then Miss J suffers, with a never ending pushing of the bed time story to the "next night". Instead of saving reading for bedtime, we will move it to right before dinner or while dinner is cooking.

- Make special mother/daughter time: Yep, even with it being just the two of us sometimes this time does have to be scheduled. I am often submerged in school stuff and she is looking to get out of the house and over to granny's or aunt's or dad's or ANYBODY'S for the weekend. Scheduling specific days of the week or times of the day for just me and her will secure and build or relationship.

- Be more patient: This is number 1. Egg shells are all over this place. I'm working on it though. Miss J is already aware that her mother is crazy so she makes sure to give me a daily overdose of hugs, kisses, and "I love yous" to help me feel better.

- Work in playdates at least twice a month: We don't do much of these, and as Miss J builds deeper meaningful friendships, this has become very important to her.

- Put money into the savings account: It exists, but its usually empty. I am starting small with monthly contributions and then at some point I will switch over to a high yield account, like ING or something like that. I don't know if we will be paying for a couple years of college out of this account, but who knows where it could be in the next 13 years.


See, not as painful as it all looks. There are themes, and once a routine is put into place I'll be on a roll.