Resoluciones!
We all have them, don't we?
I've been kinda figuring mine out over the past couple of weeks.
HEALTHOf course, the old standby - improve my health. I've been a bit better at exercising & a lot better at eating right (save for yesterday morning's Dunkin Donuts coffee & last night's Pollo Tropical.. mmm, fried plantains.. what can I say, I had a weak day.. oh, and pumpkin pie this past weekend).. Still not ideal on the exercising, since I'd like to be doing an hour daily. I went running every weekday after work last week, but this week I went Monday night, then Tuesday night I was in a beyond-sour mood, last night was the first night of Math.... Ah well. I'll keep trying to improve, and I guess that's all I can really do; back on the horse, again and again. Tonight, again, with the horse - a jog before cat duty. My plan is to bring tennis shoes to math class so afterwards I can use the seven flights of stairs to get to my car as an advantage - do 45 minutes of huffing & puffing up and down them and still be home by 8:30 or so.
READINGYou know I like to read, but I can go months without finishing a book - it seems there are always more pressing things to do. But, dammit, no more. I am going to MAKE TIME for reading.So far I have finished two books this year. I hope to keep that going, and finish a couple each month from now on, provided that I find something good.... Suggestions?
MONEYThis isn't a by-choice resolution; I've done some hard thinking. Ideally, I'd get a car with a/c before summertime. Ideally, I'd move closer to work/Chris to make that whole annoyance go away ("Where's my belt?" "Where is my nail polish?" "Where are those one pair of shoes?" The answer is: at the house where I'm NOT, so retrieving them would be an hour-plus endeavor.)And, you know, I don't make much, but I make a helluva lot more than some people so there's no reason I should be driving a 12-year-old car AND be living with a roommate AND still have nothing in the bank. Two of the three, okay, but not three of the three! So I'm putting myself on a severe financial diet. I get $160 per paycheck for gas and food and birthday gifts and $4 kombucha tea and new clothes and cat food and everything else. Everything else not paid out in bills stays in the bank. Forbidding anything bad & expensive happening, I should be able to save several hundred dollars each month. But sadly, even with tightening the belt, I think the living and automobilic situations will have to stay as-is for now, due to my next resolution...
SCHOOLI resolve to work hard and get it done with! Although I have nearly 60 credits at BCC, I am still 87 credits away from my degree of choice at FAU. How is that possible, when Bachelor's typically are 120ish-credit deals? Poor-slash-no planning on my part. All those great electives I took? I should have taken different ones. Nothing I can do now about it, of course, except plod ahead.Luckily, a lot of classes I need to take at FAU are offered online at BCC. BCC costs half as much, approximately. Online classes are great. So I am going to take as many classes as I can at BCC, and finish it all up at FAU. So here I am, in two classes this semester, and trying to talk two other teachers into letting me register late for their classes so I can get some more classes over and done with and maybe finish with everything by 2009. Ha ha ha ha! And that will involve taking 5-6 classes per semester! Yeesh!So anyway, to bring it back to finances, I have to pay everything myself unless I am officially accepted to a program at FAU, which I can be in the fall (as long as they let me continue to take classes at BCC simultaneously).. Until then, everything is outta my pocket. So I must save! save! save! for my summer classes and books. And probably after that, too, although I'm doubting the Civic will last until 2009!
http://flickr.com/photos/daveward/84357358/Ha!
Also, I would like to eat more raw food. I would like to be better about getting Birthday cards to folks before their birthdays. Oh yeah, and saving some $ each month towards Christmas so it's not a huge financial hit in December.
So anyway, this is the plan for my year. :) How about y'all?