New Year's Resolutions

I'm hoping that by typing and publishing my resolutions for all the world to see, I'll do a better job of keeping them. We'll see how that goes. My first New Year's Resolution should probably be to blog more than eight times in six months. Again, we'll see how that goes.

So here they are, in all their glory:

1. Research foster care and adoption--This is our goal for February and March, specifically. The next step in this overall goal will have to wait until more research has been done. But we hope by the end of 2012 to have made bigger strides in moving toward adoption, whatever that may look like.

2. Pay down a large chunk of Chris's student loans--We have a more specific goal that this, but I'll let the vaguer version suffice for a public forum.

3. Have more date nights (with Chris): Since one of our big goals is financial, this will probably consist of a lot of at home date nights, with a few actual outings throughout the year. Good thing we own four versions of Scrabble.

3. Read 40 books--I met my goal of 50 books in 2011 (I actually read 51!), but I'm not going to lie--it was tough. I'm choosing 40 this year to give myself more room to read longer books. I keep track of my reading on Goodreads, if anyone cares to join me.

4. Exercise--Did you notice I didn't say exercise more? Hah! That's because I basically never exercise, except for a couple of (glorious? tortuous?) weeks in October 2011. Here's a fact that I'm willing to admit in writing, and in public: I hate to exercise. I would rather read a book or take a nap. I failed the President's Physical Fitness Test every year I was in school, because I couldn't do a pull up to save my life. And I still turned out to be a functional adult human being, albeit one who should probably exercise more. Michelle Obama would probably prefer I stop talking about this, lest I become a bad influence for the children.

5. Learn to bake using a sourdough starter--This is a semi-failure from my 2011 goals. I did make my own whole wheat sourdough starter, and I used it probably a dozen times, but then I neglected it, and it grew a scary looking mold on top, and then I threw it down the garbage disposal. I shouldn't feel that badly, since I kept three children and exactly one plant alive in 2011. Letting one sourdough starter die isn't that bad. Except, I also let a bunch of plants die...

6. Try again with my container garden--All of my plants died in my container garden, but it was mostly not my fault. When we lost two trees in a giant windstorm in November, some of the plants were crushed. Several more died when the tree removal crew stacked pots on top of each other. Now I have a bunch of pathetic looking sticks in pots. We'll try again this year.

7. Make ricotta and mozzarella at least once--Cheesemaking sounds fun, and I do love cheese, but what I lack is time (and a cow, goat, or sheep). I'm making this a small goal. If I like making mozzarella and ricotta, I'll continue. Maybe I'll try another cheese after those, but then again, maybe I won't.

8. Teach Declan to read--He's interested, he's ready, and he can already sound out lots of CVC words. We started Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons earlier this week, and he's been reading Level 1 BOB Books for a while now, much to his delight (and mine)!

9. Read one children's novel per month with the kids--We read The Mouse and the Motorcycle in November and December, and the kids loved it! We've also read a few shorter novels, like Absolutely Lucy. I'm using this list from Jim Trelease's website, and this list of preschool chapter books for inspiration.

10. Spend more time with friends--Enough said. I'm hoping to spend more time on the phone with friends who are far away, as well as in person with those of you who are local.