New Year Hopes

So ok, just before January ends, here is my “Hopes for 2010” post you’ve been waiting for on the edge of your seat. All three of you. 


So, I don’t believe in New Year Resolutions. I understand the concept, the beginning of a New Year or theoretical decade, brings a sense of a fresh start and change etc. But the whole “My New Year Resolution is to _____” when we all know no real change is taking effect is just silly to me. It’s almost like making resolutions is a way to look like you’re attempting to change, but just by making a resolution that EVERYONE breaks, you have permission to break it as soon as it becomes too hard, because well, who the heck really keeps them anyway? So anyway, that’s my soap box on that.

But I am all about setting goals and changing things up. And where I don’t really have anything that I am stopping or adding in my life, I am looking to make some changes. So here are a few of the hopes I have for 2010.

Travel. Last year after graduating I gave Chris a choice. Either we go on a vacation or buy a house. We decided the house would probably be the best next step for us, and so we bought one. So that leaves the vacation for this year. Thanks to the First Time Buyer Stimulus we’ll be able to afford one. Since we’ve been together we’ve been on some trips. Mostly weekends away to the condo or Vegas. One trip to Indiana to Chris’s uncle’s lake house. But no real vacations, just the two of us. Not even a Honeymoon. This year that will change. We’re planning on a 7-day cruise to the Mexican Riviera and the main event of the year, probably just after our anniversary (the week of turns out to be the most expensive if the year :/). Though there are about a million options for cruises out there, so if anyone has any suggestions or advice I would be grateful for anything you got. In addition I am planning a weekend in San Francisco to visit Chris’s cousins, a long weekend to the Grand Canyon and of course the annual Vegas weekend. There might be more, but if next Dec we could have at least done those 4 trips, I will be one happy girl.

Make our house a home. I love our house. I really do. I’m always surprised at how lucky we were to get a house that we both love so much. Of course it isn’t perfect, and it’ll take probably a good long while to get everything we dream of doing done, but all the same I love it. The simple goals for 2010 for this house will be unpacking, organization and some decorating. The stimulus money will help with the decorating so we can get some decent couches; replace the very old water heater and a few other things. I want to set up our office so that it’s usable, instead of the storage room that it is now, set up my sewing corner, sadly will probably done after I’m done sewing my dress, but hopefully with an actual place to sew, I will be able to sew a lot more. I want to set up the back room as the guest room/workout room. It pretty much is just that now, but I’ve got all my sewing stuff in there because the office is storage. I’d like to do some painting and get some cool wall art. And we should probably have a House Warming Party at some point.

School. It’s been about seven months since I finally got my BA degree. Because my degree is in Psychology there really isn’t too far I can go with that. I know I don’t want to spend the next 30+ years working where I’m at, though I am ever grateful that I have a job at all, so I need to do what is necessary to get me to my goals. I was originally planning on putting off grad school until we had a baby, but It looks like that’s not happening any time soon and I can’t put off grad school forever waiting for what could be years (if ever) away. At this point I’m not planning on starting in the fall, though that could change, the sooner I start the sooner I’ll be done, but at the very latest I’d like to start in the spring of 2011. At this point I’m planning on going to Cal Baptist because they seem the most accommodating with scheduling, and with a husband and full time job that is definitely a big plus. So this year I need to make decisions, fill out paper work and Financial Aid, and get my ducks in a row to spend the next three more years in school. Hopefully when it’s over I can move on to a job I’ll really love.

Work better. Speaking of jobs, I have recently become more and more aware that my dislike for my job has caused me to be way too relaxed in it. I know I do not put forth nearly as much effort as I can or should. I know this lethargy in turn causes me to let things slip, which makes me more lethargic. And I’m really not liking who I’ve become as an employee. I may not love my job, or even really like it. At all. But that’s no reason for me not to do it better. I’ve really been working on pushing myself to work harder. To not go to Google Reader or the message boards as much. To set myself specific goals to be accomplished every day. To be an all around better employee. This is definitely going to be a struggle in a job I don’t really care for, but I at least owe it to myself to do better at my job, and I find I do enjoy it a bit better when I know I’m putting in the effort.

Get more spiritually grounded. This is kinda a biggie. My faith used to have a much bigger place in my life. I drew strength from it and depended on it. But over the last few years as life as become ever increasingly busier, I have noticed that I haven’t grown spiritually much at all. I still pray, almost every day, but not nearly as much as I used to. I honestly don’t even remember when the last time I read my Bible was. I haven’t been to church in years. And I know it has definitely affected me. I still have my faith, but it’s not as strong as it could be or has been. I really feel I need to make some changes this year. I have about a million excuses and reasons, but in the end being healthy spiritually really helps me to be a much more grounded person. And I’ve neglected this part of my life for far too long and I really feel the emptiness in my life because of it. So there will probably be some more in depth posts about this as the year goes on. It used to be a big part of who I was, and I miss that part. I need to find it again.

So there you have it. My hopes for the New Year. These are areas I would like to improve on and we’ll just see how they go over the next year. And “decade”, because what’s the point if I only focus on this stuff for a year? There are of course a bunch of others, but these are the ones that I’ll be focusing on. If these get accomplished in at least some degree, I will be pretty happy.

End of a Chapter

So, as I’ve said before I’m apparently not very good at this. It’s not that I don’t have anything I want to say. It just, sometimes after staring at a computer screen for 10 hours, coming home and staring at another one is just too much. My iTouch has allowed me to keep up with things like Facebook and Twitter and email. It’s small and easy to use compared to dragging out the two ton laptop and suffering hot flashes as it blows hot air on my leg, not to mention it’s currently dying a slow and miserable death and it gets mad that I want it to keep working when it clearly does not want to work anymore. But it’s one thing to type a quick message and another to type out a whole blog post on that iTouch. My fingers are too fat and I have to backspace way too often.


Then there’s the question that honestly does anyone care that much about what I have to say that I should burden them with my thoughts? Though obviously no one HAS to read anything I say, and I figure that if you don’t want to “hear” it, you won’t read it. But still, I’m really not that interesting. I bore myself to tears quite regularly, so why should I presume that anyone else would be interested? Then there’s the fact that often I really don’t know what to say. There can be a lot going on, but not a lot I want to talk about. Or a lot I want to talk about, but not a lot that I should. So there is my very long thought process on why I don’t post very much. But, believe it or not, this isn’t the point of this post.

So, 2009 ended. On New Year’s Eve my brother and a friend of ours had a conversation at length about it being the end of the decade. In just about every way except culturally we still have another year before the end of the decade. But culturally we recognize 2010 as the beginning of a new decade instead of the last year of the old one. But either way I see 2010 as the beginning of a whole new chapter in my life, on several levels. I’ve been in some kind of weird retrospective since we started 2010. I don’t think I really even thought much about it until I started to read everyone else’s blogs on the year past and the years ahead, and that brought me to the point of considering where I have been and where I’d like to go with my life over the next year and next decade. So, yes, this is the obligatory “good bye old year, hello new year post. Except, as I’ve gone over what I’d like to say in my head, I think I’ll be breaking this down into two posts. One in reflection and one of what I’m looking forward to. I’m pretty long winded, as you can probably tell from the longest intro ever, so you can probably see the need for two different posts.

So, first the end of the “decade”. Ten years ago I was 20 years old. And oh so much younger than I thought I was at the time. But then again, I think that’s the case for pretty much every 20 year old. I was fresh off the plane from spending four months living in London. Probably still my biggest adventure to date, and I’m sad I haven’t had the chance to relive or top it since. Also an experience I really should go into much more detail about in a future post. Let’s just say for now, it was pretty life changing. I was also fresh out of Bible College. Another experience that deserve more attention in s future post.

Over the last ten years, I’ve made new friends and lost some, rekindled old friendships, solidified others. I worked a terrible job at a Travelodge, began a love-hate relationship working for Mervyn’s. Was fired. Began a temporary, part time student job as a GS-1 for the federal government, and moved myself up to a permanent, full-time position that I could easily turn into a career if I choose to. Spent five years getting my AA degree (actually one AS and two AA degrees, and a few certificates) and another two getting my BA. I met and married my husband who had changed me and my life more than I could have ever anticipated. I added a whole new family to my life and bought a house, pretty much guaranteeing that we’re gonna be in the I.E. for a while. And I turned 30.

It had most definitely been a decade of growing, changing and learning. One of my goals in life is to never be satisfied with who I am. I hope that I am always looking for ways that I can grow and expand myself. I look back on the past decade and I do feel that I achieved that. Though I think I still could have done better. I achieved a lot of goals, but not all of them. But not achieving them also means that I have goals still ahead of me to achieve. I remember wondering where I was gonna be in life when 2010 came around. The idea of it actually being 2010 was just so inconceivable. It still is. Part of me feels like life none of this has happened and one day I’ll wake up and be a teenager again. Taking a look around me now, I’m not exactly where I thought I would be 10 years ago, but I know I’m where I’m supposed to be. Just farther down the same path. Closer to whatever destination I’m headed towards. When I think back on all that’s happened over the last 10 years it makes me pretty curious to see what lies ahead.

Ok, I think since I prattle on way too much 2009 will get a post to itself. Man, I talk a lot. So stay tuned for Part 2.
UPDATE: My parents got me a laptop for Christmas, so now I don’t have the slow computer excuse anymore.