20 Goals for Twenty-Eleven

James showed me this Dilbert comic last week shortly after a discussion of our 2011 resolutions (he totes his Dilbert calendar around as if it were a Bible). Apparently he thinks I'm a little too much like Dogbert (the white dog). Okay, maybe I am... but just a little.

I started out thinking I'd name this post "11 Resolutions for 2011" or something catchy along those lines. Then I began jotting down our resolutions and realized there were a lot more than 11 (yikes, what does that say about us!?). I didn't end up whittling down the list but instead decided to call them goals rather than resolutions. Having 20 "resolutions" just sounds like a recipe for failure. Some of them are really more like goals anyway. So here they are, in no significant order other than the order in which they popped into my head. Some are mine, others are James' (see Dilbert strip above) and with luck and a little hard work, hopefully all will be accomplished in the next year. The fact that I'm proclaiming them to you all on this blog is a good way of keeping us honest. Oh dear, I'm already dreading the "2011 Revisited" post this time next year!

And now, introducing our 20 Goals for 2011...drumroll, please!

Goal #1: Read at least 20 books. Anything goes here - bios, non-fiction, trashy beach worthy novels, self-help books, even short stories if we get desperate next December. =)

Goal #2: Run 1011 miles in 2011 (Cary). Running 2011 miles sounded a little too ambitious even for me, especially considering I haven't even run once yet this year, oops. Also see Goals 4 and 8.

Goal #3: Volunteer somewhere. More than once.

Goal #4: Change up our fitness routine. This means less running (except for those 1011 miles, see goal #2) and more yoga/spinning/climbing/karate?

Goal #5: Stop biting my fingernails (Cary). This is gross and I've had the habit since I was five. Time to grow up and have pretty nails like the rest of 'em.

Goal #6: Go vegan for an entire month (Cary). I always wanted to try this but have used family gatherings (among other things) as my excuse. Really, this just means I have to plan around months with big eating holidays because my parents and in-laws will probably go bananas on me - they are still getting used to the vegetarian thing and it's been SEVEN years!

Goal #7: Declutter. This applies to our lives as well as our basement.

Goal #8: Participate in a bike race (Cary) and a 5K road race (James).

Goal #9: Complete an ultramarathon (Cary). This means any race over 26.2 miles. Marathons are so 2010.

Goal #10: Lose those five pounds that came with 2010 and do it without dieting (Cary). Goals 2, 4, 6, 8 and 9 should help with this.

Goal#11: Find a new date night activity. Dance or cooking classes might be fun.

Goal #12: Restore a piece of furniture. I've always wanted to do this and the new house will come with a lot more space to fill!

Goal #13: Be smarter about our finances. coupon. calculate. budget. track. save.

Goal #14: Reinvest in relationships. You know, "make new friends and keep the old."

Goal #15: Dress up more (Cary but James could stand to do this more often too). Not talking high heels here, just add a little more dazzle to the dubs before leaving the house in the morning. Maybe even try a little makeup...or maybe not, that was never really my thing.

Goal #16: Participate fully in the house building process. Make smart decisions. Take it all in. Have few regrets.

Goal #17: Add three new "green" routines to our lifestyle. That's vague because I have no idea what just yet.

Goal #18: Open an Etsy site to promote (hopefully sell!) some of our creative projects.

Goal #19: Patience & Communication. Just keepin' it real here. There's a lot of love in our family, but we're not always the best at being patient (mostly Cary) and communicating about what our immediate needs are (both of us). We have our squabbles but the brilliant thing about our relationship is that they never last more than five minutes. We have been blessed with the inability to stay mad at each other. However, it's always easy (in retrospect) to see why we ended up in the squabble in the first place and it almost always goes back to the source: impatience and miss-communication. So we'll be working on that.

Goal #20: Reduce stress. In theory, goals 1-19 should help a lot with this...or, perhaps this will backfire and having proclaimed goals 1-19 will simply add stress to our lives.

That's it! I'm cutting it off at 20. Is that too many? Dang, I've always had a problem with trying to be an over-achiever (oops, there's #21). Is this a recipe for disaster? Maybe. We shall see. Hope you stick around to find out! What are YOUR goals for 2011? Do share!