I’ve spent the last few weeks reflecting on 2016 and thinking about what 2017 has to offer. My year has already started off much better than 2016, and I am so grateful for that.
I love December 31st and January 1st. For me, those two days are a mix of the old and new, the past and the future. But I hate hearing about resolutions. I usually make short term goals for each month rather than making new year’s resolutions. This year I decided to set some long-term goals.
Be intentional.
Late last year, I became really lax with so many areas of my life. I lost my drive for freelancing, and I fell into this odd period of not caring about my work, which is not me. I also didn’t even attempt to maintain any of my friendships. (Luckily my friends are pretty great). I put no effort into building any sort of relationship with some awesome new people I met. I felt really hands-off and lazy at the end of the year in so many different areas.
This year, the number one area in which I want to be more intentional is my friendships. I’ve said “We should do this more often!” or “Text me, and we’ll make plans,” and not actually acted. 2017 is the year of making plans with my friends (to take over the world obviously).
Read two books a month.
I bought a ton of books in 2016 and promptly read NONE of them. I got sucked up in magazines and blogs and forgot my first love– books. I have a really bad habit of starting and reading two to four books at once and never finishing them. My goal for this year is to read two books a month, not concurrently, so I don’t get burned out.
I started two books at the very end of January on my trip to Florida and finished them while I was there. So I’m counting those as a January & February read.
The Princess Diarist — Carrie Fisher
Of course Amazon had this book on backorder after my favorite princess died. I found this book at Sundog Books in Seaside when I was down for 30A Songwriters Festival, and I immediately bought it. Carrie Fisher is my forever inspiration.

All the Light We Cannot See — Anthony Doerr
I can’t form sentences to convey how excellent this book was. I bought this back in 2015 and just now read it. WW2 is one of my favorite time periods to read about. The story and characters are incredible. This book makes my top ten list and is definitely one of those books I could read again and again.
I’m currently reading Rogue One because why not have a little fun.
Set attainable fitness and health goals
Ahh. A goal about setting goals. I really want to to find a workout series that works for me. If I can’t find a series that works, I think joining a gym that offers classes would be great for me. A super easy goal I’ve set is to walk two miles with General each day. So far we’ve been doing pretty well. I’m also working on eliminating Coke (UGH) and dairy (double UGH). For the past few years, I’ve suspected that dairy is linked to the digestion issues I’ve been having. That’s a totally self-diagnosed statement as I’ve never spoken to my doctor about it, but it’s become increasingly obvious over the past six months that something in fettucine alfredo, cream cheese, mozzarella sticks, and those stupid Knorr cheese noodles packs is wrecking me. Also, I hate vegetables so I need to get my act together about those guys. The biggest issues for me in setting fitness and health goals is always that I try too much at one time. Pacing the setting of goals is my biggest focus.
Keep Writing
I’ve spent a good chunk of time this year writing posts for this here website (aka my neglected child), writing in my journal (#blessed), and writing to-do lists (of course). Writing, including those lists, has always been therapeutic for me, and I want to keep it up. Definitely not going to specify how much I write, though, because I know that’ll get out of hand real quick.
Here’s to working on it all.