Halfway Through The Dark

I don't much go in for New Year's Resolutions. Reason 1: After the indulgences of the holidays, the last thing I feel like doing is motivating myself to do better, thus making me feel guilty for how I behaved during the whole month of December. Reason 2: Because everybody else is doing it and what can I say? I like to buck against the trends of the world, unless that trend starts with "Lady" and ends with "Gaga." (I regrettably admit that I have caught her disease, whatever that means.)

But I do believe in trying to be better, especially following a year where I simply tried to survive. (2010, it's been real, it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun.) So, without any further ado, here are 11 things that I want mold 2011 into being.

1. Equal amounts of input and output, input being everything I take in and output being everything I give back. I got this idea from a post shared on google reader. It is now days later and it's still on my brain. (Seriously, if the time I spent writing equaled the time I spent thinking about writing...well, let's just say I'd be a much better writer.)
2. Catch up at my own pace. Coming home from a mission meant that I had a year-and-a-half's worth of books, music, tv, and movies to theoretically embrace and I continually get overwhelmed and cranky that I'm not caught up yet. I hate feeling that way about something I love.
3. Love Austin. I want to explore with reckless abandon, get lost, and discover hole-in-the-wall establishments.
4. Don't buy unnecessary things. Ooh, that one's gonna be tricky.
5. Watch more Doctor Who. I'm a bit of a novice Whovian, but oh how I love it. The post title is from the Christmas episode and even though it refers to Winter Solstice, I have decided to make it my mantra for however long I need it to be.
6. Take more photos. Find the guts to show them to others.
7. Take an interior design class. So I was watching TRON last week and when they were in Jeff Bridges' man cave I spent the whole time neglecting the "plot" (not actually a thing in TRON) and instead obsessing over the furniture and decorating techniques. That's when I realized I should probably do something about that.
8. OR take a sewing class. Maybe both? Sewing because I went to a fabric store with the BFF a couple weeks ago. I told her, "I feel like I've found my destiny and I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO SEW."
9. Have fun with Goodreads. Be my friend! Please?
10. Spend more energy focused on building relationships. The move will mean creating a brand new social circle and I am terrified. But also kinda stoked.
11. Continue to be totally rad in every way, shape, and form.
Kidding. It's really...
11. Make a conscious, daily effort to be grateful. Call it cliché or whatevs, if I can accomplish that one thing, then I will feel like I've done some good to kick off what is sure to be the most awesome decade ever. Word.