23 Skidoo |
"Memories are all we have." |
At the beginning of the year I did something I don’t usually do; I made a list of “plans” for 2011. I normally don’t like making goals because I feel like it just sets me up to be disappointed in myself, so I am sure that’s why I chose the word “plans” instead. I thought it would be interesting to revisit this list and see how I’m doing 3/4 through the year.
***
Here’s the list:
-Settle into a new home with my wonderful husband
-Keep letting the family and friends I have left know how much I care about them
-Make more homemade cards because it’s fun
-Volunteer at least once a month
-Let myself be sad when I need to be but content otherwise
-Stop saying sorry unnecessarily all the time
-Figure out how to forgive people who don’t deserve to be forgiven
***
My personal assessment:
-Settle into a new home with my wonderful husband - Success! We finally moved into a house in February after a year of searching and after 7 others fell through. We love the house and we have done a pretty incredible amount of work on it including getting all new appliances, new windows, planting a magnolia tree out front (one of Joey’s dreams), and most recently putting up an awning over the front door. It didn’t take long at all to get settled into the house, and the wonderful husband aspect is a given. So I feel good about this one!
-Keep letting the family and friends I have left know how much I care about them - Needs Work. I am not so sure about this one. I feel like I could have done a much better job at this than I have. Chronic illness (and now pregnancy) keeps me in my own little world a little too often, I think. Sometimes I am afraid that I just assume that the most important people in my life know how important they are to me but when I stop and think about it I am not convinced I do enough to actually *show* them exactly how much that is. I still have a couple months to work on this before 2012 because once I have a baby I know there will be even less time to do, well, anything.
-Make more homemade cards because it’s fun - Great Success! I not only made more cards, I even started my own etsy store where I sell them. I’ve sold 22 sets of cards and worked on custom orders and made close to $100. I’m still enjoying the process and it feels good to put myself out there, which is not something I am always comfortable doing. Cheers for going outside my comfort zone!
-Volunteer at least once a month - Partial success. I started out doing great with this one. I was going to the Orange County Regional History Center once or twice a month and volunteering with the Research Librarian doing little projects here and there. My biggest project was working on taking these huge handwritten books from the 1920s and 1930s that listed out work permits that were given to people and companies throughout downtown Orlando. I would transcribe the name, date, building info, lot #, and whatever other info was listed in the books and enter them in an Excel Spreadsheet for easy reference for researchers. After a couple months of work, I had barely finished sections C and D and then I found out that the woman I volunteered for (who I had been volunteering for since I was in college) was retiring. She told me there would no longer be anyone there on Saturday’s since she was leaving, and I would not be able to go during the week because of work. This was around the same time I found out I was pregnant, and I’ve been too tired to do anything anyway, so it probably worked out. I feel like I put in a good effort on this and I enjoyed it while it lasted. Although it wasn’t much different from the data entry I do at my job for 40 hours a week, it gave me more of a sense of purpose because at least I was working with historical documents in a non-corporate setting. It gives me something to aim for someday when I will hopefully fulfill some of my future career plans and maybe even get a job I actually like.
-Let myself be sad when I need to be but content otherwise - Mostly unsuccessful. This is a hard one. I guess I get sad kind of easily and I’m not wonderful at being content, even when I know I should be. I need to work on this a lot, especially before the baby is born.
-Stop saying sorry unnecessarily all the time - Somewhat successful. This is something I have been working on for the past couple of years and I feel I’ve come a long way, but still have further to go. I got this idea from my mom who never says sorry unless she really means it. I, on the other hand, say I am sorry all the time, whether I mean it or not, and whether the apology is deserved or not. I still find myself apologizing unnecessarily, but not as often as in the past.
-Figure out how to forgive people who don’t deserve to be forgiven - Fail and Success. This one was based on some pretty specific instances and I think that I was pretty successful with part of it (thanks to my mental health therapist!) and for the other half I really tried but I’m not quite sure I succeeded. It’s hard to forgive people who aren’t sorry and/or don’t think they did anything wrong! This is not off the table though. I am determined to truly let go of the rest of this baggage from the past over the next couple months.
