Looking Ahead

I hope everyone has enjoyed the holidays. We'll be spending a very quiet New Years this time around - we're driving back from visiting my family in Pennsylvania, and will be much too tired by the time we get home to do anything but fall over.

In the final days of the year, I officially met two of my modest goals: The Prometheus Tapestry went out to my beta readers this morning, and I finished reading another book, bringing my total for the year to twelve. One book a month isn't great, but I feel like it's something I can build on next year, and again--it's better than I've done in some recent years. Maybe as the kids get older, I really will get my life under more control?

In between final editing passes these past couple of mornings, I've been motivated to set up a list of goals for next year. I don't want to lose momentum or bog myself down with too many commitments, so I'm taking a leaf from The Happiness Project and trying to focus on one area each month, each one with a handful of tasks that I know for a fact can be accomplished in a weekend.

January's focus has to be on (groan) finances, where I have a list of things I've been putting off. In the maintenance zone are exercise, where I just want to keep up with what I've been doing, and writing, where I will focus on researching the new book. Throw in a couple of social events, and the month will be over before I know it.

Which is good, because January is usually pretty gross.