How I did: 105 in 2005

We were driving over to our friends' house last night when the urge to take stock of 2005 struck.

"If I had to come up with a theme for this year," I said, "It would be 'This was the year I learned my limits.' Or maybe it's 'This is the year I learned it's okay to need people.' Or maybe, 'Good grief, this was the year of unpredictability.'"

Hey! Maybe this is why I didn't finish that novel in 2005 -- I am unable to focus on a theme.

Anyway, y'all can look at last year's list on your own time. Here's how it went for me.

Which 105 I did in 2005

• I did manage to pitch 2 new articles every month. Getting the pitches accepted was another matter.


• I did train for the USMC Marathon.


• Build out clips file online.


• Keep writing about television for anyone who will have me.


• Go see the great white shark at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.


• Visit Chicago for something other than a funeral.


• Read at least 24 books, with the themes I picked monthly. Which, BTW, I will not be doing again, because it's really kind of limiting, and made me feel guilty about the other reading I did until knocking off the two books I had vowed to read each month.


• Magazines: read more of them in the library. Cancel subscriptions to the ones I'm not overjoyed to see anymore.


• Master the fine art of making steak au poivre.


• Master the fine art of making perfect oven fries or roasted potatoes.


• Master the fine art of making peppermint bark.


• Make a batch of cookie dough ahead of time, then use it months later. Be quietly smug about it.


• Master the fine art of making homemade macaroni and cheese.


• Master the fine art of making strawberry soup.


• Continue the bi-weekly pedicure habit at Toe Heaven.


• Continue the weekly farmer's market habit in Santa Monica.


• Go to a ballet again.


• Go kayaking in Monterey Bay.


• Go whale-watching out of San Pedro again.


• Go watch my mom graduate from college. Hold up a sign reading "My honor parent can kick your honor student child's ass." (Actually, I got T-shirts made)


• Get Mom a fabulous graduation present.


• Make a charitable donation in my dad's name.


• Make a charitable donation in my Nana and Pop-pop's name.


• Make a charitable donation in my Grandma B's name.


• Do not take the Girl Scouts' inability to call me back or even keep reasonable hours as a sign that God doesn't want me to volunteer for them anymore.


• Make myself known to my elected representative whenever reproductive rights are on the table.


• Make myself known to my elected representative whenever environmental protections are on the table.


• Participate in the California Coastal Clean Up Day: September 17, 2005.


• Keep meditating, and up it to 10 minutes daily.


• Give up sugar for Lent. Again.


• Stop worrying that by complimenting people, I am coming off either as Eddie Haskell, or as a spineless and sappy dork.


• Unpack that one last box I have sitting in the closet from our Nov. 03 move. That's probably where our mortar and pestle are. (And then, two months later, we repacked the house. Ah, the circle of life!)


• Continue saving for a house. (HA! Little did we know ...)


• Redesign the Rage Diaries.


• Actually get some of my digital photos online already. (I did, but I only send out the URL when asked ... it still counts)

Insofar as years went, not a bad one, even if things like buying a car and buying a house distracted me from other, fun things like traveling and surfing. It was also pretty liberating to let go of items I didn't really want to do (Hi, SELF Challenge!). Now that I've got a better idea of which items I really care about doing -- and what, exactly, I can realistically do -- it's made pulling together the 2006 list easier.

So how did you do on your resolutions for 2005? What will you do differently in 2006?

Comments

[molly]

Very impressive, Lisa! I cannot remember my list from 2005. It had to be scrapped for the sake of sanity. My planning did not include any of the crazy events of 2005. But my hopes are high for 2006!

[drunken monkey]

I had a lot of changes right at the start of 2005 -- new job, new city -- so I didn't make set-in-stone resolutions. I did keep things in my head though -- start paying down debt, don't increase debt, get a feature published at work, make a trip home, keep my relationship strong in a year of upheaval, take better care of myself. I did pretty well with those, actually, so I'm going to make real resolutions this year.

[Tracy]

Like DM, I had too much going on in early 2005 to make or follow resolutions. But, I'm pondering doing them as a household this year. I like the idea of these lists, of looking back and seeing what got accomplished.

[Jennifer]

I did 3 out of 5, and I had good reasons for not doing the other two, so it was a great year for me.