Monday, December 22, 2008

Setback

Not an official goal but something I wanted to do in 2009 was to pay my car loan off before Christmas -- which would have been about three months early. And when I knew I wanted to do this, I knew it was an ambitious plan.

And my company has announced no raises for next year, and likely no bonus. Which is a decision I totally respect and understand (I have heard something about the economy), but it does make it hard to pay things off early.

So not really a setback. I can still totally meet my official goals, I can still make my car payments on time and pay it off in 2010, and I can afford to keep
myself clothed and fed (clothed on the cheap, fed better paid to my practical fun skills goal). I am lucky in many respects. And I am hoping to take a summer vacation with Boyfriend. All is well.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Juliet's Life

Welcome to my blog! You may or may not know me, but you'll get to know me as you read on.

I started this blog because as I was setting and stepping out my goals for 2009 it became apparent that I needed a way to track my progress. So here we are. The blog may morph into many other things (and it may happen sooner rather than later), but that's the genesis.

So here are the goals.
  • Lose weight. Yes, I am that creative. Since one of the objectives of this blog is total honesty, I'll throw out that my ideal weight (for now) is about 170. This is a big weight loss. But honestly, it's about being healthy more than the actual number, so there will probably be a selection of food and fitness goals here rather than actual weight loss goals. I am thinking that one of the first goals will be training for and completing a bike event ("race", but I'm more about completing the event than doing it speedily).
  • Professional development in 2009. Regardless of my economy or the state of my current job or whatever, I need to grow my skills. This will both make me more marketable and increase my satisfaction with my work. I'm in communications, and I'd really like to become an expert in internal communications.
  • Strengthen connections. I feel like I have strong connections with people I see often, but I would like to keep friendships and relationships with people who aren't in my day-to-day life at the moment. Enter the blog, and there will be some more steps there.
  • Increase my practical fun skills (which is a term I pretty much made up). At the moment, this looks like increasing my knitting and cooking skills - two new recipes a month, and some (undetermined) knitting project.
So this is where you come in. Help me stay accountable, and stay tuned for progress. Since there are goals for the blog, we're going for 1-2 posts per week.