New Year; New Goals...

A beautiful sunrise photo I took a few days ago from my balcony. 

It’s the dawn of a New Year and I have myself playing with idea of setting new resolutions for this Year of 2011. I find it exciting and for me it’s rather like a blank canvas that is calling me to paint a new scene. What will it be? And how will it turn out? Hmmm… that is certainly food for thought.


And as I am sitting here enjoying a cup of coffee, and my mind is perusing through all of the possibilities; I can’t help but reflect on how I only attained about 40% of last year’s resolutions. Which I will admit was rather dismal and I can’t help but think that I need to be more realistic. No matter how much you may want to set goals and plan ahead; life has a way of throwing a few wrenches with possibility a few crow bars at you, or whatever other tools that may come to mind. There’s no possible way to see around that curve in the road and know what’s coming your way.

So what I’m trying to say is that maybe I need to set goals that are perhaps a bit vaguer? But then again I just might be too easy on myself. This is the dilemma that I find myself in as I am need of another cup of joe. But then again I maybe just over analyzing this to death; …which I do have a tendency to do. Hmmm… Okay so with all that going on in my head, here is the list that I’m thinking of…

GOALS...
1. Save more money! This was the one goal that I really did manage this last year. I now have enough in a savings account that if out of necessity I could go 6 months at my current cost of living if I lost my job. Not bad and I’m thinking I should continue this and try to work towards a full year.

2. Find a balance with my running and cycling. Run some more of those fun 5K’s. Last year, I ran two half marathons and I felt that I really had accomplished something. It was fun running and finishing one of them alongside a friend. But I did all this running and it came at the cost of not being able to enjoy my cycling as much. With that in mind I’m thinking of signing up for more 5K runs and giving myself the time to enjoy my cycling.

3. Do one century on my bike. I came close last year and if not due to a mechanical problem I could have done it. But I made the attempt too late in the cycling season and only had the one opportunity. Part of the reason I attempted it too late in the season was because I was training too much for running.

4. Be more conscious about my weight. Basically lose weight but I don’t want to focus on a particular goal weight. I feel like I would be setting myself up for failure if I did that and also would pushing towards unhealthy type of eating habits. I definitely would like to lose this the weight I gained over the holidays. It’s been a sugar fest from Hell the last few weeks. I would like to rein in all that bad holiday eating and work back towards the weight I was at during the end of the cycling/running season. I was within 6 lbs. of a goal weight that I had in mind for years. I was pretty pleased with myself and I think with some healthy habits and exercise I could be there again. I would like to work towards it in a more healthy way.

5. Commute more to work either on my bicycle or via walking. I think this will help with my other financial goals and also allow me to get more exercise. Sounds like a Win-Win situation to me.

6. Finish my 100 Salt Lake City Porches Project. I’m currently working on porch #9 and I think it is progressing well. I would LOVE to tie the project with a charity if I can and start selling them on-line on my Art blog. I also would like to have a showing of all 100 Salt Lake City Porches in one place; preferably not in my small one bedroom apartment. If you get the chance check out my Allgood Art blog.

7. Narrow down the clutter/things in my life. We live an age where things/items seem to collect around us. For some of us it is a status symbol. For others it maybe just in the pure joy of having some of these items around them. But lately to me quite a few of these items/things seem to be getting in the way and just collecting dust. Also, sometimes it seems as though some of these items require other items and can develop into an unseemly amount of MORE things. It’s not as though I can take these with us when we die and on top of that I only live in a small one bedroom apartment. So, part of my goal in this is clear out a great deal of those items that I don’t need. I would love to work towards being able to move everything in my apartment in one truck load if I needed to move. And yes I know that this may sound contrary to do a painting project of 100 Salt Lake City Porches. But even so, I would like to “clean up” some of my act. I have items that sit in upper areas of closets that have not seen the light of day. I also have a closet FULL (to over flowing) of clothes that I need to trim down. I will admit that I am a clothes horse and most of it is from thrift store finds that I REALLY should have never bought in the first place. WHAT was I thinking? So I’ll need to sit down and figure out what I need and what I don’t need. Then, I’ll start trimming down.

THERE! 
I think that's enough goals for one year, don't you?