It's 9:30. Joey just went to bed in her new platform bed and I just folded all her clean clothes. I'll put them away after she's solidly asleep. At least I got one of the things I wanted to do today done. I have 2 more loads to finish up and then I'll be caught up on laundry.

I still have much other stuff to put away, though. I have to put away the Christmas stuff, put on the new slipcover I bought, finish re-doing Joey's room--transfer things from where they are to where they're going to be, vacuum my sawdust- and pine needle-riddled floor, get a stacking drawer thing for under Joey's desk, find Joey an office chair, go to the grocery store for a few things, and see how much of my book group book I can get read before Thursday night. We'll see how successful I am in the next 2 days. I'd like to have all this taken care of by Friday.

I've read a lot of journals today, some with year-end recaps, some with new year's resolutions or goals and I've been thinking about the plans I have for 2002. Apparently listing your new year's resolutions is de rigeur around here but calling them new year's resolutions is passe--they must be called goals or thoughts or plans or something of that nature. So here are my thoughts/goals/plans for 2002.

As I've been thinking about my goals/plans for this year, I realize that they can pretty much be summed up into two categories: Do More and Do Less. In many cases, the Do More is a corollary to the Do Less or will result in the Do Less. Let me show you.

Do More:

1. Cook. Plan my menus, shop weekly, and budget my time wisely enough so that I have time to begin cooking at a reasonable time (not 6pm when Ed gets home) so that we can eat real food (not convenience food) as a family.

2. Move my body. Walk outside, walk on the treadmill, get up off the freakin' couch, play games, go skiing, ride my bike, ride my scooter, whatever I can do to move my body. I'm telling myself that I don't have to call it exercise or make a big deal about it. I just have to MOVE. Perhaps will this will help me to be smaller by year's end, ya think?

3. Go to bed earlier and get up earlier. I've been threatening to do this since before I started this journal and I have periods of being able to do it but I can't seem to sustain it. I need to find a way to make it last.

4. Write. I *say* I'm going to write more and I *want* to write more but I waste time in this big timesink call the Internet and then I don't have time to cook dinner for my family or do the writing I wanted to do.

5. Scrapbook. See above.

6. Clean. Those who know me must think I'm crazy here because they know how I am about housework but I really *want* to do a better job of maintaining my home. Not just on the tidy-wise but deep down, too. Guests to my home might think my house is clean but if anyone saw my shower, I'd be mortified. Or the litterbox? Yikes! Ed and I made a list of chores that we want done on a weekly basis and assigned them to various people in the family and that's as far as it got. We haven't actually followed our calendar since writing it.

Do Less:

1. Eat out. Instead of eating out 4 or 5 times a week for either lunch or dinner, I think once or twice would be good. Not only would it save money, but it would be better for my health and the health of my family.

2. Waste time on the Internet. Especially Diaryland. I have invested far too many hours here. I need to narrow my focus--read only the diaries that I really enjoy and that are well-written. I need to stop searching for new things to waste time with here. Going to bed earlier will help because I often waste late night hours reading random diaries and watching lame-ass TV when I should be going to bed so I can be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning. If I'm not spending 4 hours a day here, I can be writing, working on my scrapbooks, taking pictures, cleaning my house, doing my laundry in a more timely fashion. All kinds of things. Just imagine what I can do with an extra 20+ hours a week!

3. Waste money. I have a big problem with impulse control when I'm shopping. I'm dangerous. Seriously dangerous. I will be more discriminating before I buy things. Yes, that stainless steel bulb baster with the removable flavor injector tip is great and I did need a new bulb baster, but I could have gotten a plastic one for $3 instead of that fancy pants one for $10. Stuff like that--I just cleaned out a cupboard before Christmas and threw into the Goodwill bag a whole bunch of stuff that I had bought on impulse and never used. Like the tray for making Mickey Mouse cookie suckers. Or the pan for making mini-muffins. I didn't throw those away because I can see myself using them some day, but the other stuff--how many popsicle molds do I need? I had 3 sets. And how many orange T-shirts do I need? Stuff like that has to stop.

4. Eat. Not so much food in general but food that isn't satisfying and isn't going to help me be healthier. That means less reliance on convenience foods and fast food, too. I'm sure that doing more cooking will help in this respect.

That about sums it up. These are things I've been mulling over for days and I'll be working on them in the year to come. Even though it looks like 9 goals, it's really more like only 4 or 5 because by doing some, I will automatically be taking care of the others.

Later...

--L