Welcome 2012! A Year of General Improvement.

What a year this will be.

I had to laugh when I saw the cover of Real Simple in the grocery line yesterday:

Their list and mine--nearly identical!

I have been thinking about how best to approach this year of change, and though I love, love, love Gretchen Rubin's month by month approach--after trying all week to schmoosh my stuff into that particular format--I've realised--it's just not for me. I sort of have to tackle everything all at once.

But here are the broad strokes, thanks to Real Simple:

reduce your debt
We're going to pay down some debt this year--and not let it creep back. I'll be signing my husband and I up for Financial Peace University. Daedalus says it'll be great to "learn a thing or two"--while I want to commit to the entire program--so we'll have to see how it goes.

lose weight faster
After dithering around with weight loss and exercise for the past few years, I'm going to get serious for a whole year. My goals are to exercise 1x a day, 6 days a week and eat according to plan (which, right now, is following the Mayo Clinic Pyramid Plan for 1400 calories/day.)

learn to say no
Actually, I do not have to worry about this one--unless it's saying "no" to all the stuff I want to do!

cook smarter
Absolutely. I've been steadily trying to move us away from pre-packaged food--and even though I stay home and have more time than most--I still find it a challenge to make chicken nuggets and french fries from scratch--and have the kids like them and eat them! If I could do it over again, I'd never ever let a packaged or pre-made food into this house. Seriously, modern "convenience" food is engineered to wire your brain to crave it. Anyway, enough soapbox. More oven fries!

clear the clutter
My goal is to make the basement a completely functional and liveable space. In the past, I have merely wanted to organize it--but it was still just a giant storage room. I have vague ideas of turning it into a work out room or an old fashioned "rec room" or a craft area. We'll see what happens.

reenergize your style
This assumes I have one, of course. I don't. But I would like to have one. I want to present myself better every day. I want to learn to dress well--even though that seems impossible at my current weight. I want to get some proper make-up and I'll be cutting my hair too, soon. Here's a un-touched up picture of me taken this afternoon as you were oohing and ahing over the last image. (I do not want to misrepresent myself!)



But wait, there's more!

There's the on-going ,Winter Project list, of course.

But more than that, I want to stretch a bit--grow. I want to learn something new every month: take a class, take up a creative activity like cross stitch or embroidery. This month, I'm starting with a "weights for women" class at 9am on Sunday mornings. Ugh. But it's only for six classes--how bad can it be?

I have some plans for improving a few relationships but I'll save those for later. The only other thing is scrapbooking. I'd like to take it up again--for the family and what we do--but I'm not really sure what to do. Project Life which is a daily/weekly project seems like too much for me--but I want something just as streamlined.

So, that's it for now.

Do you have anything special in mind you'd like to accomplish in 2012?