It’s New Year’s Resolution time!

Here are mine for 2024:

1. Journal again. This is a big one. I used to do it a lot. I have a lot of thoughts. I miss writing them down and then reflecting on them. A weekly post to my journal Tumblr, or just jotting something down in my regular journal–that would be very nice! Maybe I’ll make it a Sunday thing? Some kind of Sunday-relaxation-self-care-evening thing. Take a bath, do some skincare, light a candle, write in my journal thing
2. Every time I go onto social media to scroll, POST something instead.
3. Get regular massages again. I need a new massage place.
4. Do strengthening/pelvic floor exercises 5x/week
5. Do cardio 5x/week. And get in 70 K steps.
6. Finish drafting the YA dark academia
7. Draft another YA thriller. Start to finish, in one year!
8. Draft another adult thriller
9. Start drafting something else. What? I don’t know yet. TBD
10. Create a solid author social media plan and stick to it
11. Stick to the monthly date night
12. Start a monthly friend date night!
13. Give audio books another shot. Listen to at least two!
14. Get a personal trainer. I’ve done a few personal training sessions over the years and I always enjoy them. I want to find someone local who specializes in pelvic floor PT.
15. GO ON VACATION. Not just to visit family. Go somewhere NEW and INTERESTING, with or without children in tow–preferably one vacation with each! Use our passports again! I miss travel!
16. Take a seasonal weekend trip without children. Just me and my spouse, a weekend away, a bed & breakfast, leisurely days spent reading. We did this once this year, but we need to do it more.
17. I know weight-related goals kind of suck, and are super cliché in terms of New Year’s, but I still am working towards losing some weight in an effort to get down to the size I once was, if for no other reason than I still have all my clothes from pre-baby and would prefer to simply fit into them again rather than buy new ones. I joined Weight Watchers recently, and it really does seem to be the easiest way to stick with it for me.
18. Improve my posture. Do posture exercises 5x/week. Revisit my desk setup. Perhaps move my desk to the living room? And get those built-in bookshelves finally built, so my formal living room looks more like a library.
19. Debut successfully! Debuting is a given, since it’s already very much planned, but I’ve been thinking about what it means to debut successfully. Everyone says not to get too much in your head about it, not to read too many reviews or obsess over lists, to plan something “fun” the week of your launch. I’m going to try all these things. I’m hopefully going to have a good day/week. I’m hopefully not going to crash too hard afterwards. But time will tell.
20. Get back to the dermatologist and fix the things that need fixing.
21. Paint my bedroom, as well as my kids’ rooms. My room has been a pale lavender since we moved in. Not a bad shade, but not right for me. My kids’ rooms are gray. I don’t like gray walls. Down with gray. The thing tripping me up the past couple of years has been I cannot decide what color anything *should* be. Indecision, my downfall. But THIS will be the year we finally decide on the right color and do something about it! Maybe. Hopefully.
22. Hang 24 more things on the walls. I also have trouble deciding what art to buy, how to frame it, and where to hang it, which has led to too many blank spaces on our walls this year. But this concrete goal will help me. I hope.
23. Read 50 books. Will this be the year when I finally meet that goal again?
24. Not within my control, but putting it out there anyway: sell another book!

Photo by Moritz Knöringer on Unsplash