Resolute: 2012 edition.

My new years celebration this year including eating 7-layer bean dip by myself in our break room at work. I watched the clock (which was amazingly enough synced up with the one in Times Square--well, minus two hours) turn over to midnight, gave my mom the traditional "Happy New Years" call (every year she sounds so pleasantly surprised that I remembered, even though I have called her every year since I was a teenager) and sent a text message to S--supposedly and hopefully sound asleep at the time.

S, who was at the firestation and who had been woken up just before I texted him, said that in the last 5 minutes (it was only 12:06) every single unit in their city had been dispatched.

Happy New Years to us.

Oh well, that's all you can really expect and hope for when you are scheduled to work on a holiday. My shift ended at midnight, so I crammed a sprinkle-covered Krispy Kreme and headed home.

I've actually been thinking about this post since November. My last New Year's post left me feeling more productive than on previous New Years. Rather than write an entirely new post about how well I did on holding up to last year's goals, I edited the original post. I'm not saying that you, the readers, aren't smart enough to figure this one out yourselves, but my accomplishments are posted in red.

So here are this years goals. (I am linking up to this post on the side of this blog and I will updated my accomplishments as they happen. In case you follow my life that closely. And if that's the case, well, that's a little creepy... j/k.)

Eat an apple four times a week. I would say eat healthier, but let's be honest here. I have a sweet tooth that cannot be satiated. I finally figured out an easy way to cut them--that didn't involve using a stupid apple-corer--and found myself eating a lot more than normal this last fall. I don't know if the "apple a day" adage is true, but I certainly felt a lot better. And I would say eat an apple a day, but this is about improvements--not perfection.
I actually did really good at this one!  Although I have to admit apples don't taste as good as they did at the beginning of the year.  Oh, well.  I usually am eating them in the car on my way to work anyway so I don't really think about it.

Complete Jillian Michael's 30-day shred in 30 days. I've done the whole series before, but not in 30 days and I have a feeling when she says "30-day" she means in 30 days.
I did this one, too!  When I wrote this post I knew I was pregnant and I knew that I would be taking 3 months off of work.  I planned on doing it all of the month of September, which gave me 8 weeks to heal from surgery and a month before I had to be back to work.  I only ended up missing a few days.  The only disappointment was that I didn't necessarily feel "shredded" after the 30 days.  I did have better endurance, though, so I guess that's what counts.

Read the entire Harry Potter series. I have a confession. I've only read the first and half of the second Harry Potter books. I have had no interest to read the rest. I don't really respond well to hype. To be honest, if Twilight had been made out to be the big deal that it is now while I was reading it then, I probably wouldn't have read those books either. But I have enough reliable sources telling me that I really ought to read them. And I also promised a friend I would. So this year, I will.
I made it to book 3.  Stay tuned.  Finished 2013

Make a decent batch of brownies from scratch. S will tell you that I should just give this one up. And when my last batch turned out completely flat and tasteless, I can understand why. My mom made her homemade brownies for us a few weeks ago and they were So Good. So I'm going to try it again.
I tried 3-4 new recipes but none of them cut it.  So I'm going to keep looking.  Two really great batches, but nothing like my mom made so I'll just consider hers the unreachable standard (2013)

Project Life. I have read about this from Ali Edwards blog and just found out today that it started from Becky Higgins. It seems like such a great, low-key way to scrapbook a "year in the life of..." I'm not sure I'll keep up with it weekly, but I am going to buy photo-divided 12x12 page protectors and a new album this week. This is probably the most time-intensive goal I am making. Watch out. I mean business.
I stayed with this longer than I thought I would: I made it to April.  But deconstructing my craft room made it hard to keep up with this.  I kept everything, though, so hopefully I can finish it this year.

Sign Bean up for dance classes. Okay, this one won't be that hard to accomplish because I've literally been dreaming of this moment from the time I found out The Bean was a little girl.
Done and done!

Win a game of chess. After my coworkers' refascination with Chess, I've realized just how much I suck at the game. It is my goal to change this.
I am so terrible at chess that I felt guilty playing with anyone--I didn't even provide a challenge.  So maybe I'll try the computer thing first.

Start a Bucket List. When we caught a shark last year (yes I'm bringing this up again but when the most adventerous thing you've done in your life involves mixing sprite with apple cider these things become sort of big deals) I mentioned that if I had a bucket list, catching a shark would totally be on it. I've thought since then, well, maybe I should have a bucket list. So that will be linked up to the side as well.
I did this too!  I will continue with it as well.