Great Expectations

I know that I'm an over-achiever.  I'm also pretty hard on myself, and after yesterday, I think I may have to lower my expectations.

Here's the deal: on Sunday evening, I was lamenting the fact that I hadn't accomplished anything all weekend.  I thought about it for a minute, then realized that I did get some stuff done.  I wasn't sure if it was enough, though, so I sat down and made a list.

• baked and frosted a cake
• vacuumed (with some help!)
• washed one load of dishes
• washed, dried, and folded four loads of laundry
• hemmed curtains (which are, like, a mile long and curvy)
• made a sample scrub cap from two different patterns that I sort of merged into one
• wove in ends and finished eight dishcloths
• made french toast 
• went grocery shopping
• went to dance rehearsal (about 2 hours)
• went to theatre rehearsal (about 4 hours)
• ripped four cds to my computer and updated my music software
• took Mia to the dog park (more on that later!)
• changed my sheets
• changed my nailpolish
• took out the garbage

And all that is in addition to hanging out with my SO and going out to eat a couple of times.  When I sat down and looked at that list, I realized that I did a lot.  A LOT!  Especially considering that I had two rehearsals, plus an hour or so at the dog part, plus shopping.

So maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself.  I think the problem is that I keep looking at all of the things are still left to do, unfortunately.  But I'm going to work on it, because I'm tired of feeling like I'm not good enough.  Wish me luck!

Random free stuff!

Apologies for missing my post yesterday - it was a crazy day, and I ended up being out super-late. However, today's post might make up for it!

Yesterday, one of the ladies at work gave me a bottle of wine as a thank-you for helping her with an uber-project (started on Jan 3, finished on Wednesday!). It was really sweet of her, and totally unexpected. Then another one of the ladies came in and dropped off a book for me. It was a book of knitting patterns, and it was a 'just because' thing - she saw it and thought of me.

That totally rocked! I love random free stuff!

And I'll be that a lot of you like random free stuff, too! So today, I'm gonna pay it forward and give away random free stuff. If you comment on today's post before midnight next Saturday (February 5th), you'll be entered in a draw for a $20 Barnes & Noble gift card!

How's it going to work?  Next weekend, after midnight on Saturday, I'll use a random number generator to pick from the comments on this post.  I'll announce the winner here, and then I'll email you to figure out the details of how to get your prize to you.  Sound good?  I hope so!

Happy commenting!

I don't know if I liked it...

Last weekend, I went to see Black Swan.  If I had to categorize it, well, I'd probably lose my job.  I saw a review of it in a magazine (sorry, I can't remember which one!), and they called it a "psychosexual ballet thriller." Um.  Is there another movie in that category?  Because I can't think of one.

Anyways.

I still can't decide if I enjoyed the movie or not.

Here's the deal: I wasn't a big fan of the cinematography. There was a lot of hand-held, bouncing around type shots, and I don't do well with those on a big screen.  They just mess with my head and make me want to close my eyes.  However.  They really contributed to the whole 'descent into madness' thing that was going on, so I understand the choice to do it that way.

There were a bunch of things that happened in the movie that made me cringe.  I'm trying not to give away any spoilers, but suffice to say that there were several instances of bloody body parts (such as ballerina feet - although Natalie Portman's feet weren't nearly as disgusting as most ballerina feet) that made me feel a little icky. Or a lot icky.  Again, though, I'm pretty sure that was the reaction that the director was going for, so it worked.

The choreographer/artistic director's accent reminded me a lot of what I had seen of Andre Lewis, the artistic director for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, so it made the character more realistic to me. Of course, all I've seen of M. Lewis was his pre-show talks, so please don't interpret this as me claiming that M. Lewis is ANYTHING like the character in the movie.  From what I've seen of him, M. Lewis is a very respectable man, and I think he's got a remarkable vision for the Ballet.

The movie was much more sexual than I had expected, but it wasn't gratuitous - it all served to move the story forward, or to reveal more about the characters.  The ending... well, I'm still not sure how I feel about that.  I'm a bit confused about the physiological possibility of it.  But hey, it's art, so I'll accept it.

I liked the movie.  I liked the plot, I liked the characterization, I liked how I got drawn in.  I LOVED that the Swan Lake music was used throughout the whole thing, even in the Chemical Brothers song in the club scene.

I'm just not sure I enjoyed it.  There were a lot of cringing moments, and a lot of things jumping out from behind people (which I don't like).

But it was good!  I think that, if I were more of a fan of thrillers, I would definitely have enjoyed it.  As it is, I will settle for "I liked it."  And I'll probably watch it again, except next time, it will be on my TV, with all the lights on.

New Roles Confuse Me

This weekend, I started watching the second season of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse on DVD.  You may not know this, but I'm a HUGE fan of Joss and almost everything he does.

I started to get into Buffy the Vampire Slayer a couple of seasons in - I didn't start watching it until Season 4, when the gang had already graduated high school.  It didn't take long for me to fall in love with the show once I started.  I'm currently in the middle of Season 4 again - this is probably the fourth or fifth time I've watched the whole series through.  The earlier seasons are, well, early.  The characters are younger, and they grate on me a little more, but they all grew and developed.  I love to watch how they change as the series goes on.  That's probably my favourite thing about Joss's shows - the characters are never stagnant.  Even the ones that you don't expect to ever change.  I like to call it "studying characterization" when I sit down and watch hours of Buffy at a time...

I watched some of Angel, but I didn't get into it the same way that I got into Buffy.  That's probably because I just didn't like Angel all that much.  Cordelia irritated me.  And then they had a show together.  But I did watch it occasionally.  There's an episode from the first season, when, through the powers of the blood of some weird demon, Angel gets to be human again.  He and Buffy reunite, but because he's human, he can't help her anymore, and he feels guilty that she's risking herself to protect him.  In the end, he gives up his humanity to be able to protect himself so she can live without worrying about him.  That's a really brief, really crappy summary, but that episode makes me bawl every time I watch it.

Somehow, I missed Firefly when it was on television, and I've been kicking myself since the moment I discovered it.  I LOVE this series!  I love it even more than I loved Buffy!  Again, it's the characterization that gets me.  They're all so different, but they do have a lot in common.  I love that I can see parts of myself in almost all of the characters.  I'm not sure I have much Jayne in me... but I do have a hat like his!  I borrowed the series from a friend about three years ago, then went out and bought my own copy as soon as I finished watching hers.  In the past three years, I've probably watched the whole series fifteen times.  I've only watched Serenity, the follow-up movie, once.  I felt the need to watch it to finish off the series, but, well, I'm attached to these characters, and I don't like the way things went down in the movie.  Don't get me wrong - the movie was cool, and well-written, and totally in keeping with the characters.  It just, well, it's got a finality to it that I don't really want with this series.  I want to keep imagining Mal flying across the universe and getting himself into and out of trouble, with the whole crew tagging along and being clever.

You can't talk about Joss and leave out Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog!  I'm a theatre geek, and I love anything musical.  The Buffy musical episode was awesome, but this!  THIS!!  I love it!  I watched it when it came out online, I downloaded it from iTunes as soon as it was available, and I bought the DVD shortly after it was released.  I have the whole thing memorized, and I will randomly belt out, well, any of the songs!

As I said at the beginning of this post, I've been watching Season 2 of Dollhouse.  I like it.  Almost as much as Firefly.  There's something about the science of the show that is just, well, a combination of cool and creepy.  And I swear, I know a guy who's an awful lot like Topher.  Plus, any girl that can kick as much ass as Echo is just awesome.  What's messing with me, though, is that in the last episode I watched, Wesley and Faith were talking.  Except it wasn't Wesley and Faith, it was Senator Perrin and Echo/Caroline/Brie.

There's something about Joss that seems to inspire faithfulness in his actors.  There's a video clip of Nathan Fillion on the Dr. Horrible DVD where he tells the story of Joss trying to ask him to be in the show.  Nathan said "Yes" before Joss even finished asking.

So Captain Reynolds is also Captain Hammer.  Faith is Echo.  Wesley is Perrin (and lost his British accent!).  Wash is Alpha.  Fred/Illyria is Dr. Saunders.  River is... I actually haven't watched far enough to find out her name, but she's in Dollhouse, too.

I love that Joss is apparently so awesome to work with that everyone who has worked with him wants to do it again.  It just messes with my head sometimes.  Especially when Wesley's not British anymore...

Be It Resolved That... (or, The First Check In)

I was poking around the internet, trying to find out a bit about how well the world does with keeping their New Year's Resolutions.  It doesn't look good, blogglings.  It depends on where you're looking, but anywhere between 36% and 98% of people have already given up their resolutions.  Let's see how I'm doing so far...

1. Drink more milk. I usually only drink milk when my parents are here (or I'm visiting them), and we drink milk at every dinner. Specifically, I will drink milk with a meal once a week.
• Not bad!  I'm drinking milk more often, but I've modified my resolution: instead of just drinking milk once a week, I've resolved to finish every container of milk I buy before the 'best before' date.  So far, I've managed to meet that goal.  Yay!
2. Cook dinner. And I mean really cook, not just reheat leftovers or zap a TV dinner. Specifically, I will cook myself at least one meal a week.
• Check!  Tonight was the first night in about a week that I stopped by and picked up take-out for dinner.  I've been making pasta and chicken and other pretty yummy stuff, and I've definitely saved money, which is a bonus.
3. Use 'so' less. I use the word 'so' an awful lot on this blog. So much, in fact, that it's started sticking out to me. I will use it less. But I have no specifics on how much less. ;)
• I think I'm doing okay with this one... I've been making a concerted effort to use that word less, and I've been diligent in my editing.  If you think I'm wrong, please, let me know, and I'll step up my efforts.
4. Be on time for work. I am really bad about clocking in at 8:02. All I have to do is wake up 2 minutes earlier (in theory). Specifically, I will clock in to work at 8:00 or earlier at least 4 days a week (which is an improvement over my current one-day-a-week trend).
• Umm.... Well, I clocked in before 8:00 twice last week... Okay, okay.  This one needs work.  Lots of work.  LOTS of work.
5. Drink more water. Over the last few weeks, I've been drinking a lot of pop. A LOT. Like, 3 or 4 cups of Dr. Pepper at work, then a Cherry Coke with dinner, and a Dr. Pepper later in the evening. That can't be good for me. But I got a fancy new plastic cup with my initials on it, and I find that I drink more water when I'm drinking out of that. Specifically, I will have more water than pop while I'm at work (even if that means guzzling two glasses of water in the last ten minutes of my day!).
• For the most part, I'm doing pretty well with this.  Monday was a mess - the computers were stupid, and I drank a LOT of Dr. Pepper at work.  But aside from that, I have been drinking just as much water as pop, so I'll call it a win.
6. Finish Partners. I HAVE to finish this play. I've run it through the critique group once, and I've made some major changes, but I need to finish this next draft and submit it to the theatre if I want to have a chance of having it produced next season. Specifically, I will finish this draft by the end of January and I will have it to my crit partners by mid-February.
• Haven't touched it yet.  Crap.

I'm getting there, I think.  It definitely helps that I've set specific goals, rather than just wishy-washy "I wanna get healthy" resolutions.  I can work with a goal.  I'm not so good at the abstract. 

How about you, blogglings?  Have you joined the ranks of the given-up, or are you still slogging along?

A Bit About Writing/Reading

I still like Meliora!  I re-read my short story, and I still like it.  However.  It needs more.  I totally get the comments that I got on it, and I'm really starting to think that Meliora needs a whole novel, not just a short story. Know what that means?  Plotting time!

In the meantime, I've been listening to audiobooks lately, rather than reading.  Don't get me wrong, I still LOVE reading.  Unfortunately, with the other stuff I've got going on, I haven't had a lot of time to read lately.  Instead of abandoning books altogether, though, I've been listening to audiobooks.  I can listen while I drive, while I work, while I shop (yes, I listen to books while shopping), while I knit... Audiobooks make it nice and easy to multitask.

The thing is, I'm cheap.  Or broke, depending on how you look at it.  Anyways.  I don't want to spend $20 on an audiobook, especially if I can just buy the paperback for $7.99 or so.  I've been using the iTunes store and stocking up on classic books via Librivox.  I started off with Jane Eyre last year, and while I don't think I would have had the patience to read it, I got through the audiobook in just a couple of weeks.  I've also listened to most of the Anne of Green Gables series - I had read them as a child, and I was surprised to find myself enjoying them the second time around.

Right now, I'm working my way through Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.  I've finished volume one, and I started on volume two this morning.  As I was listening to it, I remembered why I had such a hard time getting through it when I first read it.  I was in junior high, and I was so proud of my three-inch-thick book.  I felt all smart and cultured as I carried it around.  It took me several months to get through the book.  It wasn't above my reading level, and the language wasn't anything complicated for me.  It was just, well, boring.  Hugo takes nineteen (19!) chapters to set up Thenardier as a thief.  Nineteen chapters of inane details about the battle of Waterloo.  NINETEEN!

Ahem.

By going back and listening to these classics, though, I'm getting a better handle on flow and pace and plot.  I can see where Hugo loses my attention, and where he gets it back.  I'm not saying that I can now write better than Victor Hugo - what I'm saying is, I'm starting to realize the things that make my attention wander.  Once I realize what makes my attention wander, I can start to take that stuff out of my own writing.  If I can get rid of the boring stuff, that just leaves the interesting stuff - the good stuff!

So I shall continue slogging through the boring parts and finish up Les Miserables, possibly by the end of next week, and then move on to the next one.

Curious about what's up next?  Well, I haven't decided for sure, but here's what I've got in iTunes, ready to go:

1. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
2. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
3. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
4. Chronicles of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
5. Emma by Jane Austen
6. Heidi by Johanna Spyri
7. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
8. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
9. Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
10. Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter
11. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
12. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
13. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
14. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodges Burnett
15. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
16. Ulysses by James Joyce

Any suggestions about what should be next on the playlist?  Or other suggestions for classics to listen to?

Weather's got me down

Ugh.  Switching to a M-W-F blogging schedule has thrown me off.  Clearly, I missed blogging yesterday.  I'll blame it on the weather.

It's been raining for the better part of two days, and it's making me miserable.

I realized a few years ago that I'm very sensitive to weather.  I probably have a mild form of seasonal affective disorder, actually.  When it's cold and dark, I get unhappy.  If it's just cold, or just dark, I can usually manage, but the two together equal blah.

The rain is even worse - there's something that goes on with the barometric pressure that gives me crazy headaches. I'm hating this weather, although I suppose rain is still better than snow, right?  Blah.

On the other hand, there's been a lot of fog in between the patches of rain, and despite the darkness, it's been making me think about Meliora.  Lots.  I really want to work on her story again!

I must admit, I didn't do much writing this weekend.  Okay, I didn't do any writing this weekend.  I know, I know.  Instead, I crafted.  The weather was gorgeous, and I didn't want to be staring at a computer screen, so I opened the curtains, and spent time outside, and drove around.  It was great!  I think, though, since I have tomorrow evening off, and it's still supposed to be rainy, I'll pull out Meliora's story again tomorrow and have a look-see.  Cross your fingers that I still like it when I re-read it!

A quiet weekend

I'm ready for a quiet weekend.  Sure, last weekend was somewhat quiet, but that's because I was so sick, I couldn't do anything at all.  Well, okay, I went to Savannah, but Sunday and Monday were fairly immobile.

This weekend, I don't have a lot planned.  I like that.  I've got the usual stuff - dance class, gaming, crafting - but not much that should keep me up late or wake me up early.  I'm looking forward to sleep.

More importantly, I've got a Shiny New Idea that's been percolating for about three weeks, and I think I'm ready to write down the bones of it!  I really do need to finish up Partners before I get deep into a new project, but I want to write down the basics of this new idea.  Maybe I'll finish the current draft of Partners this weekend!  That'd be awesome, because then I could get it out to my next set of readers, then edit some more, then take it to the theatre!

Hmm.

I have a new goal for the weekend, apparently.

Pants-Fail, for the win!

(Forgot to actually publish yesterday! That's what happens when the fever fries my brain...)

Yes, I am happy about this pants-fail! I went back and looked at the pants that split last week, and it turns out, it's not my ass! The pants in question are scrubs that have been worn and washed weekly for the past three years, and the seam simply wore out. Hooray!

Also, I stepped on the scale, and it told a much more light-hearted story than I had expected.

Yay!

I still plan to start going to the gym, though. Pants-fail does not explain my spaghetti arms.

What I Did on the Weekend

I finally got to see Savannah! I'd been there before, but I was helping a friend move, so all I saw was the inside of his old apartment and the inside of his new apartment.  This weekend, I saw the Hyatt (and a dance competition where Colby and Will rocked!), and then we wandered up and down River.  It was a pretty standard tourist area, but it was still cool.  Also, I learned that none of the little gift shops sell Kleenex.  And we found the really cool echo-square.

Since we were already out that far, and there was still plenty of gas in Ruby, we drove up to Hilton Head (because I'd never been to South Carolina, either).  I got my butt kicked by a traffic circle (another first for me!), but I managed to get it figured out by the second one I reached.  I also managed to drive over several bridges without hyperventilating, so yay!

Unfortunately, that plague I was talking about on Friday?  Yeah, it's been kicking my ass.  I've got to say, the moment of my fever breaking was a really cool experience... messed up, but cool.  I was more than a little delirious, I think.  Still feeling like crap today, but we got a snow day at work.  This is a good thing - it means that I can take a sick day tomorrow, without feeling guilty.  Of course, given how I feel, guilty was probably not going to happen anyway.

I'm off to continue recuperating - be glad that you can't catch this plague from a computer screen!

A WhoIe Pile of Celebrating! (and a little ick)

Merry Christmas, blogglings!  (I've totally decided to call you all 'blogglings.' If you wish to register a complaint, do so now or forever hold your peace.)

No, I'm not late, I'm part Ukrainian - Merry Christmas to everyone who uses the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar.  I celebrated the same way my family has celebrated for many years: I made pierogies for dinner!  I went all out, too (relatively speaking).  I boiled them, then fried them in butter and onions, and served them with kielbasa.  Mia may or may not have partaken in some kielbasa as well...

Also, happy 700th blog post!  It's crazy to think that I'm coming up on the three year mark for this blog.  Yikes!

Also also, happy 81st follower!  And because I ended up with 75 followers before the end of 2010, I will soon be having that bigger giveaway that I promised - keep your eyes open for more details.  And for those of you who commented way back in October, I haven't forgotten!  I will be reviewing a story soon for Franchise, I swear.  I just need to get a few more things finished before I can set aside the time to properly review it.  I feel that I need to put more effort into reviewing something that I've been asked to review than I do for a book that I randomly decided to pick up, if that makes sense.

Of course, life wouldn't be life if there wasn't some blah to mix in with the yay...  (TMI coming up!)

I wasn't going to make any resolutions to lose weight this year, but two factors have made me change my mind.  First, my sister is getting married, which means I'll be wearing a bridesmaid dress in front of people, so I want to look passable.  Second, when I squatted down to pick something up from the floor this evening, my pants split.  Ugh.  So it's time to start working out again.

Also, I've caught some sort of plague (hey, I'm a writer, I can call it a plague if I want to - a 'cold' is far too common), and it's making me cough a lot.  Tonight, I coughed so hard, I threw up in my mouth.  Ew.  Can I please be well now?  On the bright side, a new place never feels like home until I've thrown up there, so now my 'new' apartment doesn't need the descriptor 'new' anymore!  (And yes, I realize that's one of the craziest requirements for 'home' that exists.)

Talk about good timing!

Just before my New Year's Eve gathering commenced, I finished cleaning my apartment.  I did eleven loads of laundry, vacuumed everywhere, did the dishes, took out the remaining holiday trash, and put away EVERYTHING I could find.  This left me with a really pretty home - and I love starting the new year with a clean house, if only because it means I can slack without guilt for at least a couple of days.

This year, my cleaning spree had an added bonus: when my hot water heater burst sometime between bedtime Monday and waking up Tuesday, I didn't have much on the floor.  This is a Very Good Thing.  There was almost an inch of water in my kitchen; in the hallway and part of the living room and dining room, the water was up to the top of the carpet.

I woke up to this horrible hissing sound, and it actually took me a good fifteen minutes to wake up enough to figure out what it was.  I discovered the source by stepping into the hallway and into a lake.  Ugh.  Mia seemed to enjoy the water, which is weird, since she won't go outside when it's raining, and she hates to be in the bath.

Jeff the Maintenance Guy was able to come in right away, get the [very little] remaining water out of the heater, and get the heater out.  Before he was even finished, the 'Extraction Team' arrived - two awesome people with the biggest ShopVac in the world.  They sucked up most of the water and then set me up with two huge, industrial-strength fans and a de-humidifier the size of my fridge.  My apartment has been like a wind-tunnel for the last two days, but the carpet is almost dry.  Maybe by tomorrow, the fans will be gone, and the not-so-dull-roar will also be gone, letting me actually sleep.  That would be nice...

So hurray for cleaning!  (Yes, Mom, it's really me writing this.  I know, hard to believe!)

Be It Resolved That...

Hello bloggy friends!  (Or blogglings - I kind of like the idea of having blogglings.  Like minions, only with less servitude.)  Yes, after an extended blogging vacation, I have returned.  And I'm bringing along a change in schedule, too!  I realized that trying to blog on Sundays just didn't work well for me, so I'm switching up to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule.  Hopefully that will work better for my lifestyle.  But if it doesn't, I'll try something else.

I hope you all had a fun holiday season, with just the right amount of family and friends and food and drinks.  I think I had a perfect balance this year.  My parents and Otter and Panda (and their dog, Bella) came to stay with me for just over a week, which is part of the reason for my blog silence.  After all, I only get to see them a couple of times a year, so I want to make the most of our time together.  This was the first time that Otter and Panda had come down to see me, so we had to do a bunch of typically Southern things (like golf in December), and we had to hit all of the shopping possible.  Have I mentioned that my ENTIRE family loves to shop?  It's a great bonding activity!

I had a semi-quiet New Year's Eve, with my SO and a couple of friends.  We ate brie and drank champagne.  Okay, that sounds WAY more sophisticated than we actually were!  In addition to the brie and champagne, we had an awesome cheesy, meaty, salsa dip of delicious, and chips and dip, and moose milk.  Moose milk?  Yes, moose milk.  It is made of awesome, with some egg nog, ice cream, and alcohol mixed in.  But it's a secret recipe... well, not so much.  You can Google it, but none of the recipes that turn up are quite the same as mine.  Still, if you don't mind a good, strong drink, I'd recommend giving it a try.

And since it's a new year, it's time to revisit last year's resolutions...

• Keep writing in my blogs. I'm not going to insist that I write every day, but I've really enjoyed it. It's generally the last thing I do before bed, and it's a nice part of my routine. However, I have this blog and my craft blog and my 'Take Five' blog, and I'd like to spread out the time between the three a little bit more.  
• Well, I've continued this blog, and I'm occasionally popping in to my craft blog, but 'Take Five' totally fell off the radar.  Still, I've kept writing regularly, so I'll call this one a WIN!

• Finish editing 'Happily Ever After.' I finished the story. It has an ending. However, it needs work. I'm thinking of signing up for a course on editing your own novel, because I really feel that this story has potential. I've pitched it to a couple of girls who fall into my target audience, and they're really excited about reading it (go alpha-readers!). I want to edit, send out to readers, and re-edit, then start looking more seriously at potential agents/publishers.
• Not so much.  I edited the first chapter.  Then I got distracted.  The problem is that I hate editing.  Also, I've got other ideas that I want to work on.  But I'm still planning to edit it.  Really.  But this is a no.

• Lose 20 lbs. I know, I know, I failed at this one last year. But I'm going to keep trying, dammit, because I'm just not comfortable in my body right now. I've already started keeping track of what I'm eating, and that alone tends to help me. Back when I was doing Weight Watchers, I found that part helped more than anything else. So I'm giving it another try. I've got a really cute pair of jeans that I want to wear again.
• Hahahahahaha.  No.

• Get together with Mooselings. For the past several years, my NaNo group here has said, "Yeah, we'll totally get together outside of November!" and failed miserably. I'm going to make it happen this year!
• YES!  We did manage to meet up during the winter and spring.  Things sort of trickled off in the summer, but really, we've got too many people with too many things going on.  Between theatre stuff and jobs and kids' sports and school vacation and everything else, summer's just not practical.  But the important thing is that we kept in touch.

After looking back at last year's 'meh' result, I had to ask myself, "What do I want to resolve this year?  Do I even want to make resolutions?" 

OF COURSE I DO!  I like goals.  More importantly, I like lists!  Without further ado, here is my list of resolutions for 2011:

1. Drink more milk.  I usually only drink milk when my parents are here (or I'm visiting them), and we drink milk at every dinner.  Specifically, I will drink milk with a meal once a week.
2. Cook dinner.  And I mean really cook, not just reheat leftovers or zap a TV dinner.  Specifically, I will cook myself at least one meal a week.  
3. Use 'so' less.  I use the word 'so' an awful lot on this blog.  So much, in fact, that it's started sticking out to me.  I will use it less.  But I have no specifics on how much less. ;)
4. Be on time for work.  I am really bad about clocking in at 8:02.  All I have to do is wake up 2 minutes earlier (in theory).  Specifically, I will clock in to work at 8:00 or earlier at least 4 days a week (which is an improvement over my current one-day-a-week trend).
5. Drink more water.  Over the last few weeks, I've been drinking a lot of pop.  A LOT.  Like, 3 or 4 cups of Dr. Pepper at work, then a Cherry Coke with dinner, and a Dr. Pepper later in the evening.  That can't be good for me.  But I got a fancy new plastic cup with my initials on it, and I find that I drink more water when I'm drinking out of that.  Specifically, I will have more water than pop while I'm at work (even if that means guzzling two glasses of water in the last ten minutes of my day!).
6. Finish Partners.  I HAVE to finish this play.  I've run it through the critique group once, and I've made some major changes, but I need to finish this next draft and submit it to the theatre if I want to have a chance of having it produced next season.  Specifically, I will finish this draft by the end of January and I will have it to my crit partners by mid-February.

There you go! You'll notice that this year, I haven't resolved to lose weight.  I figure by drinking more milk and more water (and also by cooking rather than eating out), I'll probably lose some weight without frustration and calorie counting.  And even if I don't, those things will make me healthier, which is important, right?

Have you made any resolutions?

Side note: I edited out at least 7 'so's before posting today!