Friday, January 1, 2016

NEW YEAR'S DAY AND SOME GOALS FOR NEXT YEAR


New Year's Day...January 1st...2016 has arrived...right on time!   One of the things I always enjoy doing on New Year's Day (yes, something other than football!) is watching the Rose Parade.   I thoroughly love the intricate, beautiful floats, the majestic horses and, definitely, the bands.   This year was no exception.

And HGTV does no commercial coverage (Well, they plug their own shows but do not leave the parade.) so I can see the entire parade.  (Note:   I have no affiliation of any type with HGTV.)  So after a lazy morning I turned on the parade.

Of course, from then on it's been football.   The games have been pretty lopsided today so far.   Actually yesterday's college playoffs were lopsided also.   I do think that the Alabama-Clemson game on the 11th will be pretty good.

So, have you been thinking about dreams, ideas, goals, etc. for 2016?   I have...between games...and I think I have come up with some basic things.

First of all, exercise.   I want to make sure that I continue the regiment I designed for myself last year. Another goal that I have is to keep better track of my spending.

To help with these two ideas/goals I designed a weekly check-off sheet which I can print out now that I have a printer that works!!!

For the exercise sheet, I have all the exercises I do listed, how many times a day I do them and a place to check off when they are completed.   For instance, I do my balance exercise three times daily - morning, afternoon and evening.  Each time I complete an exercise, I can simply check it off.

I will keep the sheets in a binder and keep the binder open in a central place so it's easy to use.   I would normally write these down on my daily to do list anyway so that eliminates one action.

For keeping track of my spending, I have also designed a different type of check list.   On this, I have included income, expenses and totals with a place to write down the type of each.  I hope by doing this, those sneaky little purchases that I forget will be recorded and I can really see where my money goes.

I'm fairly frugal about spending as I have to live within a fixed income. Still, I think I can trim in some areas so I can enjoy spending more in others...like my creative ventures for instance.

Other ideas, dreams, goals that I have been mulling over include this blog, journaling, crocheting a village, continuing the meditation book which I had hoped to have finished by now, continuing to gain expertise with GIMP, my weekly NYC adventures and more studio work.   Think that list is quite long?   Well, remember, I am retired.

What I plan on doing is finalizing my list over the weekend so that on Monday I can share them with you.  That's more for me than you in some ways.   By sharing, I am putting myself out there with some accountability to you, my readers.

All in all, I am excited about this year.   I plan on spending most of it here, in NYC, with the exception of a summer vacation.   A whole year with no big events other than life itself.   Looks pretty good to me.

I hope this finds all of you safe and excited about next year's adventures...

Happy New Year...
Talk to you on Monday...