summer's resolutions

Sometimes, when I'm reading the ancient, dusty posts of other bloggers, I come upon the ubiquitous New Year's post, where all the resolutions are touted up for all of bloggerdom to see: Look at what I'm promising myself. Somehow, by making it public, it will have a better chance. Maybe yes, maybe no, but like I've mentioned before, I recognize this as essentially an online diary with a small readership (Hi, Mom! You can actually read this without sneaking around now!), and I've decided that the midst of May is a perfectly fine time for me to take stock of my life and I've christened this New Summer's Resolution time (perhaps we can check in at midsummer, when I am just done teaching Midsummer Night's Dream).

I have goals:

- lose ten pounds (remember, this is a summer goal, not a year goal)
- send out at least a dozen poems by summer's end (maybe even get one published!)
- plan a wedding and honeymoon without losing my mind or resembling, in any way, a bRiDeZiLLa (Kelly, you are completely and utterly in charge of keeping me in check--I know you have the capability, as we used to have slap fights and those smarted, dangit!)
- make drinking 64 oz. of water daily a regular part of my day
- begin (to eventually complete) The Artist's Way
- start yoga classes
- get house to a point where the mess doesn't make me cringe (and when I say that, I don't mean make peace with the mess, I mean clean out the clutter)
- have a job that starts in the fall or sooner, be it teaching or not, preferably with little to no commute and not with a chain company
- start biking again (just got a call from the shop today to say that the tune up is complete and my cheap bike is ready for me to make a fool of myself)
- steadily return to the new recipe a week tradition
- make one significant house improvement (such as the kitchen wallpaper to paint adventure; perhaps making a list of aesthetic and beyond changes would be a smart way to start this)
- take a community ed class, perhaps in stained glass or pottery, and even better, with Angie
- find a way to make meditation / quiet reflection / stillness a part of my daily routine
- get a new tattoo with my beloved pasta sister as a symbol of so many things: our friendship, surviving tough times, turning a new page in our books of love (all that gooshy warm stuff)
- fresh flowers by the kitchen sink each week (the tulips did well there, no cat demolition)
- finish the sweater for James (which will probably fit a sibling at the rate he is growing and the rate I am knitting) and begin a new knitting project
- begin to learn French again
- read at least twenty books (from summer's beginning to end), if not many, many more

And I am looking forward to these new, sometimes brave things that would have gone on this list had I written it a few weeks ago, these things that will happen this summer and I anticipate with joy:

- going to North Carolina, flying (and traveling out of the Midwest) for the very first time with a favorite girl friend to visit another favorite girl friend
- camping, for the first time since I was in high school, with three very dear friends, three very dear dogs, and my favorite fiance (thus far, anyway)
- making the Y a regular stop on my daily adventures (today I went, only half an hour on the elliptical, but if I can turn that into something regular and make it longer, maybe add weights...)
- make cleansing my skin as well as my body a regular routine (I just signed up for my first facial appointment and eyebrow waxing--hey, get your jaw off that floor)
- continue daily writing in my notebook
- teaching a gifted and talented class (a goal of mine, though the timing is difficult)
- taking a week long poetry class with a long admired poet
- plant a vegetable and flower garden (seeds are in trays, just now sprouting)

So. What about you? What are your summer's resolutions?