Ok, this year, I'm doing resolutions. I'm even making them public. Whoo, accountability!

1. Lose 50 pounds.

A.k.a. get healthier. The game plan here is pretty straightforward. I already go to the gym for two hours at least three days a week -- being unemployed, I have the time, and honestly some days those two hours are the only thing that keep me sane enough to mother my wonderfully rambunctious and increasingly-able-to-climb-everything child the rest of the day. But that alone has only amounted to ten pounds of weight loss, which happened sometime in late September/ October, and while holding steady is a good thing, it's clear if I want to lose the final 11 pounds of baby weight, plus another 40, I'm gonna hafta change my eating habits.

So. The big plan here is to not be stupid about what I eat. I've downloaded a weight loss app for the iPhone (which a kind friend gave me; I use it as an iPod touch, since I can't come close to affording the data plan to use it as a phone). I know from doing weight watchers that it actually helps to write down everything that you eat, and having something I can carry around with me that will let me do it with a nifty program will, I think, help me stick to that. The app (which is called Lose it! and was free) calculates how many calories I need to eat to lose a pound a week, and as long as I'm honest with how much I eat and how much exercise I do, it should keep track of that quite nicely. I figure a pound a week is doable, especially if there are a few weeks where I manage two (still within healthy weight-loss limits), which should mean fifty pounds in one year is within reach.

I could go into *why* I want to lose weight, but I think it's a common enough goal that it almost goes without saying: I'd feel better.

Oh, and there will be a few times during the year where all bets are off. Because ya gotta live a little, and I'm not counting calories on, say, my birthday.

2. Revise and send _Keaton T._ to agents. Draft and revise a new novel.

So, I drafted _Keaton T._ last year, and I had every intention of having it revised twice and to an agent by now. Yeah, that didn't work.

I've done a lot of thinking about it, and I've come to the conclusion that maybe I just don't work that way. See, every time I try to read it, I get to a part that's too recent, and I cringe. And if I can't read it without cringing, I can't revise it, because I can't tell whether it needs to be changed or if I'm just still too close to it.

So, part of my writing goal for 2010 is to figure out how I work best. I'm thinking I should try to learn to draft a new novel while the other one is "sitting", then let that one rest while I revise the first one. But maybe that will be too confusing? I dunno. I'm gonna play around and find out.

Still, before I go drafting something new (and I have two novel ideas I want to write... ok, three), I want to revise _Keaton T._ and get it out. I just do. So, I'm gonna try to do that... er, by the end of January? Sure, why not. A revision by the end of January, hopefully sooner. It's not that long of a novel. Maybe it's sat long enough now.

I'm also going to try to be more diligent about working regularly on my writing. I had it going for awhile this year, but it's sort of fizzled lately with this whole revision thing. So, need to get back on track with that. I have a plan for now (while I'm unemployed) and one for when I get a job, but I'm not going to post them here for complicated reasons. But rest assured, plans are in place.

And that's more or less it. Oh, certainly there are ongoing goals, some of which are related to the above (I'm learning to cook, which goes along with the weight loss) and some of which I already do and want to keep up/ do better (try my best to be a good mother to River, and a good wife to Tim). (And, sure, I have a serious goal of getting a job, but there's not much more I can do about that than what I'm already doing and I'm not ashamed to blame the economy on that one.) I'd like to promise that I'm going to update more, that I'd be quicker with personal email, that I'd do household chores on a neat, weekly schedule, but seriously, I'm almost 37 years old and I know myself well enough to know that if I make twenty resolutions I'll fizzle sadly on all of them. I will focus on these two that really need help (my health and my writing), and stay mindful of the people in my life, and I think I might just get it done.