Goals for 2012

I normally don't do the "New Year's Resolution" thing because I think it's a crock of crap.  Everyone makes promises to themselves that they don't keep, or they create elaborate goals for themselves that are impossible to accomplish.  Waste. Of. Time.  But this year, I've decided I'm going to give it a try.  After all, I make goals for myself throughout the year anyway, maybe it's time I start thinking a little more long term than, "Today I need to clean my living room or I don't get a cookie."

So here's what I got. (They are not in priority order.)

1. Run a 10k. I'm also considering a half-marathon but we'll see what the year brings.  Last year I did my first 5k.

2. Do 45-50 push-ups consecutively. Right now I can barely do 10 without resting. Pathetic.

3. Become more fit overall. Vague, but I know what I mean. :)

4. Pay off all our credit cards... Which is totally doable.

5. Have over one month's worth of income in our savings account... Also doable but will take some self-control.  I hate self-control.

6. Read the whole Bible in a year.  I haven't read it much at all this year.  I've tried to read it in a year so many times and I always crap out around Deuteronomy.  Not this year.  I WILL read the whole thing... a little bit every day.

7. Read 5-10 more classics.  I love the classics.  I read about 5 in the last half of this year and loved them.

8. Read one whole book entirely in Turkish.

9. Finish 3 associates degrees and start working toward my bachelors. I know 3 associates may sound excessive, but I have so many credits from different programs that with a few classes, I could knock out 3 all at once.

10. Learn photoshop. I bought the program early this year and have no clue how to use it. Also get better at photography in general.

11. Switch to purchasing as much organic produce and meats as possible and lower the amount of processed foods we eat.

12. Learn to cook more so that Hubby and I can take turns making dinner and he can have a break once in a while.

13. Get my yard looking good and plant a garden.

14. Paint most of the rooms in my house and do some minor upgrading.

15. Learn to quilt and finish one before the end of the year.


I feel like I'm forgetting a thing or two but since can't remember them, and I don't want to end up forgetting about this post and publishing it in June, this will have to do.

A Homeowner's Paranoia

     I am completely ignorant about what it takes to really take care of a house.  I don't mean cleaning and laundry and mowing the grass.  I mean the really important stuff like how often you have to redo the roof, who to call to clean and inspect the heating ducts or the furnace, or how to clean out gutters.   Growing up, my family never owned a home; we always lived in apartments.  If the toilet got clogged, you called the landlord.  Heating problem?  Landlord.  Stove broke?  Landlord.  And as for the yard, somebody took care of it and it wasn't us.  My husband lived in a house that his mom owned for his whole life and although his mom is a carpentry and house genius who did most renovating and home repairs herself, he is more into math or cooking and never paid attention to what she was doing.  He is probably more clueless than I am.  So when we bought our first home, I was a little scared. Especially after I realized just how clueless my husband was when he got REALLY excited and proud of himself for fixing the water knob in the bathtub.  I had been sure that he was downplaying his handyman inabilities.  He wasn't.
    Every once in a while I panic and run a bunch of "what if?" scenarios through my head.  Like what if a sink gets clogged?  (Okay I think I can handle that one.)  But what if a water pipe bursts?  Do I even know how to turn off our water?  Or what if there is a small leak in the roof and I don't know it and then moisture gets into the attic and into the walls and then they get all moldy or just collapse?  Far fetched? Maybe... but this is the random crap that runs through my mind every few months.
    Todays bout of paranoia was brought on by the furnace.  The kids' bedrooms are a lot colder than the rest of the house, especially if the doors are closed.  And the rest of the house doesn't seem to stay warm for very long... even in the new addition.  So when the heat kicked on today I stuck my hand over all the vents to see if any warm air was coming out and the results were less than stellar.  Now my mind is racing.  Do we need a new furnace?  I don't even know how old our furnace is.  I don't know how much a new furnace costs or where to buy one or who to call to install it.  Pathetic I know but like I said, I'm clueless.  I decided to pull out our homeowners inspection report from when we bought the house to see if there was anything about the furnace in there.  Nope.  Nada.  But there was tons of other stuff that I didn't notice before.  Nothing huge... just things we could do to improve the condition of our home and help prevent all of the freak-out scenarios I come up with.  As I read though the report, I actually had to look up some words in the dictionary.  What the heck is a soffit? Or a fascia?  Well I know now.
    I've decided I just need take it one day at a time, learn as much as I can, and relax.  Between my mother-in-law and the internet, I can find out everything I need to know.  Every time I have a paranoia panic attack, I need to take a deep breath, look around at the roof over my head, the kids playing on the solid floor beneath us, and the solid, un-moldy walls and know that everything will be okay.  If a pipe bursts, we will figure it out.  If the roof collapses, we will figure it out.  If the furnace crashes, I'll learn real quickly how much they cost and who to call to install one.  I just hope that when the time comes for those kinds of homeownership joys, they're spaced out enough for us to have some recovery time in between.