2013 Goals: June, Write every day. Hell.

So I literally JUST looked at my calendar and realized its June. And we're five days in. 

Fuck.

Also, I just remembered I had set some sort of goal for this month....and I'm five days into not working on it at all.

Shit.

But, here I am and I'm going to make it right.

Sort of.

My goal this month is to write everyday.

Right now that's easy, because I've had two vodka and lemonades and I feel like chatting.

Hi. How are you? Do you like Ray Lamontagna? Me too.

I don't feel that bad about slightly drunk writing, because Hemingway always said to write drunk and edit sober, and therefore I am just taking sage advice from a classic and successful {and alcoholic} writer, and my mother always said to listen to your elders.

Actually she always said not to pack your cigarettes really well so you don't lose the cherry when you ash them, because she was also an alcoholic and a fucking terrible mother.

This is getting heavy.

Anyway, I am going to try and write everyday. 

At least every remaining day, in June, since five days have clearly passed.

I can't promise every post will be as deep and eloquent as this one, but I promise I will write SOMETHING every day. 

I hope you're excited, because I'm sure as hell not, and if neither of us are then what is the point of this god forsaken journey, I ask you???

2013 Goals: May Goal Revised

My original goal for May was to Do Something Special for Someone Special.

After me and that Someone Special broke up, I figured I should find a new goal.

I'm thinking I will probably still go ahead with my original plan to do something nice for someone special, since I'm a nice fucking person, and also since I know a lot of special people, and could really use some good Karma after I threw a candy bar at that lovely couple in Target the other day, but

I also decided to come up with a secondary goal for May, to supplement the fact that my first goal isn't exactly going to work out the way I'd planned.

Basically I'm completely fucking winging it here, so try to stay with me.

Anyhow, I decided to subject myself to a weekly dare, and the goal is to complete each weekly dare 100%

If I can pull each one off, I'll be a better person and a better goal achiever by the end of the month. 

If I can't complete each one, I will buy all of my readers Starbucks. 

Just kidding, that could potentially get expensive as hell.

SO!

My first goal for Week One is: Pipe The Fuck Down.

Lately I've been bitching like a mother fucker. 

About everything, really.

I'm stressed and I'm drained and I feel stuck in this awful rut. 

Also I'm overwhelmed as all shit, and there is a lot that feels uncertain about my life right now. 

For instance, is Parenthood getting renewed for another season, or not, because I can't just keep living with not knowing!

Anyway, I've been a bitter, complainy little asshole and it's time to stop that shit.

I have a house, I have a job, I have a car and healthy kids and food and a pretty neat cat and so far I haven't found any gray hairs, AND there is a new episode of Grey's Anatomy on this week.

Life is good, so I'm going to pipe the fuck down and be grateful.

Wish me luck, and and stay tuned for the rest of May's weekly dares.

Gonna be some good shit, I promise. 

How I'm Doing With My No Spend Month {Or: Why I shouldn't be allowed to set my own goals}

So it's now a little more than halfway through April, and I'm just going to go ahead and declare this month's goal an epic failure. 

I did well for the first 4 days, and then it was all down hill from there, due to two bottles of wine and a little too much Destiny's Child. 

Also, the kids got lice and I spent upwards of $100 taking care of that, and after 3 days of washing kids hair, re-washing every single cloth item you own and vacuuming furniture, who's NOT going to order Chinese food??

I did give it an honest try though, and I applaud myself for the effort {because I'm narcissistic that way}.

I'm going to keep trying for the rest of the month, but I'm not really expecting great things from myself at this point. 

Maybe a month of NOSPENDINGANYTHINGATALL is too drastic for me, but I could probably do better at setting boundaries for myself. 

Like maybe only eating out once a week, instead of whenever the hell I feel like it. Or bringing my lunch to work every day instead of going out with co-workers. Starbucks will forever be my Everest, but I could probably do better at that too. Like maybe only going to Starbucks on Saturday mornings before I run errands, or as a reward for completing my errands, or when I'm extremely hung over. 

Oh for fucks sake, let's be honest. All of the above. 

2013 Goals: March Recap

March is over, and today is the first day of April.

New month, new goal.

March's goal was to make my house a home, and I'd like to say I did that. Last night as I was laying in bed it occured to me that the month I had dedicated to my house and my home, ended up becoming the month when the most changed in my home life - things that had nothing to do with decorating or nesting in my house. Maybe I am clairvoyant, or maybe it's just a weird coincidence, but at the end of the month when I was relaxing on the couch with the kids yesterday after a very eventful weekend, I felt for the first time in so long, like my house was my home again. Even though the only room I ended up really finishing was the kitchen.

So without really purchasing anything, I'm stamping this goal completed.

We're home.

This month's goal is to have a No Spend Month.

I am super nervous.

It's not that I love shopping {I actually hate shopping}, it's more just that I'm an impulsive asshole and I went to Starbucks three times in one day a couple months ago.

What if knowing I can't do that anymore makes me feel stifled and then halfway through the month I'm all YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO I WILL BUY ALL OF THE THINGS!!!

That might be dramatic, but also entirely possible.

Anyway, here's a short list of things I will miss:

-Cow Tails from the gas station

-Starbucks

-Everything that Target is, has, and represents

-Movie theatres

-Lunch from the best pizza place in the entire world

-Ordering pizza for the kids so I don't have to cook

-Chinese take out so I don't have to cook

Things I'm afraid of:

-Finding out I have no self control

-Cabin fever {not spending money basically means never leaving the house, right?!}

-Having to cook every. single. night. for the next month. Who can really be expected to do that?!

Anyway, wish me luck.



The Passing Of Time

January went by insanely fast this year. I feel like all I remember of it is celebrating New Year’s Eve, and then today, with just a massive blur in between, punctuated here and there with moments that stand out more clearly. Moments like Lucia and I’s first Kid Free Girls night in what I can only estimate has been years, the officially official end of me and Bill, standing in the cold crying over not being understood, the freeze that killed every plant in my back yard, 3 straight days of rain, adopting a cat, and always feeling guilty about how badly I needed to go grocery shopping. Maybe it happens as you get older, maybe it’s all in my head, but I am genuinely becoming concerned that one day I won’t remember any of the little things about my life, because its all happening too fast. That all of the days will have rolled up on me into one big, shapeless mass of time.
The small moments of peace, the fleeting seconds of joy, the bloom of unbearable sadness, the swells of pride and the warmth of absolute love, that feel at the time like they’ll be with us forever seem to fade far more quickly into the background than I ever thought they would.
Suddenly you look back and they’ve been covered up by the white blank knowledge of passing time, like you’re two steps ahead of a heavily falling snow, which covers up your tracks as soon as you lay them.A few nights ago I found a journal of mine from Spring of 2009, and while I remembered everything I wrote about happening once I read it written there on the page, I still found myself surprised. It seemed that I only recalled those small moments or random nights once I was reminded of them by my own clumsy penmanship.
I can’t help but feel like I have just started another new year, one that even with all its sham hope and optimistic goals, will still fly past me so quickly I can barely grab it, and at this time next year if I look back on what was cataloged during 2013 there will be so much I’ve already forgotten.
I wish you could choose what memories would stand out to you down the road. Like as something is happening that you never want to forget, you can freeze it and pin it to your board of memories that don't fade out or disappear into the blur. That one will stay clear and prominent forever.
I wish I could know for sure in 20 years that the exact sound of Jackson's 4 year old voice, or the specific feel of Lainie's 9 year old hand would stand out perfectly clear in my mind's eye, instead of every line to The Notebook or how to calculate a client's yearly sales pace.
I wish I could know for sure which memories would stay with me forever, and which ones I had better take better care of, because they're going by as quickly as time, already making their exit as soon as they arrive.

New Years in Pictures

This is not a real post. It's just a bunch of pictures from New Years Eve, because I went back to work yesterday after too much time off and too much food, and I'm too tired to give you anything more creative than this. After this, I promise I'll stop talking about the new year, and just get down to living it. Until then though....

Ringing in this year was quiet. Bill and I hung out, had dinner at Z Tejas, and went to Scottsdale for all of five minutes before deciding it was lame and going home. We watched Kathy Griffith get weird with Anderson Cooper on CNN, and we broke our chapagne bottle from last year, in which we'd both put pieces of paper with predictions we'd made about 2012. I didn't see Bill's predictions and he didn't see mine until New Years Eve this year, when we smashed the bottle open with a hammer. It was in fact the world's most indestructible bottle, but it eventually gave. Bill was very proud of his man strength.

Most of my predictions came true, and some of Bills did, but it was still fun to look back and remember what we were thinking and feeling exactly one year ago that day. 

We opened a new bottle, wrote new predictions, and stashed them away to be read next New Years eve, when hopefully the bottle breaks easier, and it's been a better year. 

2013 Goals

So. It's another new year, and I don't know about you but I can't help but feel like...it's just another year.

I don't like this. 

Time seems to pass faster and faster in my life as I get older, and I hate-no, dread the idea of years zipping by in indistinguishable blurs, each one exactly like the last, until I wake up one day, old and bitchy and have no idea why I haven't done any of the things I wanted to do. Wondering where the time went, and what to do now.

For that reason, I am borrowing {with permission} Kate's {from MotleyMama} awesome idea for setting one goal a month for 2013. 

One thing, big or small, that I want to make happen in my life, that would make this year feel a little more...lived.

I'll keep you all posted on how my goals went each month at the end. 

January:

I love my camera, but I don't use it as much as I wish I did, and I still haven't completely mastered it. This month, I will use it every day.

...

February:

Lainie is such a sweet little girl, and she's growing up so fast. The fact that Jackson is littler, and still needs so much help from me with so many things I think automatically means I spend a little more time with him. But it shouldn't necessarily, and Lainie definitely deserves more one on one time together. So in February, we shall have mom and daughter dates, and they shall be grand.

...

March:

Photo source

I love my house. It's the first house I've had as an adult that I've truly loved. I am a little ashamed to admit I still, after almost a year here, have yet to truly make it my own. Decorate, make it homey, etc. I have about a million ideas and things I want to do with it on my Pinterest Boards, but I still haven't done any of them. 

This year, I'm making it happen. 

...

April:

Photo source

I will be the first to admit, I can sometimes spend too much money. People's birthdays, holidays, Target...all blackholes of money for me. In April, no spending money on shit we don't need. This obviously doesn't include bills, groceries, doctor's visits or emergency shit, but no eating out, Starbucks {omg} or whatever else. This might be the hardest goal.

...

May:

Photo Source

More on this to come in May...

...

June:

Photo Source

I will write, every day. Whether I like it, or fucking want to kill myself. 

Just kidding,

Mostly.

...

July:

photo source

More specifically, take my kids to the beach. Family vacation, baby. Oh yeah. On this trip I want to go sailing, try to surf, and maybe even learn to scuba dive if it's possible.

Dream big, folks.

...

August:

photo source

In August, I am going to quit fucking around and start my book. Really start it. Not jot down a couple bullshit lines here and there, only to delete them and never open the Word doc ever again. I'm gonna really write some shit.

My goal is a chapter a week. 

We'll see.

...

September:

Photo source

In September I will stay off Facebook and out of email, and I will take the time to send a letter or care package or some kind of surprise, real life correspondence to each person I care about.

...

October:

 photo source

In 2012, some of my personal drama and outright laziness got in the way of me really being there for my friends. I forgot birthdays, ignored phone calls, left text messages unanswered. It was shitty of me. But, in August when shit hit the fan in my relationship, all of my friends were there for me. Even friends I hadn't spoken to in months, or well over a year. 

This year, I'm paying them all back. I'm going to be a great best friend.

...

November:

photo source

The kids want a pet. I, in particular, do not. BUT the kids will only be kids once, and they will only be kids for a little while, and I want them to have the memory of a dog or cat they really loved when they were growing up. So, in November, for Lainie's birthday, I am going to suck it up and get them a pet.

...

December:

This one might be hard, because it's only a year left to save up for, and I'd be paying for it right around Christmas, but I'm still going to try.

Ok, so there you have it. Not all huge goals, not all of them life changing, but all of them something I'd like to try for, and things I think will stand out when I look back on my life. Our first pet, a family vacation, not buying coffee for a month.

With two kids, I will DEFINITELY remember the month I didn't buy coffee. 

Wish me luck, and happy new year!

Let's live the hell out of this one.