Happy New Year!
We survived 2012, although I’ve got to admit, there were times when I thought a little wistfully about our supposed impending doom, because that would’ve been a great excuse to take a vacation. Between hauling hiney to get my book done and published before the end of the year, and then marketing it, and juggling all of that with both finding and doing freelance work, I was feeling pretty burned out by the end of the year.So it wasn’t too hard to force myself to take full advantage of the last two four-day weekends and recharge my batteries.
This last weekend was particularly restful. I stayed in, and caught up on sleep, and was totally lazy for most of it, and actually read a whole entire book just for fun (Cold Days, the lastest Dresden Files entry — it was good!). Then we spent yesterday the same way we’ve spent all New Year’s Days since we moved into this house — cleaning house and putting away Christmas decorations. Now I’m feeling quite a bit closer to normal and am actually able to think straight and have creative ideas and such once again, and I’m ready to tackle some goals for 2013.
Usually, before I set goals I spend a whole blog post reviewing the previous year. But there wasn’t a whole lot to 2012, really. I mean, on a national & historical scale, there was plenty. But on a personal scale, it was pretty uneventful. It wasn’t wholly without highlights, though: in addition to publishing my second novel, I also lost some more weight and made some brief forays back into Full Time Office Job territory, and got back into the practice of doing job interviews. Also, thanks to Un-Eff Your Habitat, I actually experienced having every room in my house clean at the same time, and even maintained that state for a while before everything became ridiculously hectic. Mostly, though, 2012 turned out to be one big hunt for paying work, which is boring, so that’s all I’ll say about that.
Looking ahead to the new year, instead of resolutions, I have some goals (yes, I’m one of those people), primary of which is to achieve some prosperity. We’re off to a good start, thanks to the fact that the Big Job/Gig Hunt of 2012 actually paid off, to the effect that here at the start of the year I have three steady, long-term freelance gigs and two short-term web dev projects, one of which could turn into a steady retainer. There’s also still the IT contract employment agency I signed on with back in November, although I have a feeling all of the positions they were considering me for are on hold until their client companies see what’s going to happen with this whole fiscal cliff thing. Honestly, this whole business is making me more thankful to be a freelancer than ever before, since I don’t have to worry about whether or not I’m going to lose my job in the next few weeks. And Matt has decided to take the semester off to work on his various business pursuits and help me with mine. So, we’re starting out the new year in a good place. Here’s hoping the work stays steady long enough to make some real headway.
Naturally, I have a weight-loss goal–I’m about five pounds away (according to my cheap bathroom scales, at any rate, so it’s probably more like 10 in reality) from achieving my ultimate goal weight, which will put me firmly in the middle of the healthy BMI range. So I’m going to focus on shedding those last several pounds, and also toning up and making my butt look unlike the butt of someone who sits at a computer all day. This will necessitate rebuilding my wardrobe, because everything in my closet will officially be one to three sizes too big, so that ties back into the first goal.
My other major goal for the new year is simply to keep making time to write, and to not let the hectic freelancing schedule deter me. I haven’t been writing lately — after scrambling to finish revising and polishing Dominion and then publicizing it to death, I needed a break. But I’m back in the saddle as of this morning, during which I wrote the next scene of Eucha Falls. I hope to finish that by next week. As for what I’ll write next, that’s not quite decided and it probably needs to be its own blog post, along with my publishing goals for the year.
I have smaller goals, too, which probably count more as resolutions: to get back into the UFYH habit, as mentioned above, although for the last six months I haven’t even had time to read that blog, let alone put any of it into practice; to make more leisure time for myself and spend it away from the Internet, doing things like going outside and reading books and playing my bass and actually making craft projects instead of just pinning them on Pinterest, to keep myself from getting so burned out again; and to take a real vacation this year, one where we actually leave the house, even if it’s just a long weekend camping at the lake.
Pretty much it all boils down to that I need to work on balancing things better this year, and on doing a better job of budgeting my time.
What about you guys? Did you have a good New Year’s weekend? Let’s hear about your big goals for 2013!
Jean Marie Bauhaus 