2011: A Year for Really Keeping Resolutions

Part I: 2011 Resolutions

 It's that time of year again, and I'm making some resolutions. I don't usually make resolutions, usually because I'm pretty terrible at sticking to them. Once too often I've found that I'll make my resolution list on a tiny scrappy piece of paper which screams "I'm not committed to keeping these!" It's easily thrown away or squirreled away into a tiny corner of my desk, which I only find the following January when I'm cleaning out my house to start the year "fresh." The fresh feeling I get is instead a wave of guilt about how bad I am at keeping resolutions.

This is why I stopped making resolutions. However! I've found my resolution solution... at least I think. I've prettified my list of resolutions, ones that I can actually commit to. Ones that I can actually keep. No, I'm not trying to lose weight, exercise more, or eat less. Nope. Those kinds of resolutions aren't in the stars for me.


So here's the list. I've just finalized these-- so don't fault me for failing yet. I've written these in pretty and colorful letters on a distinctive and handsome piece of paper and posted the list permanently to my corkboard. I've gone so far as to break out the calligraphy pen so it doesn't just look like any ordinary list. And it's in BIG letters so that I actually have to look at it every day.  On the side, I've made a monthly list to help me stay on track with the bigger resolutions. I think it's going to work!

Are you dying to know what they are? Get ready to not be very excited!

1.  Write in your blog bi-weekly. This most directly affects you, dear readers. It will be challenging while I'm in school, but I think I can do it.
2.  Become more involved in the VLA and ALA (nerdy library associations that you wish you were a part of).
 3.  Re-learn Spanish. I'm not sure where I'm going after this
4. Keep to a monthly budget.  Not that I'm very frivolous with money, but since I'd like to have more fun with my money (like travel) than I currently get to, I'm going to see how far I can stretch my dollars by watching what I spend in general.
5.   Average getting $700 in scholarships for grad school per semester. This will take a lot of work, but if there is free money out there for poor librarians trying to get their MLIS, I'll be trying to find it.
6.  Read more books than last year? See the next post for more info. This shouldn't be hard, I just have to one-up myself.