2000-12-01 - 13:47:38
Slightly Silly Thanksgiving Resolutions

Okay. Time to get cracking on those Thanksgiving resolutions.

My "Prime Directive" has always been "Stay the Course". It sounds cheesy, but all it means is staying true to my faith in God, my family, my friends, and of course myself. I've been horrid about doing that at times, but luckily I've always managed (so far) to dust off my knees, patch up the wounds, and keep going.

A body needs more goals in life than that, though. If you worry about it too much, you end up chasing your "purpose in life" in circles, going nowhere. So here are some temporary goals I've thought about. I may fail in some of them. But ALL of them are things important to me at this point in my life.

In No Particular Order, My Goals Are:

(1) Publishing a novel by my 25th birthday

I have several ideas, some of them of long standing ... and one novel outline, complete with several pages of character/world research, that I've been mulling over and editing for a long time. Why have I put it off until now? Because there's so much in life that I haven't experienced, and would thus have difficulty writing about. If I keep waiting, though, it'll never get written, and what's an imagination for, anyway? Hopefully, I'll end up a recognized author so I can ditch the desk job.

(2) Owning a castle

I don't mean "model of", or "really big house", I mean a literal castle. It's not a joke! There's a firm called Castle Magic that builds real stone castles in the U.S. They're building a large-family-sized one (4,000 sq. ft. or so) over Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho, that goes on the market at about $532,000. That's not so bad, when you think about it ... and if I'm successful at (1), maybe I'll have enough money for a downpayment on one of my own in a dozen years or so. Check this site if you want to see the details about that castle.

(3) Marriage and children

On some days, it feels like I'll end up as a member of the Old-Lady-With-Cats Society ... and my mother keeps telling me "I'm too young to be a grandma anyway". Besides which, I don't really have that much control over whether it happens or not. All the same ... singleness is frustrating the hell out of me. I may be something of a loner, but I'm not cut out to be alone. I can manage it, and I fully intend to enjoy the benefits of being single while it lasts, but it still feels like a "waiting period", and I think it always will.

(4) Visit Europe before my 25th birthday

This is one of those "benefits of being single" that I intend to exploit fully. While I'm still free of house payments and negotiating two people's vacation time and all that, I want to grab one or more of my other single friends (Hildegaard? Azash? Nellanor? the Madman?) and go for a shoestring-budget 2-week tour. Of course, I'd like to go again WITH a husband, later ... but I have a feeling the side you see as a single person is vastly different than that viewed through the "romantic vacation" lens.

(5) Going into space

I firmly believe that sometime before I die, there will be a way for civilians to visit the International Space Station or whatever they have in place in the future. Expensive, maybe, but available. And I WILL go. If it weren't for the fact that astronauts have to be in school until age 34 with advanced degrees in physics to have any hope of going up at all, I would have gone for that as a career with all my heart.

(6) Fitting into all my clothes again

Yes, this is the traditional "weight loss goal" that shows up on everybody's list. I hate being one size bigger than half of my favorite jeans and dresses; I'm far too young for "swivel chair spread"!! I can't wait until January; I'll have the room to set up my ancient treadmill, and the manpower (Azash) to get it running for me. There's no way to exercise where I'm at now. I can't go jogging in our neighborhood alone (Jocasta won't go with me) and I can't do any indoor exercises because the first floor of the house is so cluttered and the floor upstairs creaks madly if I try anything up there.

That's all that I can remember at the moment. If I think of any more, I'll add them to the list later today.

*cracking knuckles* And now, the Amazing Shell will once more attempt to make subforms, queries, and VB Code dance around in impossible ways, fulfilling the office's current desires and then some. *chuckle* At least today we women all get to go to "Christmas Tea" ... several hours away from this desk! Hurray!