Where are you going? Where have you been?

It's already near the end of April (I know, right?) so it's about time I looked back at those resolutions I made at the beginning of the year to hopefully re-ignite the fires of effort and progress.

On the last day of last year, I made the following goals for 2011:

• Run another half marathon
• Take a cross country road trip
• Complete an Olympic distance triathlon (my first was a sprint distance)
• Pay off my car (early)
• Run the Spokane Marathon in October (the full marathon)
• Get published
• Read at least 10 books from the banned books list
• Dine out once a week or less (unless someone else is paying, haha)
• Make a will (I've been talking about this for years but have yet to do it)

I did end up running another half marathon, although it was only at the gym on a treadmill. As a result of my work schedule and my efforts to tighten down on spending, I've been running in a lot less of the organized races this year. The good news is that I'm still getting the most out of my gym membership, and if it continues to snow and hail every time I think about running outside...I may never run outdoors again.

There's also a definite check mark for making a will, thanks to Liz and the RocketLawyer website for making that so easy. That is one of those things that I just avoided because I thought it would be time consuming and sad.

I'll give you fair warning: it was definitely sad.

If you've even taken stock of the life you've made and the people you've come to know, you can relate. If that's something you've never done, there's no time like right now.

When I was done filling everything out, I got up and walked around the house a bit, and it was incredibly surreal how disconnected I felt from all of the objects I've brought into my space. I found that what I wanted to do more than anything else was to grab the dogs and go sit out in the yard.

So that's what I did.

Then I called some friends to grab breakfast the next day and to be the witnesses for my will. The thing that really stuck with me in this process is that my first response to thinking about my own death was not to bemoan the fact that I haven't seen all of TruBlood, or to cry about the possessions I would leave behind, but to grab the living things and reach out to the people I care about. Wills are important because they give the people you leave behind some sense of closure; clear instructions to follow when the world seems confusing and scary.

So yeah, sad for sure. But honestly, it wasn't time consuming at all. If anyone out there is reading this and doesn't have a will yet, the RocketLawyer site is offering free wills throughout the month of April, check it out here: RocketLawyer.com


Out of the sadness and back to the goal list:

My reading habits are still a pale shadow of what they used to be. I'm only two books in to my 10 book challenge. So far, I've read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. The problem here might be that the library is just too close to my house. Seeing it every day lures me into a false sense of ease about gaining access to books.

At this point I won't say that I'm completely off or on the track for completing my other goals. The year is still young and anything can happen.

What I can say is that I'm a total rock star at not going out to eat. I wish I could say it was because of my iron will, but actually it's because my schedule makes it so that I'm nowhere near an eating establishment when it's actually time to eat. I may find myself walking by O'dougherty's downtown...at 9am. Or perhaps driving by the Dairy Queen...at 11pm when it's 25 degrees.

This wasn't a goal that I set before, but I'd like to say right now that I will not go so long in the future without writing a post for this blog. A month and a half is ridiculous, especially by internet standards.

So there you have it, the goals are set! The time is now! Go Go!