January Round Up

I may have been silent for the past month, but I've still been busy!

10 Buy and TAKE a daily vitamin Health

Purchased a bottle of Vitanica's Women's Symmetry multi-vitamin, which I started taking a few years ago when I was having some health problems. I like it, because it was developed by an naturopathic doctor, contains no animal products and offers various dosage options, depending upon your health needs. While I was browsing the vitamin section at Whole Foods the other day, the clerk just happened to walk by as I picked up the bottle to read the label. Completely unsolicited, he stopped to tell me that was a "really good choice", so I decided to take it as a sign and bought it. Tomorrow, I will crack the seal and start taking it. That's always the challenging part for me, because I'm not really used to taking pills on any kind of regular basis.

17 Kick diet coke/caffeine Health

As of today, it's been at least a month since I have had any diet soda or caffeine. I am now to the point where I know that artificial sweetener would taste like chemicals to me. My next move will be to try to kick sugar (especially that of the high fructose corn syrup variety), which I just realized is not on my list of goals). Ultimately, the idea is to transition to completely to water and iced peppermint tea in place of soda, which I do still drink occasionally.

22 Buy a calendar for the sticker plan Health (completed Jan 09)

Lucky for me, I have such a nice neighbor at work that I don't have to buy a calendar at all. As in past years, she got me a castle calendar. Somewhere along the line, she decided that castles were my thing, which amuses me. While I like castles as much as the next person, I don't have any particular devotion to them. That said, the photography really is lovely and the calendar will work perfectly for posting exercise reward stickers. Yes, I know it's total second-grade-gold-star, but it really does work. When I see gaps without stickers, I feel shamed into filling them by moving my body! (The shame factor of everyone in my office knowing what the stickers are for and that anyone can see if I'm getting lazy doesn't hurt either!)

74 Try a new recipe each month Soul/happiness

Jan: Glazed Ribs with two Cabbage Slaw (from the 1/26/09 Women's World)

75 Try a new restaurant each month Soul/happiness

Jan: Thai Delight in Wilsonville

79 Join Amnesty International Soul/happiness

Joined in response to the articles and pictures that were coming out of Gaza during the Israeli seige. This happened right around the transition between the old and new goal scheme, so it is possible that this one was already counted on the old list. Amnesty is such a worthy cause and does such good work, however, that I'm happy to count it twice.

81 Do something nice for someone once a week Soul/happiness

Because it's going to be difficult to keep track of this one, my goal is to list at least four things a month that I did for someone other than myself.

January:
1 - Instead of buying the expensive, new Macbook I wanted, I bought a cheaper Gateway notebook, so I could also afford a desktop for my mom
2 - Took my mom out for Thai food
3 - Cheered Mary up after we learned about our pay cut on Friday
4 - Helped J. with his phone bill and groceries

92 Buy a new laptop Misc. tasks (completed 1/24/09)

After much debating about whether I could still afford the reward I'd planned for paying off all my bills (go debt free me!) in this economy, I decided that a promise (even when made to oneself) is a promise and ordered a lovely, red Gateway MD for myself. At less than half of what I'd planned to pay for the Mac I was going to buy (sorry Apple, maybe next time...), I think it was a really good and fiscally responsible compromise.

93 Buy a new desktop Misc. tasks (completed 1/24/09)

Like my laptop, our desktop computer was getting really old and slow. My 70 year old mother really uses it much more than I do, but it is still something I have been wanting to replace. Originally, the plan was to buy my laptop, then what until later in the year for the desktop, but with the money I saved by buying a less expensive model, I was able to afford both. Not only that, but I got a sweet, bundled deal that included a monitor and printer. So, I managed to purchase two computers plus a printer for less than I had originally been prepared to pay for just the laptop.

And in case it sounded like these are completely frivolous purchases, in addition to replacing two computers with a combined age of 13 years(!), I actually do need something more reliable to work on both for my day job and my moonlighting as writer and potential co-proprietor of a small press. What will be frivolous will be if I blow the rest of my Mac budget on a wii (which I am strongly considering because it will bring me that much closer to my wii fit goal)!

So, that's it for this month's official round up, but I'll be checking in on Anne and adding more progress reports of my own soon!