January 10, 2010

The Year of Lists

Happy New Year! I figured that I'd let all the other bloggers do their new year posts first, so you wouldn't get overwhelmed.

OK, we both know that's a lie. As usual, I put it off because I don't do resolutions and I wasn't sure yet what I wanted to say for my first post of the year.

Finally, inspiration struck the other day, in Barnes & Noble, of all places. I took my mom there so she could get a 2010 calendar book for her appointments. B&N usually has so many and discounts them by 50% after Christmas/New Years, so we were hoping for a good buy. While she was perusing the selection (which was pretty thin by then, unfortunately), I checked out a few and hit gold. I found a rather unassuming-looking volume called Listography Weekly Calendar: Your Year In Lists.

I love lists. I think most people do. I don't make them as frequently or as predictably as some (e.g., the ubiquitous "My Top 10 List of the Year!"), but there's something incredibly satisfying about making and completing a list, some of the reasons for which I was amused to find here. The Listography calendar, while it serves as a conventional weekly planner, has the additional twist of giving you a topical list to complete each week, accompanied by a quirky illustration. As the back cover says, the lists "range from autobiographical to aspirational to holiday-specific" and I fell in love with the idea of the calendar guiding me to make lists to share here.

Because, let's face it, I'm not always good with the ol' follow-through here at The Ping. The only thing that I successfully did for an extended period of time was The Year of Living Generously, and even that had an element of failure because I felt I couldn't write about it after a certain point. (I did complete it, though, even after being laid off, and I'm pretty proud of that!)

The calendars topics are random enough to keep my interest (I'm hoping), amusing and relevant enough to make for some good posts (I'm really hoping), and already prepared so I won't have to struggle for a topic. The idea of that makes me a little giddy, I have to admit, so I'm encouraged that it's something I can stick with for a while.

As we've completed the first full week of our new year, it's time for the first list (hopefully the first of many!) in no particular order except as how they occurred to me.

List 1: My Goals For The Upcoming Year
  • Take another trip to Los Angeles to visit friends
  • Find or create a job that I can stand
  • Get a new blog design
  • Put together a disaster-preparedness kit
  • Blog more regularly
  • Find a volunteer position
  • Complete some cross-stitch projects
  • Pare down my possessions
  • Drink more wine
  • Take more photos and organize them
Thoughts? Questions? Goals of your own to share? Hit me up in the comments and let me know.