New Year's Resolutions

Woot, happy new year! The family (+ Robyn) dinner last night was fantastic. We had a huge Chinese food dinner at a restaurant. My favorite dishes were the shrimp/crab ball and some tofu with this egg/crab/veggie sauce. I don't think the descriptions make the dishes sound that great, but I promise they were yummy. After dinner, we all went to my uncle's house and played cards and watched Over the Hedge until the ball dropped. The picture on the right is some of us (not everyone could fit in the frame) watching the ball drop in NYC.

Time for New Year's Resolutions. Let's revisit the ones that I posed last year and see how I did.

• Keep up with my blog and Etsy shop every day through promotion, posting, or listing. Check. This wasn't too hard. Even though keeping up with a handwritten journal was tough for me growing up, with the help of technology and my fast typing abilities, maintaining this blog wasn't a challenge at all. As for my Etsy shop, with the new shop tools, it's so much easier to manipulate shop settings and edit listings.
  
• Take a picture every day (Project 365). Err...this one didn't really go as planned. I thought I'd be able to take a non-card related picture every day, but my life's not that interesting. Maybe I need to make an effort to find the extraordinary in the ordinary.
  
• Maintain a healthy lifestyle (physically and emotionally) by continuing to attend spin class, not giving into my sweet tooth as much, and not taking b.s. from anyone. This one was also half and half. Spin class was a joy to go to this year, and I did somewhat pick running back up. However, I gave into my sweet tooth just as often.
  
• Partake in more random acts of kindness. I didn't really keep track of these. Is it still a random act of kindness if you already know the person? Are baking cookies and sending cards to people considered random acts of kindness?
  
• Learn a new craft. (Any suggestions? I'm leaning towards scrapbooking or crocheting.) I did pretty well with this. I learned more about scrapbooking through The Paperclipping Roundtable, but I only did one layout. And I didn't even get to share it because my camera ran out of battery power. I did try my hand at crocheting and sewing. I think I'll always be a paper crafter at heart, but I can't wait to explore making those fabric flowers further.
  
• Track my financial spending better by keeping receipts and entering data into MS Excel. I get an A+ with this one. I have a spreadsheet that has all my purchases itemized with different tabs on the bottom for each month of the year.
  
• Take a chill pill more often (a sister-submitted suggestion ::eye roll::). Hmmm. I dunno about this one. I'll let the people that know me better decide on this one. I probably freaked out as I normally do.

2011 Resolutions

• Repeats from last year: Keep up with my blog and Etsy shop every day through promotion, posting, or listing. Track my financial spending better by keeping receipts and entering data into MS Excel.
• Reach 625 Etsy sales by January 1, 2012. I'm currently at 485 sales.
  
• Complete a 8K in March 2011 without walking. I did this race in 2008, and my time was 54:22.
  
• Complete a 10K in April 2011 without walking. I also did this race in 2008, and my time was 75:55. It was a huge challenge for me because I hadn't trained very well for this race, and my knee was in a lot of pain during the last mile of the race. I want to do better this year.
  
• Continue to go to spin class, run more, and incorporate weigh lifting into workouts more often.
• Leave the nest. This is going to be tough as I have never lived by myself before. I guess it's time to grow up a little.
  
• Teach a class on origami. Hopefully this'll help me with my fear of public speaking.
  
• Increase my professional contributions at work and work towards a promotion.
  

I think that list will keep me busy in 2011. What do you think? Are there any goals that you have in 2011?

Here are 2 pictures that I want to share with you today. The first one is a squirrel that stopped by who had no tail! There wasn't even a stubby one! So weird. He seemed to be functioning find without it, but I dunno if he's able to climb across telephone wires and stuff like that. And then I also made a Valentine's Day card using the elephant origami model that I learned a few days ago.
Hope you all have a healthy and prosperous New Year! Let's do it.