2017 Life Goals

I know this is mostly a horse blog, but you put up with house renovation posts too and I need to put this down somewhere to hold myself accountable.

This is not the car that needs to be paid off. This is my old car, which I adored and still miss. It had character and guts and would have run forever. Also, it was totally paid off.

1. Pay off car

It's my last remaining debt apart from the mortgage. I paid off my student loans before I bought the car. On track to do this next November. I'd love to do it earlier, because that's money that could be routed to other savings, or to the mortgage. I really hate debt.

2. Read 75 books

I accomplished this in 2016, though largely due to my book-a-day pace on the honeymoon. It remains to be seen whether I'll have reading time like that in 2017, or if I'll be squeezed at the end of the year.

You can follow along with my challenge on Goodreads, where I am pretty active. I read mostly fantasy, science fiction, memoir, and history.

3. Revive history blogs

Chiefly, this is my museum-focused blog Amblering. I am turning more and more toward writing in my day job, which is a nice shift, but I am rusty and need to both re-focus on my career writing and my history writing. I have content out the wazoo for this, but need the discipline to gather it and write it out.

4. Do better about food

Back on the budget wagon for grocery shopping. (Last week, I spent $75 on groceries in one transaction. $75!!! Past me is nauseated and horrified.) Back also on the healthy food wagon. 2016 was the year of comfort food because everything sucked. Also, there was an all you can eat cruise in the middle of it.

5. Decorate the house

For all my renovation work, I suck at the actual finishing touches. I have been known to leave walls bare for months, and struggle to find a cohesive theme and/or make thoughtful choices about the look and feel of a space beyond paint color and some furniture. So this goal may involve getting photos printed, rounding up all the unframed art in the house (we bought a lot on the honeymoon), doing a furniture inventory and maybe repainting some lamps and (god help me) re-upholstering a chair or two so they are fresher. And, um, not falling apart, in the case of one best-beloved reading chair.