Some Goals

Like I mentioned last time, I've been feeling a little aimless lately. I think the start of a new month is always a good time to create some goals for myself. Some small ones, some larger ones, some that I probably have no chance of achieving. So here we go. In November, my goals are as follows:

• Go to at least 2 places I haven't been before. I haven't done much exploring of my city, and I know that's not really ok. Particularly if I'm only going to be living here for the rest of my lease, I want to be able to look back on this year and feel like I actually lived in California, not just like I stayed there for a little while and was afraid to leave my apartment. I'm not limiting this to my city in particular though, because there's so much of the Bay Area that I want to see. Probably more than I want to see much of Silicon Valley. I really want to figure out if I want to move out of CA entirely, or just leave the area I'm in now, and there's no better way to figure that out than to do some exploring...
• Write something every day. Whether that's here, in my journal, part of something creative, it doesn't matter. Just the simple act of putting words into sentences and making it all make sense has been so important to me in the past, and I've really like it slide since finishing my thesis in April. Oops!
• Run 30 miles. Not in a row, mind you. I'm not that good yet. But I have so much time on my hands, and I keep making excuses for myself to avoid getting out and exercising... I really do want to get better, I just don't feel like putting in the effort. And I need to put a stop to that.
• Come up with a story to tell. This goes along with writing, but it's a different goal for me. I can write endlessly about my thoughts and my woes and my feelings, but I want to come up with a story that has nothing to do with me, and tell it.
• Figure out what to do about holiday gifts. This is for obvious reasons.
• Knit something and finish it. I've been working on the same giant project for the past four or five months and really making no progress. Probably because I got bored with it after a couple of weeks and stopped picking it up. I'm letting myself buy new yarn, and I'm going to make something else and remember why I love knitting. Because I really do love knitting.
• Try at least 3 new recipes. For real food, not dessert, because let's be honest, I eat a lot of dessert. Bonus points if the recipes are primarily vegetable based instead of, let's say, pasta based. Or cheese based. Yum, cheese.
• Keep a positive attitude. Seriously, Becca, your life is not all that awful. Remember that.

So there are my goals. I'll check in at the end of the month and let you know how I did. And of course, I'll check in between now and then with what I'm sure will be fascinating updates about my life and job and roommates and stuff. But I'll be trying to keep it positive, per my last (and probably most important) goal.