It's the new year!

It's the new year! 2014! 2013 has come and gone. With it, all the good, and all the (thankfully little) bad.

It's time to set new goals, and I thought about setting a goal, to set no goals for a while this year and really think about what I wanted to do this year.

About a week ago, I was spending an evening with a  friend of mine, and she asked what I was looking forward to this year, and it really got me thinking. I told her I would have to think about it for a while, and think I did.

Last Monday, I woke up at 3AM in the middle of the night, and couldn't sleep. As I typically do, I started to think. Only this time, I REALLY thought. I thought about the last few years of my life, and how far I've been able to come. I thought about the ones that I've loved, the ones that passed on, and the friends and family I have here. I thought about my challenges with depression and anxiety and realized that I'm doing really well with it. I still have my off days, but that's the thing... They're DAYS and not weeks. When my anxiety acts up, it's typically a really intense flash that lasts about 2-3 minutes.

I was also finally able to get a major source of my anxiety defined over the holidays. I have inflammation of the cartilage in my chest which has been causing the random chest pains in odd places. Now that I have a name, I can fight it, and that has helped immensely in my anxiety fight.

So anyway, i was laying there, thinking about all of this, and I realized that this is going to be MY year. The Year of JOSEPH VERMILLION. Screw the year of the dragon, or whatever it is this year. This is MY year.

So how am I going to make it my year? I decided to set some goals while I lay awake that night. I laid down some big goals, and outlined the smaller ones that I will need to do in order to get the big ones.

Goals:
1) adjust and live my budget
2) Read 6 nonfiction books by the end of the year
3) TOP SECRET
4) Exercise at least 3 times a week
5) Improve my credit score

1) Some of you may recall that last year, I decided I wanted to live by a budget and save some money. Well, I have a budget... but I didn't quite live it. So this year, I'm buckling down and adjusting it and living it. I'm using Mint.com which is doneby the guys who run Quicken Loans, and it has a handy mobile app that lets me see exactly what and where my money is going.

2) I decided that I want to read more non-fiction this year. I want to spread out a bit as I typically read fiction/fantasy/sci-fi/Star Wars books. I decided on 6 as that will allow me two months to finish one book. I've already got a fantastic list of books picked out, so it is going to be a fun year in reading.

3) TOP SECRET : Well, as it says, this one is top secret. i don't want o jinx it, but there are three our four steps that I'm having to take to get it going. Those have been written down and are in my safe keeping. When I'm ready, this goal will be revealed. No, I'm not getting married anytime soon, so don't even worry about that!

4) exercise at least 3 times a week. I'm taking a serious look at the p90x3 set. The biggest thing that held me back from doing the original P90X was the length of the program... Most of them ran at around an hour. I have a hard time focusing on anything that isn't fun for that long, so the shorter format is really appealing to me. I already have a gym membership that I'm thinking of canceling if this new format works out for me.

5) I guess this one ties into goal number 1. When I got the loan to fix my fence, i found out my credit score is a little less than average. I also found some things on my credit report that shouldn't have been there, so I'm in the process of getting those fixed.

I have a really good feeling about my goals this year, and I feel that I'm going to be stretched the most by numbers 1, 3 and 4 the most.

It's going to be a great year. The YEAR OF JOE!