Happy New Year!

When I was packing for our Christmas vacation I made the greatest decision--not to take my computer. I knew I could check my email and read a few blogs on my phone with no problem, and if I needed to do more than that I knew that Chris would bring the iPad with him. I was able to read two and a half books while I was gone, work on writing down some New Years Resolutions, and finish listening to the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows audio book. This puts me at having read 79 books in 2011, which is freaking awesome (at least I think so). I only read two blogs while I was gone, and didn't miss anything on any of the other blogs I follow by not checking them for a whole week and a half.

It feels so great to be back home and to be on my blog again. I meant to make this New Year Resolution post yesterday, but after 11:00 church (hallelujah!) it was read scriptures, make dinner (okay, so it was already in the crock pot before church, and I just had to throw rice into my rice cooker...), eat dinner, games and a movie with the hubby once he got home from doing his clerk duties at like 4:30. The movie we picked was the first Lord of the Rings movie and I decided to really focus on the movie since I normally only half watch when we watch LOTR. It's funny how much more I picked up on this time around, paying attention and watching the extended edition makes a difference!

Anywho, it is a new year. How crazy is that! It seems like just last week that I was setting some new years resolutions for 2011, my how time flies! I decided that my 2012 is going to be focused on Being Active. I found a few different categories I want to be more active in (physically/health, spiritually, educationally, and more active in my relationships with others) and a few different goals within each of those categories.

Physically:
For Christmas I asked for and received a pedometer, new Camelbak Nalgene bottle, and Just Dance 3 for the Wii. Once Chris goes back to work tomorrow and I can get everything put away from Christmas and our travels I plan on breaking out my pedometer and figuring out after a few days of using it just how active I already am, and then setting a goal to be better than that. I also bought Chris a new Nalgene bottle so maybe he won't drink out of mine so much and I can better keep track of how much water I drink. It should help now that we'll have two extra bottles laying around so I can keep using them when others are getting washed. And Just Dance. Holy cow is that a good workout! I was pretty excited to get that, and just finished doing a few of the songs. Next time I won't be wearing jeans though... it'll be yoga pants or running shorts.

Also in this category is my health. I'm going to keep searching for more meatless meals to incorporate into our menu, and with those, pinterest, and my new cookbook plan on cooking 3 new meals each month for a whopping total of 36 new meals. If I do one new recipe a week I can make that 52 which would be even more awesome! I'm also working on incorporating more fruits and vegetables into our diets, so I'm hoping to find some recipes that have a bunch of veggies in it (like maybe a good vegetable lasagna or something?).

Spiritually:
I already posted about my crazy plan to read the complete Standard Works in 2012, and that's still on. I'm thinking that this might also be the year that I read Jesus the Christ, but really if I get past the first few pages I'll have gotten further than ever before. I also decided that this will be the year that I actually read the lessons ahead of time for Relief Society and Sunday School. I've got my student reading guide for Sunday School and have the reading assignments for the month of January already in my calendar. This means this year I'll end up reading The Book of Mormon twice, once throughout the year for Sunday School and once when I get to The Book of Mormon in my crazy reading plan. I also want to be a much better visiting teacher.

Educationally:
I need to finish ISYS 100 and ISYS 101 by February 20th. I had hoped to be done with these at the beginning of December, and then before I left for Christmas... I would love to have one of them done by February 1st. It will take a lot of self control and good time management to work on them instead of a lot of other fun things I could do, but I think I've got a good routine going that will give me time to do school without having a lot of other things in my way or distracting me.

I also want to play the piano more often, so I'm going to go through my Fat Classics book and learn a new song each month. I know I want to learn Moonlight Sonata, so that's my January song.

I've got way too many goals, and I know that... but throughout the month of January I'll prune them back a little...