Eleven Before 22

September Writing Challenge - Prompt #19:

Goals

Here we are. It's September. The ninth month of the year. 

I'm finally ready to make my New Year's resolutions!

Last September I set 21 goals I wanted to achieve before 2021. I didn't complete all of them, but I did pretty darn good. I found it very motivating, and I feel the same sort of motivation now, so I'm doing it again. I'm only going to go with ten goals this time, though. "Ten before 22." It's not as exciting numerically, but sometimes you gotta be practical and not cute, amiright?

1. Do 2022 push-ups

I did this last year, and it was pretty awesome. My body is still weak from my mystery pain earlier this year, so I'm hoping I can start building up some strength. 

2. No soda for the rest of the year

I've taken off a week or two here or there, but I need to get away from soda for a nice, long stretch.

3. Take a week off social media

I need a good reset.

4. Work with my doctor to get off high blood pressure medication

I want to get to the point where I can safely go off it and see if I'm able to maintain healthy BP through lifestyle. 

5. Go kayaking by myself

Don't worry - it won't be dangerous kayaking. I'll just be rowing around a small community pond with an audiobook.

6. Go back to the temple

I haven't been to the temple since they closed in March 2020. I find myself in no rush. I kind of prefer to just wait, so setting this goal is an attempt to motivative me to at least try to go. 

7. Try 10 new recipes

This is always something I enjoy doing.

8. Shampoo the living room couch 

Let's pretend it’s not totally disgusting. I usually shampoo it once a month, but summer happened, and you can’t have a wet couch AND four kids home. 

9. Implement a new chore schedule with the kids

I had a good schedule that worked for about two years, but I need to make some changes that give Zoe and Eva more responsibilities now that they are older. 

10. Don’t go over on the Christmas budget

This is my goal every year, and every year I fail. This time I'm writing it down and sending it out into the online world. 

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Now that I made a list of goals to work on, I recall that I made at the beginning of the year to read ten "school books." I completely forgot I was working on that! So far I've read The Scarlet Letter, The Outsiders, Wait Till Helen Comes, and Weasel, The Cay & Timothy of the Cay (which I only counted as one book because of how short they were - what was I thinking?)

So in that case, I guess I need to throw in one more goal:

11. Read five more school books