Resolutions

Last year my resolutions were mostly related to escaping from gradual school.  This year they're a little more stereotypical health and financial stuff.  But I'm telling you, the internet, about them so hopefully I'll feel more accountable.

My first goal is to pay off my student loans this year.  I'm down to about 1/4 of what I had when I graduated from college, and I make more than a grad student stipend now, so this shouldn't be too hard. But the sooner it gets done the better.

My next goal is to accumulate 6 months worth of living expenses in my savings.  I'm not particularly worried about losing my job - well, post-doc...and in fact it seems my boss/co-workers would be happy to keep me around if a position exists/can be created when this post-doc is up...so that's good :) - but moving across the country and furnishing an apartment (even with a moving allowance from work) wiped me out, and it makes me anxious not to have much savings.  This might take more than a year, but that's the ultimate goal.

Now my most stereotypical resolution is to lose some weight.  I have a particular number in mind, one I won't share here, but I'm about 7 lbs away.  I lost a fair amount of weight during the first half of last year, most of which I've maintained, but once I hit my first goal last year I set a second that I never quite reached.

There are a couple of corollaries to the previous goal.  The first is that I will try not to complain about my current weight/size.  This does not include complaining about the way every single pair of pants gaps in the back at the waist.  It's incredibly irritating.  The second is to approach weight loss more slowly this year.  I used an app called MyFitnessPal with a lot of success last year, with a fairly aggressive approach, but I think I need to take it slower this time.  I've tried resuming the same approach I used last year about 4 times over the past couple of months, but after about 4 days all I want to do is sit and eat cheetos and ice cream.  Even with the app it's a lot harder to stay motivated when I don't have E to cook with and motivate me.

I've decided to do a photo-a-day again this year.  I did it in 2011, and while it was a lot of work, it was also a lot of fun and I loved the random and funny conversation it frequently generated on Facebook.  I still flip through those photos occasionally.  There were a lot of days when I realized it was quarter to midnight and I didn't have a photo yet, but I miss using my camera that much.  I carried it just about everywhere that year.  I'm just afraid that the album is going to be incredibly boring this year or will take a enormous amount of work to make it not boring.  My social circle is much smaller in Baltimore (and none of my friends here have cute kids/babies) and I can't really take my camera into work like I could in grad school.  I suppose I have until it seems time to publish the first batch of photos to bail.  If nothing else it should get me taking more pictures.