New Year, New Post

So it's been ages since I've blogged, but in the spirit of New Year's and motivated by one of my favorite women-making-it-work-in-science-with-a-family bloggers (seriously adorable little family and frankness that makes me laugh out loud and adore her all the more) I decided to post.

I'll warn you right now that this is a stereotypical post on resolutions and goals for this year.  Let's check up on last year's goals as we go...considering the one I bombed in 2013 is going to make a reappearance in this year's list...

Student loans!  They're paid off!!  I made steady progress on them for the first half of the year until summer when I started saving money for a trip to France.  In September I got promoted/hired as a "real person" with the same company I post-doc-ed (what on earth is the past tense of the verb "to post-doc"???).  Getting a real PhD job came with a substantial promotion, and as soon as I saw my first pay check I promptly paid off the remainder of my student loans.

My other financial goal was to build up a safety cushion of savings.  I actually got pretty darn close to accomplishing this, but then Boyfriend and I decided to buy a house... So there goes that money.  While this wasn't exactly a fail, savings are important to me so it's going on the list for 2014.  I'm aiming again for 6 months of living expenses, as well as some money for a certain pricey occasion.

Along with saving, I want to figure out how to improve my retirement savings plan.  I only acquired retirement benefits when I got hired in September, so all I've done so far is contribute the maximum that my company will match.  But this year it's time to study up on 401ks and Roth IRAs and HSAs and who knows what else to understand what all this stuff is and figure out how to do the most I can for our little family (Boyfriend is in on this goal, too.).

Now here's where I bombed big last year.  The self-loathing weight loss goal that 99% of way too many women (myself included) make every year.  I'll use Academomia's terminology here - last year I was about N+7 at this time last year, with N being my goal weight.  Frankly, right now I'm not brave enough to step on the scale to see how far I am from N.  I'd guess I'm at least N+7, and it's entirely probable that I'm as much as N+10.  Let's not think about the possibly of  >N+10.  I think after a week or so of normal eating rather than holiday and travel eating I'll be brave enough to see where I am.

One corollary that I had to that was to complain less about my weight.  I think I've been pretty terrible about this one the last month or two.  And in all fairness, I've been travelling at least 50% of the time since the beginning of November, and then you throw in the holidays and it's just incredibly difficult to eat anything besides junk.  I asked Boyfriend, and maybe he's trying not to get himself into trouble, but he thinks I've been pretty good about not complaining.  I'm going to declare a verdict of decent success except for the last couple of months.  Since I still want to lose weight I'm keeping this corollary on the list so I don't tick off all my friends and Boyfriend.

The hobby goals I made last year were to make another photo-a-day album and to go on at least one hike every month.  The album has been made, with a handful of cell phone photo cheaters in place of photos taken with my big girl camera.  I think I may shelve this project until I have kids.  Or at the very least a bigger social circle.  Between living alone, having a much smaller social circle in Baltimore than in Tucson, and living in a city where it frequently feels like a really bad idea to walk around with my camera this project wasn't nearly as fun as it was in 2011.  I did get some fun pictures out of it that I'm happy to have, but it felt like a chore a lot more than it should have.  As for hiking, we did great through at least July.  Maybe we went on a hike in August.  Sadly I can't remember.  Maybe we didn't go for a hike in August after how miserably humid and nausea-filled July's hike was.  In September we biked at least 20 miles in the Camargue and walked all over several other cities.  Once we got back from France we spent almost every weekend looking at houses...so hiking fell by the wayside.

The only other specific goal I'm going to make this year is to keep in better touch with friends.  There are a handful of friends who have the same gchat habits I do, so I talk to them pretty regularly, but there are a handful of other still very dear friends who don't leave gchat open all the time.  My goal this year is to call those people more than twice per year!

I've got a lot of big changes on my plate for this year - buying a house, moving in with Boyfriend, a transitioning job with lots of travel - so I think that's plenty for official resolutions.  I don't know that I'll begin posting any more frequently, but I'm not ready to close the door on this blog, so I guess I'll just have to leave you in suspense on that front.

Happy New Year! It's going to be a big one!