OK, so now that I have a new goal, I need to find a new way to organize. I've had a pretty good system for the past 3 years, and I've done relatively well. But some things have dropped through the cracks. So I think that I need a new way to organize things so that fewer things get ignored. I'm not quite sure what it's going to be yet. Any suggestions?

I've been wandering around aimlessly for the past month or so. Not that I haven't had anything to do; I've had plenty to do. I have to finish editing my dissertation. I have some papers to write for various things. I have lesson plans to update. I have a house to clean. I have books to read. I have movies and TV shows to watch. I have scrapbooking, genealogy, and numerous hobbies to get back into.

So, it's not that I have nothing to *do*. It's more that I have nothing to *look forward to*. I had a long-term goal for a very long time, and now that I've reached it, I keep thinking, "Now what?"

I've written about this before, so I won't belabor the issue.

And I've also written about some goals that I have, but none of them seemed to be enough. I am looking for something *more*.

So I've decided to concentrate on one goal. It is a long-term goal, has many components, and will not be easy to accomplish. I want to adopt a child.

This is something I've wanted to do ever since I can remember. I have wanted to do this much more than I have wanted to get married or have "my own" (read: natural) children or even get a doctorate. So now I'm going to plan for it.

Now, this is going to take a lot more than just *wanting* to adopt. In fact, several of my other goals will have to be put into place before I can accomplish this.

First, I need to be financially stable. This means that I need to have a good job and reduce a great deal of my debt. This is going to take some time and energy, I know, but it will be great for me in many ways.

Second, I need a better place to live. Either I need to get my house all fixed up or I need to move. I would like to do both, just in case. But at any rate, I need a much better place to live. And I'll be happier once both happen.

Third, I need to be healthier. Since going on the insulin, I have learned how to control my blood sugar. I'm a lot healthier than I was a year ago, and I'm getting the care that I need. But I need to lose weight and still be even more healthy. So that means I need to start exercising. A LOT. And eating better. I know I can do it; I just need a better plan, I think.

So that's it. The Goal. This may take 3 years. Or more. But at least now I have a goal.

Graduation was 8 days ago, and people continue to ask me "what's next?" As if this is just a means to an end and not something that I want to revel in for a while. Nevertheless, I do have to think about my future, and so I have compiled a list of goals, mostly long-term, for my life...

(1) A new job. I like my job. It is interesting and fun. But the drive is annoying, there is really no chance of doing anything other than what I do, and being a math teacher in an art school means I will never been anyone's mentor. I want to be a mentor to teachers and an advisor to education policy-makers. Is that so much to ask? I think I deserve to have something good happen to me finally.

(2) No more debt. This is going to take a while, I know. I am still trying to dig out from the failed business venture. But if (1) works, then (2) will come slowly.

(3) A clean house. This is a huge project and has been a long time coming. Every time I feel like I'm making a dent in things, it just gets worse. I need to get this house cleaned up and fixed up. (And then I can throw a huge party!)

(4) My own house. OK, this is going to take a long time. Either (1) has to be spectacular, or I have to win the lottery. But I want a house. A really awesome house. :)

(5) Adoption. With a house and a job, I can finally achieve my dream of adoption. Enough said.

(6) Marriage. I know that you are wondering why this is at the end of my list. It just is.

I also have some short-term goals. Publication, Summer Institute, AERA, a book. Another party. Maybe a vacation. An actual date.

So I'm asking for your prayers. Because these are not things that I take lightly. Thanks in advance.

Here's goal #4 for year 2009:

I will get one room clean every week.

Again, this seems like a weird goal, but if you saw our house, you would understand the issue. Years of packratting by me and my parents has resulted in a huge accumulation of junk. So my goal this year is to get the entire house cleaned and to redo at least a couple of rooms. But I'm only focusing on one room at a time. Once I get the house presentable again, maybe I can get back to entertaining. :D

So here is goal #3 for 2009:

Have a blood glucose within range at least 3 times a week.

Since I am supposed to test 14 times a week, this seems quite reasonable. However, let me give you some background. Last year I managed to lose some weight and to get my blood glucose (BG) under control. In fact, I was even able to decrease the dosage on one of my medications. Unfortunately, this did not last long, and I started slowly gaining again. And slowly my BG started to creep up. *sigh* The last time I went to the doctor, I told him that my BG was starting to get too high in the mornings but was perfectly within range in the afternoons. My doctor thought that my BG might actually be going too low at night, and I was catching it on the "bounce" in the morning. So he suggested that I try cutting out one of my medications and seeing if that helped. It didn't. Instead, my BG skyrocketed. I stopped checking, but I could tell that I was really high. So I started taking the meds again on New Year's Day. That day my morning BG was 262, and the afternoon BG was 281. Today I have gotten my morning BG down to 214 and the afternoon to 144. This is much better, but my goal is to be between 70 and 140, so I have a way to go. I'm starting off with a goal of 3 times per week, but I hope to be able to raise this number sometime soon. I'll keep you posted.

Here's another one of my goals. It kind-of goes along with Goal #1, but it's slightly different.

I will do something with friends at least twice a month.

This stems from the fact that I tend to go into a cave from time to time, and this can be a very dark place. So in an attempt to prevent this from happening, I am going to force myself to interact with people at least twice a month. It kind-of goes with the museum thing, since I hope that people will join me at the museums, but I plan to go to the museums with or without people. The "something" doesn't have to be anything more than a quick lunch; it doesn't have to be a big party or anything.

In this way, I hope to keep myself from retreating into myself. It's my attempt to be less "Eeyore" and more "Tigger."

I'm not posting all of my New Year's resolutions in one great list. How embarrassing if I can't keep them!

But I thought I'd post some goals every so often.

Here's my first one . . .

This year I will visit at least one local museum every month.

I am surrounded by a lot of amazing things here in L.A., and I rarely take advantage of my environment. I even have a book that lists all of the museums in Southern California. When I bought the book years ago, I went through and put tags on all of the pages that looked interesting. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of that . . . until now.

I'm going to start with something familiar and move on to places I haven't been. First stop, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. Who's joining me?

Well, week 3 was pretty much a wash. I only managed to earn 10 points. Well, actually, when I realized that I wasn't going to make it to 20, I pretty much gave up trying. Bad Kat. Oh well. It's a new week. I'm considering last week a practice run and am making no changes for this week. Here are my 5 (again):

1. Get out of bed before 8:00.

2. Drink 1.5L of water.

3. Wear pedometer and walk at least 4000 steps.

4. Take medicine on time.

5. Walk the dog.

I'm pretty sure I'll do better this week, despite the busyness. I have to, or I won't get my MP3 player before my trip to New York! How's that for incentive?

Well, I didn't do as well as I'd have liked during week 2, but I still managed to earn 20 points. I'm saving my reward for a while, until I decide exactly what I want from the craft store. This week I was a little ambitious. I didn't make many changes, but I tweaked the old 5 just a little.

1. Get out of bed before 8:00. I pushed this up yet another 1/2 hour. I think this is going to be hard to do, since I'm starting most of my classes this week, but it's something I need to do. I really don't like wasting half of my morning in bed.

2. Drink 1.5L of water. I have not been doing well with this one at all. I was hoping to increase this to 2L this week, but, since I almost never reached this goal last week, I had to keep it the same this week.

3. Wear pedometer and walk at least 4000 steps. I increased this quite a bit. I'm getting to a point where I'm working hard on my 5, and that's where I want to be.

4. Take medicine on time. I'm doing pretty well on this one and will most likely replace it with something else next week. Not sure what yet.

5. Walk the dog. This is the same every week, but the distance actually changes. We are walking pretty far now, over a mile, a lot of which is uphill. We'll get to a much longer distance at some point, but the increases aren't too big in order to fool myself into thinking I'm not walking that far. LOL

I'm not doing well at all this week, and it's already mathematically impossible for me to reach my 20 points. Oh well. Keep on keeping on, I guess. *sigh*

So I did really well during my first week of 5 for 5. I earned 22 points, though I haven't given myself my reward yet. Nevertheless, I'm pretty happy with my progress. So this week I'm changed things up a little. Here are my 5:

1. Get out of bed before 8:30. This is almost the same as last week, except I pushed up the time 1/2 an hour. I'm try to get it to 7:00. Again, I know it makes me sound incredibly lazy, but, remember, the majority of my activity occurs at night time.

2. Drink 1.5L of water. My dietician made me add this, and she was right to do so. I have to admit that this was the thing I have been struggling with the most this week. And it's what I've always struggled with. As it nears my bedtime, I'm trying to figure out how to fit in another 1/2 L of water. *sigh*

3. Wear pedometer and walk at least 3000 steps. I increased my steps a little and will definitely increase them next week. I want to make it to 10,000 eventually.

4. Take medicine on time. OK, well, I replaced the snack item with this one. I still need to keep track of the snack thing, but I decided that the medicine thing is more important right now. And I'm doing pretty well with it. EXCEPT for the day that I didn't pick up my prescription from Target until mid-afternoon and then didn't get home until almost dinner. I guess I really need to order those refills a little earlier, don't I?

5. Walk the dog. No change here.

I'm struggling a little more this week, but I'm doing OK. I think I'll make my 20 points. I'm already smelling that cute little MP3 player . . .

I'm always looking for ideas of how to keep myself on track with my health and how to keep myself motivated. So I thought this idea from a blogger on dLife was a really cool idea. The basic concept is that you choose just five things every week to focus on for five days of that week. Every day that you reach a goal, you give yourself a point, for a possible total of 25 points per week. The author rewards herself every time she reaches 20 points per week. She also had the idea to give herself a treat when she reaches 100 points.

I love this idea so much that I decided to try it myself. Today was my first day, and I think I did pretty well. My 5 for this week are:

1) Get up by 9am. I know, I know. It sounds funny. But between the working at night, the late night phone calls, and the insomnia, this is really hard for me to accomplish.

2) Test my blood sugar twice daily. I can usually manage once a day, but twice is hard for me, for some reason.

3) Wear my pedometer and walk at least 2500 steps per day. This is a two-in-one goal. I don't really mind wearing the pedometer; I just tend to forget to put it on in the morning. As for the second part, I guess I underestimated my activity level. I thought that reaching 2500 was hard for me (though the ultimate goal should be 10,000 steps), which is why I set it so low. Now that it's the end of the day, I see that I managed to reach almost twice that today. I'll reconsider my numbers next week.

4) No unauthorized snacks! This has been my nemesis these past few weeks. I have no idea why, but all of a sudden I became ravenous and craved salt. And it lasted for nearly a month. I snacked like crazy. Today that ended, right? :)

5) Walk the dog. I need it; he needs it. 'Nuff said.

I also made a list of reward for myself when I reach 20 points per week (scrapbook supplies that have nothing to do with birthday guild), 100 points (electronics of some sort--I have a list), and 1000 points (vacation of some sort--I have a list of destinations). We'll see how long it lasts.

So far I'm doing well, but as the day went on, I thought of 4 more future goals that I could very well have had for this week. It's just a reminder of how many things I need to keep track of with this diabetes thing. *sigh* Yeah, it's not a piece of cake--or even just avoiding cake.

I'll keep you updated. If this inspires you to join me, let me know. :)