Welcome to 2012

First, congratulations on making it into 2012! I hope to have a great year myself, and wish anyone reading this the same. For me, this will take good luck and planning. Luck I can't arrange, but planning is something I do pretty well.

Every plan has a starting point, a goal, and action steps along the way. My starting point in 2012 is this: I lost over 40 pounds in 2011 (picked a few back up in the last week, but Christmas cookies only happen once a year so I'll be OK). I got in better shape than I've been in since before I had children (25 years). I met a lot of very supportive (and interesting!) people at one of my fitness classes. I still work part-time for the local school system doing much less than I am capable of, for less money than I would like to make. I am learning Portuguese. (Why? Because I can.)

My goals for 2012 are not specific enough yet, but the general outline is to keep getting more healthy and fit, find a way to earn more money without cutting into fitness time too much, and try to keep up with this blog weekly to document what I can for the folks who keep calling me "inspirational." Another goal is to get more comfortable with being called "inspirational" because it still feels a bit fraudulent to me, and find a way to share the process because that's what inspirational people should do.

Lacking specific goals yet, I can't detail the whole plan. Here are a few small steps I expect to include.

• Go back to 2% milk in my morning coffee, instead of cream.
• Eat fish at least once a week (salmon is my favorite).
• Either ration all the shortbread cookies I got for Christmas, or invite friends over for coffee and shortbread and devour them all in one sitting.
• Keep in touch with people more, and not just on Facebook.

That's the short list for now. More will come as the Big Plan for 2012 develops. Hope to see you there!