Let's set some goals.

It's hard to think about goals for the whole week on a Monday morning when your brain is rebelling against the entire concept of work and wishing it could go back to sleep for about five more hours. It's also hard, knowing I have a lot to get done today, to think past just getting through this day. But despite all of that, I'm off to a decent start, and hopefully this goal post (SCORE! \o/) will help keep the momentum going.

I think I have one more week of getting dressed every day before it officially becomes a habit, so I'll keep that in the Personal Goal column for this week. For the last half of last week, I also managed to get my fitness on before breakfast, and kept that up this morning with a solid 30 minutes on the stationary bike, followed by some push-ups and crunches. So I'll keep that on the list until it, along with getting dressed, becomes simply part of the routine.

I feel a nesting phase coming on, so I'm going to take advantage of it to get some stuff organized around here, beginning with my office, which has of late become a dumping ground for anything that doesn't already have designated storage. Between that and all of my Etsy and eBay wares, it's hard to even walk through there, let alone work in there. I made some progress yesterday by clearing a path, tidying the closet to make room for more stuff, and clearing a small mountain of junk off of my craft table. For the rest of the week, I'm going to work on clearing off my desk, organizing the afore-mentioned online wares, and possibly rearranging the furniture so that I can work at my desk without having the vent right there making my legs feel like they're under attack from Mr. Freeze. Hopefully, moving my work off of the couch and back into my office will go one more step toward helping me feel more professional, which will hopefully in turn help me stop playing Mafia Wars fifty times a day (and that's a goal for another week).

Professionally, I need to get focused on marketing and growing my client base. If I can find just two or three more steady clients like the ones I've already got, with the occasional short-term client to fill in any down time, I'll be set. I haven't really done any marketing beyond setting up The Task Wrangler, and while I've got some excellent word-of-mouth going, I need to step it up. So my business focus for this week is to tweak my business model and develop a marketing plan.

As for writing, I think I'm looking at at least three more weeks of editing The Hero Factor (and re-thinking that title in the process). Meanwhile, I need to start giving This Old Haunt some weekly attention again. I let myself skip posting last Monday, since I was looking at such a stress-filled week, and I admit I was tempted to skip this week, too, since so few people are reading it. But I realize that I need to treat my five readers the same way I would if they were 50, 500 or even 5,000--even if they don't ever comment and I wouldn't even know they existed if not for Site Meter *cough*. So I will do my very best to get the next episode up tonight.

Now it's your turn. What are you tackling this week?

Food & Body: The Motivational Power of New Shoes

Unlike most folks this time of year, I've been putting off going to the gym. This was a conscious decision, made before January even got here, mainly because I hate lines. I barely squeeze out enough time to get in a good workout as it is, without having to wait in line for a locker, for a treadmill, for an empty lane in the pool, for a shower... you get the picture. In January, all of these things have lines.

The trouble with putting off your quest to get back in shape and eliminate the evidence of eggnog and Christmas fudge from your derriere until February, when most New Year's Resolution-makers are losing their resolve ...is that it's February, and resolutions are losing their resolve. The year is already losing that New Year smell, and with it it's clean slate and all of the shiny new motivation it carried.

This is why it's a good thing I didn't wait to buy new gym shoes. Between a Kohl's Christmas gift card burning a hole in my wallet and a perfectly-timed super-sale on athletic shoes, I got myself a brand new pair of running shoes for Christmas (thanks, Mom!). Of course, with the $0.99 shipping option they took forever to get here, but here they are, all pristine and serious-looking and just begging for their first date with a treadmill. A recent trip to the thrift store also scored me several cute new (to me) workout outfits, and now suddenly I can't wait to haul my butt to the gym.

Of course, I wouldn't need any of that if I stuck with my preferred workout of last year, which was swimming. But I'm not about to strip down to my bathing suit in front of actual people until I've done a few weeks on the treadmill. Not really--at least, I like to think that I have more self-confidence than that, and that the real reason is, well, have you ever tried swimming laps after weeks and weeks of not working out at all? Two. That's the number of laps I can swim before I feel like I'm going to die. Wheezing while your face is in the water? Really not fun. And it's not even that big of a pool, y'all.

So my new serious running shoes and my cute workout clothes will be sticking to the treadmill, and the weights, and the floor for pilates for a few weeks before I get back in the pool. Hopefully by then the water aerobics folks will have dwindled down enough to make room for me.