Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a fantastic December and enjoyed their holidays tremendously!

As is often the case, the new year has spurred me to do a little reflection on my life and look at some places I’d like to make some changes. Most people refer to these ideas as “resolutions”, but I much prefer to think of them as goals. In the past, I’ve had some grand ideas about how I would make change happen in my life — lose weight! spend more time with friends!  de-clutter the house! do more creative stuff! — but my follow through on those nice ideas has been less than stellar.  Last year I set some much more specific goals and I’m happy to report that I actually achieved (and even surpassed) many of them.

This year I want to get even more granular in my goals. One of the big things I feel like my life was lacking last year was self-fulfillment. My lay-off and the subsequent transition from career-lady to stay-at-home-mom left me floundering a bit. I could write a whole big post about this topic, but for now I’ll just say that I found myself dedicating the majority of my time to satisfying other people’s wants and needs and significantly less time doing things I enjoyed and that made me happy. So this year, I’ve compiled a list of small, achievable goals for myself. Most of them are fun and all of them will make me happy in some way. I’ve grouped them loosely into five categories: cooking, crafts, kids, organization, and personal projects.

There are a gazillion things on the list already and I suspect that I’ll add more from time to time. It’s possible that I won’t complete them all this year (though I hope I will) but even if I only get to half of them I bet I’ll feel happier.

So without further ado, here is my list:

1. Actually make those pretzel crayon thingies for Wyatt’s lunch.
2. Bake bread.
3. Find five reliable, healthy, delicious soup recipes.
4. Learn to make pickles and/or marmalade.
5. Make a split the layer cake.
6. Make a twinkie cake.
7. Make macarons.
8. Make red beans and rice from scratch.
9. Assemble paper Christmas train with the kids.
10. Assemble paper Christmas village with the kids.
11. Assemble Project 365 scrapbook.
12. Do another photo-a-day project.
13. Etch glass.
14. Finish my project 365 blog posts.
15. Finish the fingerless mitts I started before Christmas.
16. Knit August a cute hat.
17. Learn to crochet.
18. Make a Santa outfit for Wyatt’s Imaginext Batman.
19. Make a softie for my niece-to-be.
20. Make a special birthday hat and get a special birthday plate.
21. Make at least 30 scrapbook layouts.
22. Make Augie more felt food.
23. Make car organizers for each of the kids.
24. Make felt gingerbread men for the kids.
25. Make some felt flower barrettes.
26. May some air dry clay flowers.
27. Set up a light box for photographing food and crafts.
28. Take a letterpress class.
29. Add five new foods to Wyatt’s eating repertoire.
30. Do a potato stamp art project with the boys.
31. Find a park with a splash pad for the kids to play in.
32. Read more with August.
33. Read more with Wyatt.
34. Sign up for a “Mommy and Me” type class with Augie.
35. Take Augie for walks around the block.
36. Take August to ride the steam trains.
37. Take my kids to Iowa in the warm months.
38. Take the kids swimming.
39. Take Wyatt to the King Tut exhibit.
40. Use our zoo membership.
41. Visit Little Farm with the kids.
42. Buy a laundry hamper.
43. Clear miscellaneous stuff off the top of the living room book cases.
44. Clear out the basement storage room and Freecycle like crazy.
45. Clear the clutter from my bedroom.
46. Get rid of half the stuff in our horrible, scary office.
47. Organize my crafting.
48. Re-organize and purge my craft supplies.
49. Re-organize and refresh bento supplies.
50. Set up a desk for Wyatt.
51. Attend BlogHer 2010.
52. Buy an every day skirt.
53. Double Wendolonia’s blog traffic and subscriptions.
54. Find a babysitter.
55. Find my copy of “Wreck This Journal” and wreck it.
56. Find some kind of exercise I enjoy and do it regularly.
57. Finish my book proposal.
58. Get a new couch.
59. Go on more than one date with Zach.
60. Go out to a grown up restaurant with another couple.
61. Go to Nordstrom for a bra fitting.
62. Hold another diaper drive for Help a Mother Out.
63. Make a bento box how-to video.
64. Make more lists.
65. Print and frame a “Get Excited and Make Things” poster for my office wall.
66. Read To Kill a Mockingbird.
67. Start Weight Watchers again.
68. Stay in a hotel alone for a weekend to sleep late, scrapbook, blog, and do whatever else I want.
69. Take a day (or weekend) trip to Santa Cruz.
70. Take periodic “days off” from social networking.
71. Take some naps.
72. Volunteer in Wyatt’s classroom.
73. Wean Augie.

I’ve already posted my list to the sidebar of this blog and I’ll be crossing them out (and likely blogging about many of them) as I complete them.

Did you set any goals for the new year? What fun, fulfilling activities are you planning for yourself?