An Almost White Christmas and The End of Twenty Ten

The month of December for most is an exciting time of the year. Up until this year, it wasn't for me. I dreaded Christmas and hated everything about it. It's just too much pressure and I miss holidays the way they used to be when I was little and we spent them with my grandma and something just seemed magical about them. This year was a little different. I can't really put my finger on what exactly made it so, but I didn't completely dread the holidays this year. I actually got extremely excited about Christmas lights and decorated trees. Christmas music was slightly more tolerable. I even made a point of spending Christmas Eve at my dad's house rather than at home alone. It was a pretty nice Christmas too, spending the day relaxing and enjoying company. I must say though, it was made extremely better when it started snowing that night and we sort of had a White Christmas. We had one of the biggest snowfalls we've had in quite some time too, dumping around a foot of snow in our area, and leaving me snowed in for two days (so far). Not that I'm complaining, it's been a nice two days and I actually made my first snowman ever yesterday. (Is it sad that I'm 20 years old and never made a snowman before yesterday?)

So now, once all this snow melts at least, we get to prepare for the new year. It always kind of amazes me to see yet another year go by and think of how many I have seen so far. It doesn't seem possible that I have seen 20 years go by already. Granted, that probably makes anyone significantly older than me laugh or feel old, but still. It's just a little mind boggling.

But anyways, when people think of a new year, they generally try to come up with "New Year's Resolutions." The past few years I've blown that off with the mindset that I've made them before and never stuck with them, why make them now? I'm pushing that aside this year. I think in the past my problem has been making unrealistic or unachievable goals. Goals that I don't have to focus on daily or ones that aren't already important to me, so I just let it slide after a month. I will be making two goals this year. One of them will have to be followed through on a daily basis and one is just something that is extremely important to me.

Goal #1:

My first goal is the one that will have to be followed through on a daily basis. I'm not really sure what to call this, because I don't have a firm foundation for it yet, but it will be along the lines of being more healthy. I want to start eating better and working out more. I'm constantly exhausted, even with plenty of sleep, and I truly believe that it is because of my diet and lack of physical activity. I don't have it all set in stone yet with what my goals are, but I'm working on it. I thought about going vegetarian for a couple of months just to see if I could do it and how I feel, but I don't think I will. As much as I have said I would love to do it, it would inconvenience those around me during meal times. (I.E. Going to someone else's house at meal time and them having to prepare food with my limited vegetarian diet in mind) I don't want to do that to others, so I think I'll stick with something less radical. As for exercise, I have a free 3 month gym membership that I've used all of once. I need to get back on that!

Goal #2:

Start working on developing my own business. This is the thing that I'm already excited about. I've been slowly working on this for a few months now and gaining ideas, but I want to hit it as hard as I can in the coming up year. I have toyed with the idea of owning my own business for years but never really thought it possible or even really knew what I wanted to do. I couldn't seem to find my niche in the business world, but I have finally settled on something. I am going to open my own store. I want it to be kind of like a gift store with candles and soaps and jewelry and just little things like that. I'm going to start it off through an online store, but hopefully I will eventually run my own brick and mortar location. I already have a name in place, "B.B. Cole's Gift Boutique." (because when I was little, my uncle would ask me my name and I would try to say Brittany Nicole, but always said "BB Cole!" I thought it'd be cute for a store) I've already started researching some wholesale companies to buy from and found a couple I want to really look into. Now it's just a matter of money and time. I plan on putting as much as I can of both into this in 2011.

Those are my goals for the new year. Comment and tell me yours!