This Year I’m Not Kidding Around…

The new year is here and I am inspired to make this the best year ever! There’s so many things I want to do and achieve this year. I’m not kidding around either. This year I’m taking my resolutions to the next level.

The first thing I’m going to do is lose some weight. Not just some weight but A LOT of weight. I’ve been wanting to lose 30 pounds since I had my kids and now’s the time. I’m going to make it a goal to lose all 30 pounds – THIS MONTH! That’s right. If I simply lose one pound a day I can lose all 30 pounds in the first month of the year. Then I can spend the rest of the year looking refreshingly hot and relaxing poolside in my new post-baby 2016 bikini body. Woohoo! Actually, there’s 31 days in January so let’s just raise the bar and make it 31 pounds! I’ll be even thinner than I hoped!

The next thing I want to do this year is start saving money. I’ve been inspired by the “52 Week Money Challenge” savings pyramid that my friends are sharing on Facebook. It says that if you start by saving $1 the first week, $2 the second week and then just increase your savings by a little each week you’ll have $1,378 saved by the end of year. Well that sounds amazing – but I really want to amp things up. Instead of saving $1 more each week I’m going to save $1,000 more each week! Yeah, that’s right. By the end of the year I’ll be saving $52,000 a week! That comes out to saving $1,378,000 in only one year. How awesome is that? I’ll be a millionaire by 2017!

Now that I have a plan for being thinner and richer, I really need to find a way to make the most of my days. To achieve that goal I’m going to set aside blocks of time for all the important things in life. Making them a clear priority with set time windows should help me get more done.

As the doctor always tell me, it’s important to get a good night’s rest. So I’m going to be sure to sleep at least 10 hours a night. Exercise is also important so I’m going to spend an hour on cardio and an hour on yoga each day. On top of that I want to meditate to help clear my mind and focus on my goals. I’m going to spend an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening meditating.

I don’t want to spend any more time in the car than necessary so I’m going to cut back on my mommy-taxi services and only commute with the kids 10-15 minutes a day. That will free up time for me to spend an hour preparing and cooking each wholesome, organic meal of the day. That’s 3 hours total, one for breakfast, one for lunch and one for dinner. It sounds like a lot but sometimes we’ll cheat and I’ll hire an at-home chef/nutritionist to prepare things in advance. Since I’m going to be a millionaire by the end of the year that shouldn’t be too much of an added expense.

I’m also planning on mastering the stock market this year, to be sure we invest wisely all of the money I’ll be saving. I’ll set aside 2-3 hours a day to really focus on day-trading and watching Bloomberg. That should be easy enough. I’ll also be sure to save up every airline mile, credit card reward dollar, clothing store point, and to clip every box top and cut every coupon. Waste not, want not, I always say! The more I save and clip, the bigger the fortune I’ll be able to amass.

Of course, with all of my success I want to be sure to give back to the community. I’m planning to volunteer at least one hour a day to the PTA and another hour to each of my kids’ school teachers. I’ll sign up to run the spring book fair at school, the spaghetti dinner auction and the end-of-school-year fair.

To show my love of animals we’ll also take in as many stray pets as we possibly can. I know my 2 cats lived quite happily in my 450 square foot New York City apartment back when I was in college. Since our Florida home is over 3,000 square feet we should easily be able to foster one or two dozen cats at a time. Maybe I can even build a chicken coop in the background (being sure to get HOA approval first, of course) and then we can both rescue farm foul as well as produce our own organic eggs!

Each week I’ll be sure to purge our laundry of any clothes that are too small or out of style and drop them at Goodwill. When I pop into Target and Publix I’ll take advantage of BOGOs and super deals to stock up on canned items for the local food drive. Since TV is a waste of time I’m definitely going to talk to my husband about donating all of our television sets and video game systems to the less fortunate. He’s had his new Xbox One for a week. I’m sure he’s done with it by now.

Speaking of which, since we won’t have TVs I won’t be wasting as much time watching the Real Housewives anymore. I’m going to refocus all of that time on learning a new language. For each new Real Housewives season that goes by I’ll pick a new language to master. Spanish, French, Mandarin, Arabic… I’ll be fluent and multilingual before Andy Cohen can refill his martini glass!

With my newfound mastery of languages, I also want to focus on my intellectual pursuits. As part of my quest to be more than just a mom, I plan on reading at least one book a day, at least 2 newspapers and 3 online journals regularly. Some days it’ll be poetry, some days philosophy. Every day will be different so I’ll never get bored and I’ll always have something wonderful to talk about with the other parents at kid birthday parties. Nothing like a little Nietzsche talk at Chuck E Cheese!

Speaking of birthday parties, this year I’m really going to master Pinterest. I’m going to be sure to spend time each and every day scouring the Internet for the best DIY crafts and projects and birthday party ideas. When my daughter turns 4 in the spring, we’ll have the most beautiful spring fairy party imaginable. Then when my son has his birthday in the fall we’ll out-do the force with all of the Star Wars inspired food, decorations, games, party favors and more that I’ve “pinned.” While I’m on Pinterest I’ll also start planning our anniversary celebration in June. Usually people don’t do much to celebrate their 8th wedding anniversary but I’m sure I can find some insanely creative ways to align our 8th anniversary with the idea of infinity and our forever love. No pressure, of course.. Just something to do in my free time.

Finally, as part of my year of not fooling around and complete re-invention, I’m also going to give up drinking wine. Yes, I said it. The best way to lose weight, save money and focus on more rewarding pursuits is to just stop drinking wine.

Hmmm….. Wine.

Yeah. All of these resolutions have made me thirsty.

I suppose before I get started it wouldn’t hurt to plop down in front of my DVR one last time, eat that box of chocolates I got for Christmas and drink just one, or maybe two, last bottles of wine. Just this once… Just before I get started….