
Hello, everyone. It’s almost time! New Year’s Eve is upon us. I’ve been working on this post for a few days, deciding what my 2023 goals will be, and now I want to share it with you. I hope everyone has a very Happy 2023, and a fun celebration tonight! Or as relaxing and cozy as you might prefer. ๐
I have created a page which appears on my menu that I will use to track and remind myself of my goals throughout the year. You can see that page here.

๐Get A Job ๐
As was my plan for a while, starting in January/February I will resume my job search. Ideally I would like to find a part-time job, but if a full-time comes along, I’ll take it regardless. I do not plan to keep a full-time job long term, but a part-time is very likely. No matter what, a regular salary needs to be a mainstay of 2023 for me, so I can pay off debts and raise some necessary funds.

๐ Set Aside FOMO ๐
After this Christmas in particular, I’m starting to make peace with the fact that I can never buy or be gifted enough things to lose that “fear of missing out”. There will always be more wonderful toys. I will never have the space for them all. What I WILL eventually run out of, is my life. I’ll have spent it working to acquire toys and books and games that I never play with, read or enjoy, because by the time I get them, I am pursuing the next thing. Then I’ll die, having enjoyed nothing.
I know I live in a society purposefully engineered to make me always desire something. From friends’ accounts on Instagram, to carefully tailored ads, to new seasonal products assaulting me literally everywhere I go, it’s natural that it’s hard for my brain to ignore things made to appeal to me. People pay other people a lot of money to break our will and make us spend our money over and over. Only I can break that cycle.
I thought a lot about what concrete steps such a resolution would entail. Because it’s hard, actually. I know what I should do, but if I write it down and then fuck up, it’ll be REALLY embarrassing. Ultimately though: I have more books than I can read in a year. I have more video games than I can play in a year. I have more scrapbooking supplies and more traditional art supplies than I can use in a year. More puzzles than I can put together, more board games than I could play. More cute clothes than I can wear. More LEGO sets than I can build. So to make it more clear, my resolution is this:
I WILL NOT BUY ANY NEW TOYS, BOOKS, SCRAPBOOKING STUFF, GAMES OR CLOTHES IN 2023
That is my biggest resolution because it is by far the hardest. It will not count stuff that I am given as gifts for special occasions (birthdays, etc) or clothes such as socks or underwear that are actual necessities. And on days my family goes garage saling or to a flea market and Christopher gives me some spending money, I will allow myself that much if it is offered to me. But that will be my limit.
My biggest concern in this is the 35th anniversary Samantha doll on eBay. It is constantly on my mind, I know it gets more expensive with every passing day (currently sitting at $230 at the cheapest). So this is just a note to remind myself: if I buy this, thereย willย inevitably be something else with that FOMO feeling soon after. The feeling will not go away. And the Samantha doll willย mostย likely still be there for me to ask for on a special ocassion this year (birthday or such).
My next biggest hurdle will be back to school shopping, because I always see a lot of temptations around that time. So I know I should avoid Walmart and Target around July and August, or at least, those sections. Especially because by then, Iโll feel like I deprived myself a lot during the year.
This year my goal will be to enjoy my many blessings rather than to try to look for more items to fill a nonexistent void.

๐ Love My Toys Better ๐
This is something I especially want to do when some new toy is tempting me. I have a lot of things I can do with my current toy friends, things I’ve put off, like making sure they all have name necklaces, and that they all have pages on my blog. Those two things will be the concrete aspects of this resolution. By the end of ’23, I don’t want any of my toys to be nameless, and I want them all to have little profile “pages” on my site.

๐ Lose 20 Pounds ๐
In 2022, I slowly lost my joy for walking. I’m not sure why this happened, but I was unable to regain it. I’m sure it will come back (this goes back and forth, like my joy for bike riding or scooting) but in the meantime, I need another activity. So my goal as part of getting fit again will involve an hour on my exercise bike every day –with the encouragement of another factor mentioned in the next resolution.
As part of this resolution, I will restart my effort to drink 64 ounces of water daily, log some fitness data daily, and limit my snacking by only having coffee for breakfast, eating two meals a day (a light lunch and a normal dinner) and for an afternoon snack, having only mate.

๐ Finish 10 Video Games From My Backlog ๐
My backlog of video games is far greater than ten games… but gaming is something I can easily do while on my exercise bike. So all exercise time will also be gaming time. Since I hope to do one hour a day, hopefully this will be an easy goal to reach, and even surpass.

๐ Build All The LEGO Sets In My Backlog ๐
My backlog isn’t as large as Christopher’s, but I am a far slower builder. I imagine I have enough sets to last me the year, so I will not buy any new ones. I’d like to reach 2024 with all my current sets built. I don’t think this one will be too hard.

๐ Complete 10 Puzzles ๐
I love puzzles, but I’ve spent more time buying new ones than building my current backlog. This will be a challenging one, even if the puzzles are easy ones. I’d like to complete ten by the end of ’23.

๐ Read 24 Books ๐
What once was my favorite activity has become severely neglected, though I definitely did better in ’22 than in years past. This year, I want to read even more.

๐ Create 24 New Scrapbook Pages ๐
I have collected piles of wonderful scrapbooking supplies that have now gone unused for years. I thought I’d have done lots of pages in 2022, but I barely made time for two. That’s something else I want to fix this year, and get to the end of ’23 with a respectable amount of new pages on my scrapbook.

๐ Color 12 Coloring Pages ๐
This may seem like a very modest goal, but the reality is that I’ve only managed to color TWO coloring pages in 2022. I want to fix that in ’23.

๐ Write 500 Words A Day (Or 3,500 / Week) ๐
I want to forget about writing good stuff or working on X book project as a goal. As long as I am writing an average of 500 words of any of my fiction projects per day, I will consider it a huge success. I can’t imagine doing this and not having my books have considerable progress by the end of ’23.

๐ Limit YouTube ๐
As I blocked more and more of the Internet, YouTube became a sort of crutch as a way to absorb all of that clickbaity junk food type of media as I work on art. I am going to start blocking YouTube as well, though I’m not sure to what capacity. Cold turkey seems a bit extreme. YouTube does not distract me from my work, but I feel like it rots my brain with its lack of substance and overall repetitiveness. And yet it may be the only way. For now, my plan will be to only allow myself to watch YouTube on the weekends.
I want to work away from my computer more in ’23, perhaps watching TV downstairs, or at my other desk, listening to music or podcasts. I want to turn my computer off more during the day. And as my queue thins out and I feel less urgency to rush things, I think I’ll start doing my sketches traditionally again, too.

