The 34 Project: What is it?

It's a New Year and time to set some goals.  Last year I set three goals, and I met two of my goals.  I do not think it was a coincidence that the two goals I met are also the two goals I tracked, so this year I have decided to track all of my goals.  Each Saturday I will blog about how I am doing with my goals.  I do not expect a lot of people to read this (or anybody for that matter).  The point is it will keep me focused.  Because I am 34 years old, I decided to call this the 34 project, and center all of my goals around the number 34.  We needed a theme people :)

Here are my goals that I will be reporting in every week:

Pounds Lost:  This is actually my main goal, and the reason why this became the 34 project.  I have been overweight my entire life, and every year come January 1st I say what millions of others say. "I'm going to lose weight."  Well when you have as much weight to lose as I do, this thought can become overwhelming.  Saying I am going to go on a super strict diet, and lose all of the weight I need to lose in one year is just not realistic, so I was looking for a goal number that would be obtainable.  Something that would be a challenge, but doable and make a difference.  That is when I settled on my age and this became the 34 project.  I will lose 34 pounds this year.

New Recipe:  This goal has nothing to do with making me a better person.  Well, I guess it will be good for the soul.  This year I want to spend more time doing what it is I like to do for fun.  I do like to cook, but I usually don't do much exploring with what I cook except on rare occasions when we are having company over.  This year I will make 34 new recipes. 

Movies:  This, like the recipes goal, is just something to do for fun in order to focus on my hobbies.  My number one form of entertainment is watching movies, and to tell you the truth I will have no problem seeing 34 in a year.  I just basically put this on here, because I am curious to see how many movies I watch in a year.  By the way, in order for the movie to count for this project it does not have to be a new release, just something I have never seen before.

Books:  This last goal is probably going to be the hardest (probably even harder than losing weight).  I will read 34 books.  Now for those of you math wizards, you can see that that is more than 2 books a month.  Well, I am the worlds slowest reader.  Having said that, a lot of the books I choose to read will be children's books, which is part of the reason why I want to do this.  I want to be able to answer the question, "What should I read next?" a little more easily when my students ask me.

That is it.  Those will be the goals I will be tracking this year on this blog.  I have one more financial goal that I will not be tracking on here because it is private and couldn't fit into the 34 theme, but when I meet it I will let you know and we can celebrate.  Most of my goals this year are about doing things that I enjoy and find relaxing that is because my goal this year is to stress less, live in the moment, and to have fun.  I hope all of you that have read all the way to the bottom of this blog post find a way to do this yourself.  We all spend hours and hours of our lives working, but what is the point if we do not also spend some time enjoying the fruits of our labor.  And now the 34 project begins.  Happy New Year!