What’s your goal this new year?

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#Home#goals#New Year's
LEGO bling and LEGO-print skirt. Photo courtesy Kitschy Living.

Here we go headlong into 2012, Homies! And when’s better than the last Friday of the old year to try out something new? Open thread, ya’ll!

Let me pitch it: What’s your home-goal for a new year? Finally start sorting mail? Find the perfect apartment in a primo neighborhood? Share it in the comments: the first step to achieving a goal is stating it aloud.

About the Author: Cat Rocketship

I was the Managing Editor of Offbeat Home for a year and a half. I have a rich Internet life and also a pretty good real life. Hobbies include D&D, Twitter, and working on making our household more self-reliant. I also draw things.

Comments on What’s your goal this new year?

  1. 1. Finish my Masters and either start on my Ed.S. or get a full time job.
    2. Get to the next level in my roller derby league.
    3. Continue implementing healthy eating habits and daily exercise.

    • Is your Masters in Education? Have you worked full-time in education before? I ask because I am also considering pursuing a similar doctorate one day (while working full-time so I can keep my wonderful job and have work pay for a lot of the degree.) Good luck!

  3. I summed up my goals for 2012 with one word. Improvement. I want to improve upon myself and on my relationship with others. I want to learn to love and show off the kooky girl that I am, rather than hide it in an attempt to appease others. I want to try new things and meet new people this upcoming year.
    I also have my 101 in 1001 list to complete as it finishes in September.

  4. I have several house-related goals for 2012. The first I hope to accomplish by the end of January:

    1. Reorganize the kitchen cabinets. When we moved into The Turret 6 months ago I was so desperate to get the move done and not have boxes boxes everywhere that I just unpacked willy nilly and now the cookbooks live behind all the spices and baking goods – not ideal.

    2. Plant hops up the side of The Turret so that next year we can brew beer with our own hops!

    3. Finally hang and frame all the artwork we have had lying around for years, plus the really nice graphic prints that were housewarming gifts when we moved into The Turret.

  5. We just moved, and our first goal is to get the new place decorated really spiffily, within our budget (which may not be on the level of homes that end up in magazines but is considerably improved from the last time we lived in a place worth decorating*).

    We need to finish painting three rooms (all small but all hard to paint), hang up a bunch of stuff, get better lighting for two rooms, get a small table for the office – all fairly easy. I want to start a window casement herb garden in the spring, which will mean a trip to the plant market (which in Taipei is under an elevated road).

    I’d love to fix up a small bit of unused space where the kitchen ends and the back room begins (most Taiwanese apartments have back rooms – you get your own washing machine but have to pay the water bills that come with using it, a place to hang clothes, some storage although not in ideal conditions etc). Right now it’s ugly pipes in a dark, dingy recess covered by a screen. I see no reason why, with build-arounds for the pipes, some wall covering etc. that it can’t become an extra bit of counter space and shelving above.

    I can’t do that myself, though. I know you Homies are great at that sort of thing, usually, but I’ve tried more than a few times and I’m just not. We’re going to hire a contractor – improving the economy through giving someone work! (In Taiwan this is an affordable proposition; it’s not like contracting in the USA).

    *I guess you could argue that no place is “not worth decorating” but it sure felt that way with our old apartment. No matter what we did – and we did a lot – it still looked dingy and sad around the edges.

    • Have you considered submitting an article about making your home in Taipei? I’m just a reader but I’d really be interested to see something like that on Offbeat Home!

  6. This year will be focused on the backyard, also known as the giant pit of despair. Our house had 10 years of neglect when we moved in 3 years ago, and we finally have the time and money to do something about it!

    We plan to build a sheltered deck, replace the massive old falling apart asbestos shed with something smaller, watertight and well organised, and grass most of the sand there now.

    • We got our house from my parents a year ago- 16 years of neglect and disrepair. We are slowly, ever so painfully slowly, making it right. Nothing major (all the flooring needs to be redone, both bathrooms need to be professionally remodeled, etc) but god dammit, we tackled the backyard. And it felt SO MUCH BETTER, even just the small things. So, godspeed and know that you are not alone. If you’re up to it, I’d love to see submissions from other readers about their backyard do-overs.

  7. Maybe a little personal, but my goal for 2012 is to live for myself, to be strong, confident, and independent. The end of 2011 brought the end of my job, and surprise, the end of my marriage too. Time to move on and become an awesome person.

    • From a stranger: good luck, and much <3! I admire your positive attitude and am wishing for the best for you. I hope you can look back a year from now and feel you've accomplished this goal — or are well on your way. 😉

  8. I got a head start on my resolutions!

    1- donate more of my clothes. I moved my dresser into my tiny closet so I could only use one rack instead of two for hanging things. I put half of my clothes in the goodwill bin!
    2- Get more involved with my artistic community and stop being such a recluse. A good friend of mine just bought a warehouse and is renovating it for live-in art studio space. Its going to be amazing! I am going to help her renovate, which will be rad cause I’ve always wanted to learn about it.

    I should probably find someone with a car to help me take all those clothes to the thrift store… ><

  10. Okay, so my goals are to be more organised, particularly with paperwork and housework. Also I actually want to spend some time in the garden and grow food!I should also include the traditional lose weight, reduce debts and continue trying to be the awesome human being I try to be.

  12. Organize… clean out the shed… finish the porch… find enough free brick to make the patio… do something with the jungle that is my back yard…. have/foster some babies, travel, be healthy, garden, can, make bread, live

  13. My goal is to buy/somehow get hold of a bed or a sofabed so that the dude and I can finally sleep next to each other again. I’ve been on the couch and he on a matress on the floor for more than a year now, and we’re starting to feel that we’ve had enough of it.

  14. My goal is to be happy with the space and stuff that I have, and not lament the lack of money to make the changes that I would like. And to attempt to keep that space clean of dog fur.

  15. I have lived in the same rental apartment for 5 1/2 years, it has a gross coloured ‘feature’ wall in the bedroom. I have been promising myself this whole time to paint it and this year I shall . . . soon . . . I hope.

  16. My resolution is to save up enough money to take my man to Germany next December to visit our friend. He has never been outside of the country so I’m taking him to Berlin, and if I have the guts I’ll propose to him.

  18. Well I graduate in May(!!) and my goal is to find out what I want to do with my degree and where we want to go. I know I want to get far away but my husband is a little harder to convince of that. I want to be better at cleaning. And have a baby, or at least be on my way.

  19. 1. Walk my dog at least one extra time each day. It’s been once a day, but that doesn’t seem to be enough for her anymore… (sigh)

    2. Get baskets for my “Oh, Baskets!” moment! I had it so long ago and still don’t have any freaking baskets!!!

    3. Know what? I’m MAKING baskets! When I figure out how I’ll let ya’s know how it went.

  20. My goal? Switch to a more natural lifestyle. 1) Already started cutting down meat and moving towards an egg-inclusive vegetarian diet. 2) Eliminate environmentally and bodily harmful hormonal birth control. Switch to a vegan birth control method that gives back to the third world. 3) Turn the big aquarium into Dagobah complete with Yoda hut. Don’t kill any fish in either aquarium. That about sums up my goals.

  21. 1.Become tidier and personalize my home *even* more. I’ve already accepted that I’m a rather messy, I mean, creative person but being a bit neater in some areas is still a worthy goal. We’ll see! 😉

    2. Keep cultivating my new garden and then really enjoy the space, alone and with friends, as weather allows! If only I could make all my garden plans and dreams happen *now*, it’d be wonderful but I suppose “nature’s clock” is good for practicing patience. 🙂

  22. I have *oodles* of goals this year, but the main ones are:

    1. Get healthier.
    Achieve better vegetable:cheese ratio; make soup to take into work (to avoid dying of ready-made-soup-induced salt overdose); try out the local adult ballet class.

    2. Be less of a passive consumer of social media.
    Case in point – I’ve visited this blog every day since it launched and never got around to posting anything until now. It’s really easy with things like Facebook and Twitter to follow what all your friends are doing but not actually directly interact with anyone, so it all degenerates into random unconnected statements rather than conversation. I’m keen to break that habit and get better at responding.

    3. Complete the novel that I started last November.
    …which was my goal for last November, but I’ve done a lot of work on the outline since then, and I’m feeling pretty confident that I can make it to the end now!

    Also, garden-y stuff. But growing lots and lots of chilli peppers is really less of a goal, and more something that will definitely happen come what may – probably while I’m procrastinating over the stuff above.

  23. My goal for 2012 is to get married, start making-over our bathroom, produce less waste and get rid of all the junk accumulated over the year.
    Or maybe just spend less time online. And get married 🙂

  25. My goals:
    Read one book at a time. I have started reading SO MANY BOOKS that I opt just not to read any, rather than choose which one to continue on.
    See something new every day. I need to get out of the house more. So far yesterday and today, I visited a meat counter (as I’m veg, I hadn’t been to that one!) and yesterday took a long detour on a new road (and saw four groups of deer!)

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