Happy New Year.

It's 2014. Or I think it is. There are fireworks EVERYWHERE. My dogs are not pleased. All three are crated, and the older two are nice and sedated, but still panicking a wee bit.

I've been asked to do some more blogging, and I apologize for the length of my absences. I've had a lot of stress and anxiety, and I guess something about the transparency of blogging scares me just a bit. I am working on that. But it's a new year, and I guess, a new "start" so to speak for my inner blogger.

So, let's start the year off like everybody else, okay? The dreaded New Year's Resolution post. Year after year, I've said that I don't make New Year's Resolutions. They don't work. People don't stick them out. But what I WILL do is accept some challenges and make some goals.

Challenge 1: 52 Week Money Challenge
Looks simple, sounds hard. Starting this week, you save a dollar. Then each week, you save one dollar more than the previous week. At the end of the year, you should have $1378 in savings. Since I am broke as a joke and have no actual bank account, I have an American Express Bluebird for this project. For all other things, I use my PayPal card or my AccountNow card.

Challenge 2: 52 Weeks to an Organized Home
I love how simple this is. It's brilliant! I think it spends two full months just on the kitchen, but you don't do the whole room in a day. I can handle that. Even my OCD can handle that.

Challenge 3: Attack of the Flylady
So, this one I am sharing with another friend who has specifically asked me to blog about it as I go. So, I've mentioned before that I fail at the flylady thing with my OCD, right? So, after further investigation in 2013, I've realized that I just can't with flylady. The control journal makes me crazy, and the daily routine lists leave me obsessing for weeks, and I just CAN'T. It's absolutely not a failing of her system. It's a failing of my therapy, or lack thereof, and my complete lack of coping skills. It's cool. I have my own way of coping. See? I have a routine for the most part, and it's not that far from OR that close to Marla's. I can't get dressed to lace-up shoes every morning. It hurts. Plus, I'd like to keep my orthotics intact as long as possible, because those things COST! So, Flylady, I can't do the whole program without working myself into a complete neurotic breakdown. What I CAN do, though, is focus on the daily missions (linked above), and work on the HOM (Habit of the Month). And I can keep up with my own system of checking off the daily chart and moderately-deep-cleaning a room a day, but super-cleaning a zone at a time the flylady way sounds like a great way to keep it manageable. My dear Natacha wants me to blog these challenges as I go, daily for a while. I will tag them "keeping house with Kate."

Challenge 4: NaBloPoYEAR
Because I have utterly abandoned my blog within three days of starting any other NaBloPoMo endeavor. Yep. I'm going to try it every month this year. I am actually going to use the writing prompts, which means, no themed NaBloPoMo posts on weekends.

Challenge 5: Read the Orthodox Study Bible in a Year
Because I always abandon this idea pretty quick too. Not this time. Y'all keep me on top of it, okay??

So, that's it. My OCD is begging me to find a fitness challenge (there are a million of them out there), but I JUST got health coverage again for the first time in two years, and I want to get the doctor's opinion before I start anything major. Also, with my healthcare plan I can get a free membership at Gold's Gym, and I REALLY like that idea. The local one has a women's only facility. No hot tub though. I may have to see if I can find a local gym with a hot tub that my plan will cover. The big goal with this though, well, really, covers both the fitness thing AND the I-finally-have-health-coverage-and-can-see-a-doctor-after-33-straight-days-with-the-same-migraine thing: getting my health in order as much as I can and regaining some of the quality of life that I have been desperately missing recently.