My 2019 To Do List

Ah yes, it's that time of year again. Forget resolutions, I'm here for a continuous to do list that lives in the back of my head for 365 days in hopes that I can actually achieve something. I say it every year, but resolutions just seem arbitrary and daunting to me. I like to assign a quantitative value to something. I don't just want to read more, I want to read one new book a month. It seems so much less vague and broad when I get #specific, so I'm just here to share some minor things I want to do this year.

This is by far my shortest list for a couple of reasons. First, to be completely honest, I couldn't think of any like, big massive goals that I wanted to do. That sounds sad, it's not supposed to sound sad! I'm content, really, and I'm not desperately trying to do everything in my power to move to the city because, well, I live here now and forever. So. Mission accomplished?

I have ten small goals for the year that to me seem pretty achievable except I've been trying to do one of them for like, five years straight and still haven't........

1. Write more often | This seems vague, but if you didn't know, I've been using my two-year-old journalism degree for the first time since graduation and contributing to Today.com. Which is like, really cool and fun? I'm not sure that this necessarily means I want to work entirely in editorial (or does it????) but just stepping out of my comfort zone of only writing on my blog because I so boldly claimed my sophomore year of college that I hated journalism only to finish my degree and graduate early to boot still assuming I was going to work for a magazine or digital publication.

2. Read a new book every month | I've been doing this for the past couple of years mostly just to keep myself from rereading Looking for Alaska by John Green repeatedly because I've read it so many times now that I can blaze through it in a couple of hours.

3. Read more articles (blogs, magazines, digital, oh my!) | I've been so bad about not only catching up on blogs from my pals and just my favorite bloggers that don't know I exist, but also just reading great pieces online and...yeah. I need to read more than just books this year.

4. Start YouTube again? | This is probably wishful thinking and not something that I'm 100% sure that I want, but I'm just going to put it out into the universe.

5. Learn how to cook | This is the one...I've been saying this for years and have chosen not to learn. Most of it comes down to three things: buying all of the ingredients I'd need to make something that I'd actually eat would cost more money than I have to spend on food at the moment, the time it takes to make the food, and the fact that it's hard to cook my favorite things for one person without having so many leftovers that I get bored of it. But we'll see, we'll see.

6. Decorate my space more | I'm admittedly the worst at decorating and my room looks fairly plain and lifeless, so once I sort my life out and get my finances in order, this is something I'd like to spice up a bit. Get some new bedside tables, maybe get a useless chair that I have to clean all of my failed outfits off of every Friday night, a rug, I don't know, we'll see!

7. Step out of my comfort zone with food | This is something I've been really good about since I've moved to the city and actually have more food to experience all around me. I just have the tendency to go to the same places and order the same things, so I'm definitely looking to not only eat dinner when I'm going out at Veselka, no matter how good their pierogis and potato pancakes are.

8. Go to Top of the Rock | This is like weirdly specific, but I've never been and I want to go! The views seem breathtaking, I just need to wait for the right season and be patient with the tourists. I don't mind treating New York City like I used to before I moved here though. I don't get bored of the city or turn my nose up to things just because I live here now. Except for Times Square and Midtown. In all fairness, I hated those before I moved though. I spent more than half of my life wanting to live in NYC, I'm not going to pretend to hate it just to be cool!

9. Get new makeup organizers | Mine are so gross and ugly and literal trash but getting new organizers that are clear acrylic will be expensive and a pain in the ass because they're not as big as my current drawers, so I'll likely have to get more drawers than I have the money for and will have to majorly reorganize.

10. Downsize my lipstick collection | This was my goal for last year and I didn't do it. In fact, I added even more lipsticks. I need to come to the reality that I'm not the lipstick girl that I used to be and hoarding all of the dark shades that I used to wear so often in college just don't suit me or my lifestyle anymore. It's a sad thing to accept, but I can make it through the heartbreak. Lolololololololol.