Last weekend was the first relatively nice one (read: no snow, temperatures above freezing) in a while, and even though I wasn’t feeling too hot, I was determined to enjoy it. I might have overdone it a bit…

On Friday, I headed further down Main Street after work to check out the mayhem that is the Bockfest Parade. It didn’t disappoint: goats and kilts and general drunken craziness proved to be pretty darn entertaining! Afterwards, I pointed out the Shepard Fairey mural on the corner of 13th and Main to FriendBoy, and we headed over to Lavomatic for a bite to eat.

Saturday morning, I headed down to a still very cold Fountain Square to kick off the Cinciditarod, a race (loosely) based on the similarly-named Iditarod. I volunteered to be a judge for the food and drink part of the challenge, which entailed each team consuming 5 burritos and 5 drinks from a roving Senor Roy’s Taco Patrol as quickly as possible.

I am only slightly ashamed to say that I got a  huge, slightly perverse kick out of seeing everyone from the Oompa Loompas to the Super Mario Brothers to streakers to Devo chasing down a taco truck in the middle of downtown!

On Saturday night I stopped by the Cincinnati Fashion Week logo launch party at Mynt to check out the scene and say hello to event founder Nathan (top left) and his crew of organizers (bottom left). I also ran into Ashley, a designer and model I recognized from Lookbook.nu, of all places. The internets lead to some weird connections, no?

Unfortunately, my relatively new camera literally slipped off the strap and crashed to the cement as I was walking to the bar, leaving the lens damaged and nearly reducing me to tears in the middle of a parking lot. So my pictures turned out blurry and I have to shell out $200 for another lens. Great.

What did you do last weekend? Any plans for the upcoming one?

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Hope everyone had a happy new year! Mine was spent in seclusion save a few sanity-preserving outings:

NYE

New Year’s Eve was spent hunkered down on the couch, swathed in a Smurf-blue Snuggie with my computer on my lap. There was a very klassy orange juice and beer toast with FriendBoy at midnight before I got back to work and finally nodded off around 3am. How exciting!
Quick tip: Do not try to use the bathroom while wearing a Snuggie–it won’t turn out well. Don’t say I never taught you anything.

Friday

On Friday, FriendBoy and I went to see his sister (who lives in Florida and was visiting for the holidays) and his new niece. The baby is only two months old and is such a cute little dollbaby! No, really, she’s a ringer for a Cabbage Patch doll. I almost turned her over to look for the Xavier Roberts signature on her butt.

Saturday

On Saturday, I had to drop foster kitty Beauregard off at PetSmart, where he will remain for two weeks or until adopted, whichever comes first. I have to admit, I teared up when they put him in the kitty crate in the adoption area–he looked so confused. FriendBoy had to practically drag me away, and it was hard not to cry at the idea that he might think I abandoned him. He’s just such a sweet little guy.

Both of those outings took longer than intended, so I really had to sequester myself from the rest of the world in order to get the new issue of Style Sample together in time. Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of the blogging community (I really love y’all), a new cover girl and emergency writer came through and we’re ready to roll! Thanks Andy and Anna!

How was your New Year’s weekend?

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I don’t do resolutions anymore. After years of failing to stick to the same ones (Exercise! Eat healthier! Save money! Travel!) I haven’t given up per se, but let’s just say I’ve moved on.

However, this post from Chris Guillebeau prompted me to start looking seriously at setting–and planning to achieve–some goals. The first step is looking back at what happened this year–2009 was weird for a lot of people. I started Style Sample magazine, my childhood pet died, I hit the dirty thirty and realized I ain’t gettin’ any younger–all of which has prompted me to get serious and focus.

Setting goals and developing detailed action plans is the fun part (well, it is for me because I’m kind of a nerd that way). The hard part is actually doing everything and sticking to the plan, which is difficult because I’m not exactly what you would call disciplined. I’m willing to work my butt off, but only if it’s something I enjoy–apparently this makes me kind of a flake. I prefer to think of myself as an ambitious slacker, if you will.

Still, I decided I have to do something. So:

Creating the plan

To start, I created a Google Docs document with three sections. One for 2009 review, one for 2010 goals, and one for infinity and beyond, which basically includes wish-list items I’d like to do someday and will be ready to do if the opportunity arises in the next year.

In the 2009 review, I listed all the major life events of the past year. Honestly, this took up less than three lines–my life is not that exciting and I prefer not to dwell on the past. From that list, I picked items I want to stick with–namely blogging, the magazine, and making a name for myself in the marketing & social media space.

Then, I created headers for each item, and started listing goals. SMART goals, with quantities and dates and such.

Under each header, I worked backwards (beginning with the end in mind) to determine the real live physical actions needed to achieve each goal.

Shoe sacrifice*

The part I was missing before was sacrifice–I wanted to do more and get more but not give anything up. You can’t get something for nothing though, so unless my sugar daddy/winning lottery ticket/miracle financial windfall comes through, it’s on me.

Sacrifice for me means working on page layouts instead of taking a nap, learning new software instead of cruising Net-a-Porter for stuff I can’t afford (though I still need to do research–you know, for the blog), substituting what I already have for things I think I “need”, and limiting myself to three cookies at a time instead of the usual eight. What? I have to start somewhere!

Do you have any goals for next year? How do you plan?

*No shoes were harmed during the writing of this post.

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