What Do You Want?: Thursday Thirteen

Now that the 30 day blog challenge is done, I can go back to some of my other pursuits.  So, I decided to take up the Thursday thirteen again.

My mentor/sponsor/recovery hero often asks me, So what do you want?  I hate trying to answer that, so I normally tell him what I don't want.  He always tells me that's not good enough.  Why?  Because I can do something about what I want.  All I can do about what I don't want is whine about lament over it.  We've got two months left in 2013.  With that in mind, my Thursday thirteen are what I want by the end of the year.

1. I want to be in one-derland by the end of 2013.  One-derland is that awesome magical zone where my body weight has a "1" in front of it instead of a "2."  This isn't wishful thinking; it is an attainable goal.  I don't care if it's 199.9!  Plus, I want to enjoy it and relish it so that I won't slump back into behaviors that put the weight back on.  Been there, done that.
2. I want to find a good job, or at least have some definite direction on my career.  I'll keep fishing, hunting, praying, and asking.
3. I want to run a 5k in 45 minutes or less.  I've only got a couple more chances at this one, so it may be bumped up to 2014, but I'm going to try.  My next chance is November 9th at the Kyle Comfort Memorial 5k.
4. I want to find more opportunities to get to know my new church family.  I've been at my new church for a year and I still feel like I don't really know enough people.  I'm on the worship team and in the choir and, shameful to say, I still don't know everyone's name.  I'm trying to combat the urge to think that my serving is enough--there's not much friendship building in that.  Our Pastor taught on friendship recently, so I'm even hungrier for real, deep friendships.  This is going to take a focused effort on my part.  I can't expect people to come up to me.
5. I want to finish my secret holiday projects.  Shhhh....it's a secret.
6. I want to finish my current lesson in the Bible correspondence course I've been taking.  This lesson has been on hold for way too long. 
7. I want to finish the spring cleaning I started...well, this past spring.  Look, it's no secret that this has been a rough year for me in just about every way possible and I've let too many things go.  This is one of them I'm picking back up.  Spring cleaning my living quarters is actually helping to boost my mood.
8. I want to have a better Christmas season than last year.  I cannot control what anyone else does.  I can only make the right choices to enjoy celebrating Christ's birth.  It's up to me.  Though, I hope I'm not celebrating alone. No, I'm not doing a pitiful me, Cinderella can't go to the ball because her man's a pumpkin sort of thing.  No, I thought about having a Christmas cookie party, but wouldn't that make me a hypocrite?  I mean if I care about health, I can't be passing out candy and cookies at Christmas, now can I?  *sigh*
9. I want to have better prayer and quiet times.  They are better than they have been for a long time, but they are not where they should be.  My days go much better when I can spend quality, focused time alone with God.  One thing that will help is to retrain myself to get up at the time I used to.  Until the mystery ick from September knocked me on my butt, I was pretty consistent at getting up at a decent hour.  I'm well now, but still sleeping too much.
10. I want to clean up my computer hard drive and my social media sites.  After a while, things start to get disorganized.  It's just time to regroup.  This process takes a couple of days and I'm trying to spend less time in front of the computer.
11. I want to get out more.  Winter is the hardest time for me because all I want to do is stay in the cave.  It's colder, and the days are shorter, so it's easy to stay inside.  However, I'm well aware that depression mode often isolates and often turns one into a hermit.  Hermit mode turns into Oh well, no one's here but me.  Why clean the place?  Why shower?  Why get out of my bed clothes?  Why even bother?  No, no, and NO!
12. I want to try new workouts.  Actually, I think I'm going to issue a blog challenge for all of us to try some new stuff.  I can stay motivated if I know other people are doing it too.
13. I want to go out 2013 like a BOSS, not like a punk!  I occasionally put this on my Facebook wall to remind myself!

As each item is accomplished, I shall come back here and update you.  At the end of the year, I'll post about how it went.  Have a good'n, y'all.  I know I will.

UPDATE 04/10/14:  I must not have wanted it bad enough.  I didn't accomplish anything on this list.  All I can do is keep trying.  Sorry, y'all.