Tumbleweeds

the blogging world is a virtual desert with prickly animals and long-dead blogs rolling by like tumbleweeds. Hell, I have enough dead blogs out there rolling around to know. And since I was last an active blogger, web v2.0 has rolled into town along with mobile devices and the streamlined attention span of photo blogging (tumblr, instagram, and the hearty gif + one liner). Then there was the rise of the crafty, stay-at-home mom blogs who pin, tweet, and g+ in order to monetize their home school activities and become mini-Internet celebrities in t heir own right.

We live in a strange world.

With each new blog that is born in a moment of self-discovery, indulgence, or boredom, this blog must too have a goal (or manifesto), before I forget about it and fail to post again, so let me lay it out:

The goal of this blog is to help me track my own goals. And what are my own goals?

Right now, as I find myself back in my hometown, are to improve my mental, physical and social well-being, to become a more present, more engaged and happier person.

To do this I want to spend the next year, from July 4, 2013 to July 4, 2014, working beyond my comfort zone in the following ways.

• Engage locally
• Join local chapters of volunteers, leaders, commissions, etc.  
• Explore what my immediate surroundings have to offer
• Volunteer
• Use my skills for good - sit on grant panels, tutor, work at the animal shelter
• Train for or take classes in
•  5ks, 10ks, drawing, painting, writing, cycling, swimming
• Make a habit
•  library visits, read a novel weekly, eat more green, new friends, writing in this every day, reflection
• Cut out
• TV, FB, eating out (more than once per week), red meat

There, that felt good.