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Coming next week: BlogHer's Good-Health-A-Thon

Because New Year's Resolutions are a marathon and not a sprint, we're kicking off an initiative at BlogHer in January where we can all take our baby steps together. And nobody will make you laugh about these baby steps like Kristy Sammis, blogger of She Just Walks Around With It. Don't miss Kristy's reminiscence about her own bout with a personal trainer, in Balls of Death. (Illustration credit: Kristy Sammis)
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Hi everyone,

Happy New Year! I just finished reading our community manager Denise's post, "I don't make New Year's resolutions. Do you?" and I think she's really touched a nerve:

"I don't do New Year's resolutions....Since I am such a list maker, you'd think wouldn't bat an eye at the idea of making a list of New Year's Resolutions. It seems like a no brainer for me to sit down this week and make a list of things I want to change or improve or achieve over the next year. But I won't. Unless of course the perfect resolution Meme appears. So far, I haven't found that Meme."

Because Denise hasn't found the perfect meme, she has launched a community-wide BlogHer list of 2008 New Year Resolutions and Memes: Add yours here.

And on this topic, I happily and heartily disagree with my dear friend Denise. As I type, I'm about to embark on my annual dive into New Year's resolutions. Every December since 2001, I've taken time to sit down with a ruler, a pencil and a sheet of paper, to create what one of my sisters and I call The Matrix. Across the top of the page I write the months of the year. Down the left-hand side I draw up the bucketfuls of life I want to live in the coming year. These buckets may change in order, but they're nearly always the same:

Heart - What I want to accomplish for myself, my beau and our boys
Family - Key things I want to do with extended family and friends
Spirit - How am I going to give back in the coming year, financially and personally?
Wallet - What are the items I am forced to worry about this year? Sigh.
Health - How am I going to take care of my bod so that I can do all these other things?
Create - What am I going to sew, make, paint this year?
Work - See office. Believe me, BlogHer Inc. has its own extended list.
...and this year I'm adding a new category: Write. Because I learned the hard way in 2007 that if I try to lump writing in with creating or working, it comes last. And that just won't do.

Why do I do this? Because if I didn't, I'd spend the coming year like I used to do, driving the streets of the San Francisco Bay Area with yellow Post-it notes stuck to my steering wheel, my bathroom mirror, and my own son's forehead, dropping the ball regularly and being forced to react to crises of my own creation, from forgetting birthdays to forgetting to pay taxes.

Really. Never again.

Once I've written up the list, I take the most important step: I ship it off to my sister Anna and ask her to take out her sparkly red pen and kick the list's ass. Seriously. Because I need an editor for my life. I need someone I love, who knows what I'm good at and knows what I'm bad at to take a sharp-eyed look at what kind of year I'm setting myself up for. That service doesn't end on New Year's Day either: This list comes with a fairy godsister who's going to poke me with her wand if I let myself down badly and encourage me when I need her to, if I ask her for help. And I need help hitting my goals.

BlogHer Contributing Editor Nordette is taking an even bigger step: She's going to create this list with her family. She writes:

"Not only do I plan to return to holiday food traditions, but I will also return to a serious attempt to make and keep New Year’s resolutions. This time, however, I’ll make resolutions a family affair as discussed at CoolPeopleCare:

Make resolutions as a family and there will always be someone there for support. …I've made my share of personal resolutions, and usually either forgotten or broken them quite quickly. I always start with the best of intentions, but soon get caught up in something more urgent or important.(CoolPeopleCare)

more from Nordette

Another BlogHer Contributing Editor, Chris Jordan, has already gone there and is bracing herself, her husband and her seven children, as they begin to make a whopper of a 2008 wish come true:

"We have compiled our to-do list for 2008.

1) KITCHEN. Tear out everything that is there and replace it. This is huge. This is exciting. This is messy beyond all levels of messiness and inconvenient beyond all levels of inconvenience. I will want to complain about it every day, but will try to refrain and look on the bright side of not having to cook...more

So here's my list, the unromantic, achievable, checklist-like short version:

Heart - Make Date Night happen 2x a month, since it's turned into Work Night and Travel For Work Night. Build two hours alone with each child still living at home into every month
Family - Take week's vacation with grandparents in June. Go to 20th (!!) college reunion, take kids.
Spirit - Make annual donations to college and UNICEF. Involve kids in quarterly family volunteer projects.
Wallet - Re-write my will. Research auto, house and earthquake insurance to try to reduce costs.
Health - Add weight lifting 2x/week to my routine.
Create - Finish the dang Christmas stocking embroidery and paint the small bathroom.
Work - See BlogHer.com! :)
Write - Co-publish all BlogHer writing on Surfette. Spend 15 half-days writing by myself and not in the house or the office before October 2008.

Okay, I showed you mine: Where's yours? :) I invite you to add it here.

Here's to a very happy new year for you all,
Lisa

for Elisa Jory and Lisa