Mel over on the Stirrup Queens blog (which I love even though I’m not in the infertility world) issued a challenge to publicly proclaim your 2010 resolutions via blog and her Mr. Linky so that others can read and perhaps, in some woo-woo kind of mystical way, help you hold yourself to it. You know me: Queen of the Joiners.

I gave up on resolutions a few years ago, because like most people, I make them and then by about January 17 have had a complete resolution FAIL. Instead, I now set themes for the year. Themes are non-quantifiable and therefore non-threatening. You can’t achieve a theme and therefore you cannot fail. However, I might decide to do a theme check-in or theme tune-up every now and then, just to see if these themes are still working for me.

In 2009, my themes were Working My Shit Out Because I’m Turning 40 and Gratitude and Trying Things I Think I Might Like But May Not Be Good At. If you look at my blog archives for the past near-year, you’ll see these themes in progress. This blog is the last theme in progress, as is my photography and marriage #2.

With no further ado, my 2010 themes are:

Write big. Maybe I’ll write 80,000 words (I am not calling it a novel) about Danielle and Jessie and Mark and family. Or maybe I’ll find myself writing 750+ word blogs here five days a week. Or maybe I’ll find another project to write. But 2010 is the Year of Writing Big. I can feel it in my bones.

Learn more. Whether it’s through workshops or courses or DVDs in the writing or personal growth categories, or blogs or books, learning is one of my big values, and it’s what propels me and moves me emotionally. I’m quitting my Massage Envy membership (a theme from 2008: take better care of myself) and dedicating that $50 a month toward learning something.

Go to the gym. Ultimately, I’d like to shed the 25 pounds I’ve put on over the past 2 years, but I know from past experience that setting any kind of weight loss/fitness/body composition/clothing size goal is the first step to putting on an additional 10 pounds. However, it does piss me off when I see my gym membership bill at $89 each month and realize that I went twice. Which means that Nia class I love so much? Cost me $44.50 each time. If I go 4 times at least, I’m closer to $20 a pop, still expensive, but I love the class $20 worth. If I happen to re-addict myself to working out, or try a Pilates reformer class, or fall in lust with a hot trainer who I wind up buying at $50 per half-hour just to be near, and the result is I can get back into my size 10 jeans again, so be it. But size 10 is not the theme. Getting more out of what I’m paying for is.

Keep on working out my shit in public. Judi’s office and my own head are the places to start it, and human, being is the place to reveal my progress. That means Days of Grace, because like my daily fish oil supplement, it’s good for me. As are the brain spills when I’m feeling bad, or good, and the thought pieces where my real writing shines through. Hopefully, as has happened now and then in 2009, some of what I write here will continue to affect and help some of you who read this blog, and you’ll send me an email or leave a comment, and I will know that the public part of this theme is worthwhile.

Have fun. I’m 40 and a half, as Lauren keeps reminding me. I’m too old to take life so seriously. So I’ll continue to dance (fun), play games (fun), read Bernthis and The Bloggess and all the other blogs I love(fun), watch Heroes and Flash Forward and House Hunters and Modern Family and Cougar Town (fun), see movies (fun), play with the ferrets (fun) and the kids (fun) and Steve (fun) and find other fun things by whatever means possible. Anything that sucks, I’m done with. No more suck. That’s an almost-resolution.