We’ve rung in another New Year. Twenty twenty-four. Can you believe it? I remember when 1999 seemed so far away and now, I’m looking at my 30th high school reunion.

How did I get this old?

GAH!

Anyway. . . I definitely don’t want to think about that. What I do want to think about are my 2024 Goals.

Books

In 2023, the only real goal I had was a reading goal. I set out to read 156 books (3 per week) and 48,000 pages. Despite a couple of reading slumps, I read 200 books or (188 if I subtract the 12 DNFs) and 52,775 pages! I feel pretty good about that as that doesn’t count rereads or rather re-listens because I re-listened to a lot of audiobooks. I find audiobooks to allow me to be zen, which was a much needed thing in 2023.

I read 63 new-to-me author and my most read genre was romance because 2023 was a bit of a tough year and romance reads are lighthearted fun that soothe the soul and let the brain relax.

And I can’t talk about all the books I read without sharing my 5 star reads of 2023:

• Martha Wells’s Murderbot series (starts with All Systems Red)
• Recursion by Blake Crouch
• Starter Villain by John Scalzi
• Witch King by Martha Wells
• Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts.

For 2024, I’m keeping my book goal of 156 books but upping the page goal to 50,000 pages.

Writing

I also had a fantastic 2023 NaNoWriMo and also started writing two other stories in December.

My goal for 2024 is to focus on my writing. First, I want to edit my NaNoWriMo first draft to see if I can make it an actual readable story. Second, I want to finish those other two stories. I may also dig back into previous NaNoWriMo drafts to see whether I want to rework any of those drafts Third, I plan to regularly update this blog and write at minimum of 2 posts each month.

I’ve also just created a Substack, although I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it. I may do extra content, like maybe share some short stories or excerpts from my fiction writing.

Puzzles

I didn’t set an puzzle goal for 2023. But I did quite a few puzzles in 2023. Actually a lot of puzzles. I tried to keep track but didn’t do the best job with keeping up with my spreadsheet.

My 2024 goal is to update my puzzle spreadsheet and then keep it updated each month.

some of my faves puzzles from 2023

Fitness

I have done really well with fitness. I signed up with Future Fit App in June 2022. And I’ve stuck with doing 3 workouts per week since then. In November, I hit 200 total workouts and in December, I hit 50,000 total calories burned. This is the longest I’ve ever consecutively worked out and I’m feeling pretty good about that. (Shout out to my Future Fit Coach @brendanbfit!)

For 2024, my goal is to start adding a weekly yoga session and another daily walk.

Miscellaneous Goals

Over Christmas, I started studying Italian through the Duolingo app. I’ve previously studied French and a little Spanish. But I want to visit Italy again, and so I thought I’d start by learning the language. After French, Italian is surprisingly easy. Like Spanish, it’s much more phonetic and doesn’t seem to have all the rules that French has.

My 2024 goal is to use the Duolingo app for 90 consecutive days.

Share one of your 2023 successes and one of your 2024 goals in the comments below.

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