Goals 2007

I think because of my upciming birthday this spring, I'm obsessed with setting new goals and achieving them. Here's what I've got so far:

1. Signed up to run a marathon, but had to scale back to a half-marathon. The training time was just too short, and the worst thing would be to get injured trying to run 26 miles and not be able to exercise every day, which is the far healthier goal. So I signed up for a second 1/2 marathon in September -- two halves make a whole, right? And if that goes well, I might just try the Marine Corps Marathon in October.

2. Signed up for two writing classes -- a 1/2 day seminar on Releasing the Writer Within, next Saturday in RI. I'm excited to meet Hannah G. and she promises to unblock me in one day! The second, also with Hannah, is a 12-week online class called "Finish Your Novel in 12 Weeks." Wouldn't then be awesome?!

3. Helping prepare a proposal for latrines for Medor, Haiti. Going to Medor March 14 - 21st. To get there, we have to fly to Port Au Prince, drive by truck on a very rough road for several hours until the road ends, then hike three hours up the mountain on a donkey trail, carrying everything we brought with us, including suitcases full of supplies, medicine, etc. for the village. The villagers come down to meet groups who visit. They carry new generators, bags of cement, and other heavy things up the trail on their heads -- with bare feet. We'll attend the dedication of the new church -- which we raised money for and the villagers built by hand -- while we're there. It's gonna be a week-long celebration. We'll also be hiking out to the water sources (some are two and three hours away on foot) we've identified and meeting with the committees in charge of the clean water and latrine projects. So excited about this.

4. New work challanges, which I will describe in a later post!