New Year’s Resolution 2012 – The Verdict

Stitched PanoramaIt’s almost time to start making our 2013 New Year’s Resolutions.  I’ve been pondering what resolutions I plan on making for next year…but I’ve also been thinking about my 2012 New Year’s Resolution. 

With the year drawing to a close, I started to inventory just how far I’ve come with the 2012 Resolution.  Ends up, I have to start picking up some slack.  Thank God I noticed it right after Thanksgiving!

My 2012 Resolution was to read 52 books this year.  That’s a book a week.  I wanted 26 out of those 52 books to be a classic. 

How has my resolution gone?  Well, I had to change the last part of the resolution.  I didn’t read 26 classics this year.  By July, I realized there was no way I would be able to do it.  I finally resolved to just read 5 classics this year.

Here is the list of books I’ve read so far this year:

  1. The Son of Neptune – Rick Riordan
  2. Aleph – Paulo Coelho
  3. Luka and the Fire of Life – Salman Rushdie
  4. The Tiger’s Wife – Tea Obreht
  5. The Oracle of Stamboul – Michael David Lukas
  6. Tao Te Ching – Lao Tzu
  7. FableHaven Book 1 – Brandon Mull
  8. Witches of East End – Melissa de la Cruz
  9. The Last Apprentice – Joseph Delaney
  10. Blue Bloods – Melissa de la Cruz
  11. FableHaven Book 2 – Brandon Mull
  12. FableHaven Book 3 – Brandon Mull
  13. The Last Apprentice Book 2 – Joseph Delaney
  14. FableHaven Book 4 – Brandon Mull
  15. The Last Apprentice Book 3 – Joseph Delaney
  16. FableHaven Book 5 – Brandon Mull
  17. The Last Apprentice Book 4 – Joseph Delaney
  18. The Time Machine – HG Wells
  19. The Last Apprentice Book 5 – Joseph Delaney
  20. The Last Apprentice Book 6 – Joseph Delaney
  21. The Last Apprentice Book 7 – Joseph Delaney
  22. The Last Apprentice Book 8 – Joseph Delaney
  23. The Spook’s Tale – Joseph Delaney
  24. A Coven of Witches – Joseph Delaney
  25. The Woman in Black – Susan Hill
  26. The Last Apprentice Book 9 – Joseph Delaney
  27. A Time to Love – Barbara Cameron
  28. The Death of Joan of Arc – Michael Scott
  29. Billy The Kid & The Vampires of Vegas – Michael Scott
  30. The Enchantress – Michael Scott
  31. The Serpent and the Shadow – Rick Riordan
  32. Peter & the Starcatchers – Dave Barry
  33. Rose of Fire – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  34. The Night Circus – Erin Moregenstein
  35. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
  36. The Fifth Mountain – Paulo Coelho
  37. Midnight Palace – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  38. The Prisoner of Heaven – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  39. Theodosia & The Serpent of Chaos – R. L. LaFevers
  40. The Mark of Athena – Rick Riordan
  41. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
  42. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress – Dai Sijie
  43. Evangeline – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As you can see I’m nine books short of my goal.  Last night, I finished up on the 5 classics goal.  It’s now 12/13 and I need to read NINE more books.  Believe it or not, I think I’ll be able to do it.  How?  Well, Books 40-43 I read and completed in the last 13 days.  I finished “A Christmas Carol” in two days.  I realized after finishing the book…if I read classics that are short like this story, I’ll be able to reach my goal by the end of the year, plus add in some qualitative literature that I’ve been meaning to read.

Through most of this year, I was on a young adult fantasy/science fiction kick.  I fell in love with Joseph Delaney’s “The Last Apprentice” books.  They’re so scary…but damn are they good.  I also read the entire “FableHaven” series, which sadly came to an end after a few books.  I saw an end to another favorite series from Michael Scott: The Nicholas Flamel series.  I’m a huge Rick Riordan fan.  I love Percy Jackson.  I saw that series come to an end last year, and he brought it back to life with The Heroes of Olympus.  Riordan also had another series of books called The Kane Chronicles.  Like Scott, he brought that series to a complete end.

It’s like watching Harry Potter come to an end.  You fall in love with the characters and the story then it comes to an end after many, many books later.  Frankly, you can’t help but mourn the loss. 

I mourned a great series ending three times this year.

Right now, as I try to race through as many books as I can, I am also trying to map out how I plan on continuing this resolution next year.

Since I’m currently on a classical literature kick (I never thought I would say that), I plan on making that number a 10 for 2013…I will read 10 classical literature books (at the least).  I think that just may be doable.

I’m going to try and cut back on the number of young adult books I read and focus more on thought provoking books…like the hundreds of books sitting in my home already that are untouched and cluttering up my home. 

By May this year, I felt like I was cheating on this year’s resolution by reading so many young adult books.  Granted, these books are 300-800 pages long, but the type is usually big and you can sail right through the books very quickly because they’re entertaining and don’t really make you think too much.

One book I really want to read in 2013 is “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas.  It’s a pretty big book.  I don’t think I could read it in a week…but I want to read it.

My reading list in 2012 started off well, reading a Salman Rushdie book, the amazing “Tiger’s Wife,” and “Aleph” by Paulo Coelho.  I even read the “Tao Te Ching” this year.  I’m thankful I finished reading “Les Miserables” months before the new movie was set to be released.  The book reminded me of just how amazing this story is…learning how to love. 

Of all the books, I was proud that I finished reading Les Mis.  Believe it or not, I started reading it back in 2004.  It took me 8 years to finish it.  The funny thing about this book…I’ve been carrying it around with me since the 1980s.  My copy was published at the turn of the 20th century.  It took me almost 30 years to read the entire thing since the day I got it.

And after all these years…I don’t regret carrying that book around with me throughout most of my life…from town to town…school to school…relationships to heartbreaks.  It went where I went.  There are 3 other books like Les Mis that I’ve carried along with me in my journey through life.  And of course, I have also not completed them: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Pride and Prejudice and The Origin of Species.  Maybe, just maybe, I ‘ll actually read all three of them in 2013.

Now, I usually tie my New Year’s Resolution in with a treat.  My resolution is tied in with my Fantasy Wardrobe Budget.  I have certain rules for how much goes into the jar after I finish each book, rules I intend on keeping in 2013.  This year’s Fantasy Wardrobe Budget was a great savings tool to help me focus on owning my first Yves Saint Laurent bag.  I achieved that goal over the summer.  Luckily, that bag wasn’t $1600 and I found another bag for less than $200.  That meant I had plenty of money leftover to spend on other couture items I’ve been coveting.

Right now, I have my eye on a Chanel bag.  Not just any kind of Chanel bag…I want the classic Chanel bag.  At the least, I’m looking at a $1600 price tag for an authentic vintage quilted Chanel bag.  VINTAGE!  Pffftt…I can’t afford a new one.  That would be $2000+…actually it’s more like closer to $4,000+.  That is way out of my price range.  So unless I find an amazing deal on a Chanel bag next year, my entire Fantasy Wardrobe Budget and New Year’s Resolution will be going towards that Chanel bag.

So next year’s New Year’s Resolution is continuing the push to read 52 books.  After reviewing how this year has gone, I really want to focus more on just reading the books I have at home and reading more classics.  As much as I enjoy young adult books, I want to ease up on that addiction.  I want to read more books that make me think. 

I also want to go back to my rule of making sure to read at least 50 pages a day.  I realized that I let that rule slip a lot.  A few months ago, to get myself back into the swing of reading again, I had to ease myself back into reading 25 pages a day. Now, it’s back at 50…but because of the deadline quickly approaching, it’s really more like 75-100 pages a day.  Hell…if I could keep that up for next year, maybe I could read more than 52 books next year!

Another thing I am adding to my 2013 Resolution…I want to declutter my books and try to only keep the classics and books by my favorite authors.  So after I read a non-classic, I’ll be getting rid of it.  I’m going to do my best to not buy any NEW books.  I’ll have one exception for library sales, because my local library needs the money.  The only books I plan on buying at these sales?  More classics and books for kids to donate.  As for now, I just want to purge the non-classics as quickly as I can.  Hopefully, by year end I’ll have a more qualitative classical library and not an overflow of books throughout my home.

Even if I don’t succeed in the big year end crunch, at least I’m happy that I made it through 43 books already.  That’s a lot of books!  But I really do want to finish what I started so that I have the renewed feeling of happiness that I succeeded in finishing a goal that I started…a New Year’s Resolution at that.

Oh, and another resolution I’m making…might as well say it…I’m taking up running…just so long as I don’t injure myself.  I’ve been a bit of a lame duck for the last 3 months.  But after some corrective supports and my ankle has finally realigned itself (and I’m not in a whole lot of pain), I really want to hit the track.  I’ve been aching to run, but when you’re injured and can barely walk…you have to wait.  As long as the healing process continues positively through the end of this month (like it has been doing), I plan on taking up running.  I just hope the year long resolution sticks and I’m injury free.

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