I crossed over

My husband says that I am truly becoming a Terry.  It has been a long slow process, but there are a few tell tale signs that the transformation is happening.  One- I used to not like cornbread.  The Terry's are cornbread kind of people.  And now after ten years, I find myself at Cracker Barrel reaching for the cornbread instead of the biscuits.  Two- the Terry's are fanatical about taking pictures.  When you walk into a Terry family function you feel like you are on the red carpet being swarmed by the paparazzi.  "Look here!"  "Smile!"  "Now one of the whole family!"  It is enough to make a person want to walk around with a towel over her head.  But alas, I have converted and am now a card carrying member of the Terry paparazzi.  The final straw, is the list making.  My husband makes a list for everything.  He has lists of movies he wants to see.  He has lists of what songs he liked when he was 15 and what the tallest buildings in the world are.  If there is more than one task to do, he makes a list.  I HATE lists.  I think they are anal and concrete and I tend to gravitate toward the abstract. 

At the end of the year every year, my husband pulls out his five year plan (that he keeps filed and organized and other such nonsense) and revises it and comes up with new strategies to cross things off the list.  At the top of every year, it includes how old our children will be that year, his income goal, where he wants to go on vacation, what home improvement projects will get done, etc.  I'm glad that he's driven like that, but it is such a stark contrast to me, who can't hold a thought for more than the time it takes me to actually generate that thought.  I try to keep a calendar for appointments, but I live more day to day than year to year. 

But the final conversion of my Terry-ness happened when a few days ago, I decided that I needed to make a list of goals.  I've got a lot of things that I want to accomplish, and I thought that it might be good to see them actually written on paper.  I layed in bed next to the hubster and started *gasp* writing them down.  He was there on the sidelines cheering me on and reminding me that my goals needed to be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely).  I thought I might barf on him.  My goals aren't SMART, but they are my goals, goshdarnit, and they are exactly how I want them.  They each mean something to me and just because I can't measure them properly doesn't mean that they won't happen.  For example, one thing on my list is "Learn French".  To which my husband  replied "All of it?"  I said "Yes, all of it. All of the French.  And when I get done, I'm going to read the Internet."  Really I want to learn enough French to get by the next time I travel to Congo, but I know that and so it didn't make sense to write down, "Learn Enough French to get by". 

So, in the spirit of keeping myself accountable, I'm sharing my goals.  Some are loftier than others.  Some are more important than others, but they are all things that I want to do.  So here they are.  Hopefully, I can start crossing some off.

And now that they are out there, I suppose it means that I actually need to do them :-)  Perhaps I'll start tomorrow.  I'll get right on it.

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