I'm not making any more frickin' 5-year plans. My adult life is a wasteland of broken promises to myself.

But on the bright side, I've learned a lot and had a lot of fun.

I did realize my lifelong dream of being self-employed. It lasted nearly 2 years. Turns out being self-employed takes a lot more energy than I seem to have. But that's okay. I learned a heck of a lot, and I'm much more grateful for the job I have now than I would be had I not going through the self-employment journey.

Took a road trip with someone recently who talks about creating legacy moments for his loved ones - primarily for his children & his wife, but definitely for his friends too. This is my new resolution - - to create more legacy moments for my daughter (and myself and my husband if he wants to participate). Self-employment depleted our finances and energy, and I swear I aged rapidly. Our "fun factor" in life has gone down too much. I responded by retreated inwards a bit too much. And it seems that my husband and I both tend to equate having fun with spending money - we think we need to take a trip or something. Well, that's not happening this year. We have a bat mitzvah to pay for, and we haven't fully recovered from my Great Experiment (self-employment).

Here are my thoughts along those lines:

- We need to get with friends more often. I don't like to invite people over because our house is too small, is falling apart, and is always a mess. But if I invite friends over, I'll panic and tidy up. So we should invite friends over more often.

- We need to get outside more. Go on picnics. Go swimming. Hiking. Go to the mountains more often.

- We need to utilize our back yard. We've never really used it. We should pretty it up and call it additional living space.

- I need to find ways to engage my daughter in working alongside me on things. We've let her off way too easy in terms of household chores, and now she balks when she has to do the smallest bit of work around the house. I think we've been going about it incorrectly. Instead of saying "Do this," or even instead of offering her rewards, I should just do more work myself and get her to work alongside me. I'll entice her by talking about things she wants to talk about.

Notice I didn't blog about how little I blog in this entry? Oops, I just blew it.