I had booked a week of annual leave off to revise for the January exams. However, since I am now doing this, I no longer need my annual leave. We can’t rebook it for later in the year and to be honest, having worked over Christmas I’m looking forward to the break.

I’m quite lucky because my off-duty requests have fallen nicely and that, while I booked a week off, I’ve actually got 14 days off. I take one away for night recovery and preparation on either side of my leave but it’s a fantastic result.

Over these thirteen days, I plan to make complete or make progress on the following goals:

1. Quit college and accept it as gracefully giving in, not failure – In line with goal 8, I’ll probably do some self-talk and blog a major entry in Ye Olde Blog. Going forward, I need to focus less on the qutting bit and more on the “what can I learn and where I am going from here?” side of it. TO MAKE PROGRESS
2. Track my progress by visiting Joe’s Goals every day for six months – I’m doing well on this goal, since I can visit the site on my iPhone. I’d like to pare down the content a tad because it’s quite FlyLady heavy and I’m restarting the Babysteps later this month. TO MAKE PROGRESS
3. Read all the Harry Potter books – this is fun so it won’t be hard. I need to catch up on what I’ve not read so far and consistently read a chapter a day going forward as a reward for general hard work. TO MAKE PROGRESS
4. Set up FlyLady routines – I’m going to restart the Babysteps halfway through my leave and also figure out a way of fitting them around my 12.5 hour day and night shifts. TO MAKE PROGRESS
5. Unsubscribe from newsletters, mailing lists, etc that I don’t really read – I’ve done all the unsubscribing, I just want to keep tabs on my inboxes for a month to see what’s coming in and what I’ve missed out. TO MAKE PROGRESS
6. Get into nursing – I need to have my application finished by the 14th at the very latest. This is very high on my priority list: write my personal statement, get two referee statements, research funding and a few more university choices by the 14th at the absolute latest.TO COMPLETE APPLICATION PROCESS
7. Finish “10 days to self-discipline” – I will blog these entries and see how to program goes. TO COMPLETE
8. Sort out all the warranties and instructions for all my new appliances and electricals – this is part of Project Box Room. I need to get everything into folders, chuck all the crap and make sure I can get to what I want when I need it. I’d also really like to know how my breadmaker works! TO COMPLETE
9. Sort out my/our finances – Again, part of Project Box Room. We need to see what’s coming in, what’s going out, when, how much, can we make savings, how much can we live without etc. Stuart is self-employed and I’ll be heading into student territory later this year so we really need to see what’s going on. TO COMPLETE
10. Take the pushup/situp/squat challenges – Well, I put these on here, and I firmly intend to do them…but not just yet. I’d rather focus on getting onto my Wii Fit daily and in a few months I’ll take a look at these. NOTHING REQUIRED
11. Knit a Gryffindor scarf – I need to continue knitting and taking lessons from my mother. That’s all a beginner like me can do, really. TO MAKE PROGRESS
12. travel on the Trans-Siberian Railway/stay in the penthouse of a fancy hotel/Celebrate New Years in Time Square/Go to Paris – these travel goals are going on the backburner because the planned Disney holiday is going to take all the available money. NOTHING REQUIRED
13. Buy a proper sellotape dispenser – Because my crappy plastic one did my head in over Christmas. I’m heading to Cardiff on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning to do this and a few other goals. TO COMPLETE
14. Process the Xmas returns – The Animal slippers are returned and refunded, Mirror’s Edge is posted and awaiting return and the other thing is the damned ClickHeat crap, which I will sort in Cardiff on Thursday/Friday. TO COMPLETE
15. Watch Gavin and Stacey season 1 – A fun goal to do while I am knitting/chilling/eating. TO COMPLETE
16. Buy handbag essentials: new purse, iphone screen protectors and a case – Because I need all of the above. My poor purse can’t close anymore and my precious iPhone is scratched and chipped to hell. TO COMPLETE
17. Get new windows/get a new boiler – We will see how we can do on these two after the finances are sorted…TO MAKE PROGRESS
18. Hang up all the pictures and curtains etc. that need to be hung up, so that I can consider mt new home fully furnished – I have made my list. All I need is a man with a drill. We might get it done, we might not. TO MAKE PROGRESS
19. Prepare early for Xmas 2010 – not like I was in 2009! – This is a more long-term goal. NOTHING REQUIRED
20. Put dates into new diary and wall calendar – This requires getting everyone’s birthdays together but it’s most definitely doable. TO COMPLETE
21. Get a utensil rack and hang it – Self-explanatory. My loose utensils are doing my head in. Everytime I shut the damn drawer, my pasta spoon gets caught. TO COMPLETE
22. Cancel my Which subscription – Nice while it lasted but I can’t afford £10 a month for a magazine to tell me what epilator to buy, you know. TO COMPLETE
23. Put my mother’s Le Creuset on Ebay – and a load of other stuff too! TO MAKE PROGRESS
24. Put all our home videos on DVD – This is my mother’s birthday present and I really need to get the bulk of this done over my two weeks off. TO MAKE PROGRESS
25. Go to DisneyWorld with my family – I’ve talked about this goal with my family a lot. In order to go in May 2011, we need to put about £100 aside per person per month. I really need to see who’s coming, persuade my mother and get a new ISA set up to hold the money. TO MAKE PROGRESS
26. Sort my oven out – This depends on outside parties but I need to get fault finding reports off two electricians and send the invoices etc. off to my trading standards representative. TO MAKE PROGRESS
27. Sort my lamp out – Put lamp together according to instructions. Also, contact Next to see about replacement glass bowls. TO COMPLETE
28. Go rock climbing – I’d like to have done the taster climbing session with some friends by the end of the month. TO MAKE PROGRESS
29. Visit relatives more often – All visits completed over Christmas. NOTHING REQUIRED
30. Sort out my kitchen cupboard – Swap over the current food and dishes cupboards. TO COMPLETE
31. Cancel my old cell phone – Dig out the old invoices and head over to the rotten, thieving shop and sort it out! TO COMPLETE
32. Change all my lightbulbs to energy efficient ones – Because I want to be really, really environmentally friendly, even if climate change isn’t happening. TO COMPLETE
33. Organise my work money so that I’m not scrambling around for it the night before – I’m on leave, so therefore don’t have to park! NOTHING REQUIRED
34. Write more – I want to blog almost daily and maybe work on some fanfiction. More of an ongoing goal but it’s important to get going with it. TO MAKE PROGRESS
35. Send out thank yous – This should have been done last week. TO COMPLETE
36. Complete Project 365 – Obviously a long term goal but essential to take photos, and maybe more interesting photos, while I’m on leave. TO MAKE PROGRESS

After that epic goal review (well done if you made it this far!), I could very well have completed 16 goals, including this one! Can you get much more motivating?