It seems I have been a girl on a mission lately. A couple of them, actually. Three in particular.

Mission 1 - I’m flying to Connecticut this weekend to see my Sista Sista & meet her new precious baby girl, Amelie. While there I’ll be biking to Massachusetts with my brother Justin on Saturday morning. I just started riding again (and by again I mean since ohhhh about age 12) when I bought a used bike for $25 about a month ago. Now granted it’s only a 10-ish mile ride we’ll be going on, but I haven’t biked for longer than 6 1/2 miles without finding myself in quite the pain pickle. (I believe I may need a new seat.) My goal in this mission: not to fall off the bike, to make it the cafe in Mass, and to not seriously damage …. myself.

That's my bike!

Mission 2 - My practice is supporting a 5k race series out Charles Towne Landing which begins in May. I was doing my social media thing at the day job when on a wild whim I decided to sign up for the 5k on May 10th. Now that may not sound like a big deal to some of you, but for a girl who fell off the work out wagon big time in a I’m not dancing anymore and I don’t have to bust my body to be perfect in front of 60,000 people so I’m not gonna and you can’t make me  frame of mind a few years back, a 5k is a pretty big deal. (yea, umm, someone had a few issues to deal with in case you couldn’t tell) I’ve been back on the work out wagon for a year or so now and well, here’s hopin! My goal in this mission: to finish in 35 minutes …. and still be able to enjoy the Caribbean food at the after dinner. (It’s Barbados night on my selected 5k!)

my usual running path (aka my yellow brick road)

And for the big finale: I came across a DVD titled Amelie the other day at Target. Given it’s my future goddaughter’s name, I couldn’t help but pick it up. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized the entire movie just happens to be in French. (pause & cue subtitles, here) Regardless, half way into the movie I was hooked. It really is a great movie with what I imagine to be very French-like quirks. Then the epiphany (for lack of better words) struck: I’m going to FINALLY learn French so I can watch my new movie without subtitles AND be able to understand it. And I am going to do this by the end of 2012. That’s 8 months. I have 2 iphone apps to help me get there and will gladly accept applications for practice chats.  Tips, of course, are quite welcome. I took French in high school and have always wanted to be well versed in another language – so it’s looking like now is go time to get on that.

1/1/13 - I will watch you minus subtitles!

*So with all of that said – am I obsessing with the goal thing? Maybe / sorta. But since there’s two semi-short term and one long term, I think it’s okay. I know some may disagree with the idea of setting goals with all the backlash and personal ramifications if they don’t happen yadda yadda yadda, but I think it’s healthy to have a few goals swimming around out there. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Au revoir pour le moment! ~jB