Things I want to do

I keep having all these big goals, like furnish the house, lose a ton of weight, complete a triathlon, have a baby--and while they're all great and they will all happen, they are not exactly short-term goals, you know? So I'm trying to distract myself from thinking about all the stuff that I'm not going to achieve right this second by thinking about some small projects that I want to take on. And there are a few of them. Kind of like resolutions, but maybe less binding? We'll see.

• Make a quilt. I took a simple quilting class when I was 12 or 13, and learned how to make quilts in a checkerboard pattern. I still have the quilt that I made in that class, as well as one quilt that I made afterward. I made quite a few others and gave them away during middle and high school, but I haven't made a quilt since. I'd like to take a class and learn how to make a slightly more complicated quilt. There are some cool sewing stores around Denver, so I think this is totally feasible. And I am still hoping that a certain someone will come visit and take the class with me.
• Hike more regularly. Torsten and I were doing a pretty good job working through a bunch of the simpler hiking trails in the Denver area, but as it got hot in the summer we laid off for awhile. Now it's starting to cool down and I want to hit up some of the trails in our easy day hikes book. I'd like to average a couple of hikes per month, at least.
• Visit my BFF. She visited here, back in April, and now it's my turn to go to San Francisco to see her. I know, twist my arm. I haven't been to San Francisco since 1995, if I recall correctly. I'd like to go back and see it as an adult. And of course seeing my best friend doesn't hurt, either. We were hoping for a date in September but it looks like that is not going to work with our schedules, so now we are looking into October. Eventually, we WILL find a date that works for both of us.
• Start celebrating Chanukah. The biggest obstacle to this is our lack of a menorah. I looked online for one but I didn't find anything that appealed. I want to get a menorah that we can keep forever, the kind where we can tell our kids that we bought it the first year we were living in our house, before they were even born. So I want it to be a nice one. Our neighbors told us about a nearby shop that sells Jewish stuff, so hopefully we can find a nice menorah there. And I'll have to brush up on the prayer songs, but actually, I remember them pretty well for the most part. I think we'll skip the gifts, though, and just light the menorah and say the blessings each night.
• Prettify our guest room. We're trying not to spend money right now, what with the surgery and new mortgage and all, so all decorating plans have been placed on hold. But I'd really like it if our guest room contained more than a bed and a lamp on a cardboard box. Just a nightstand (or two) and a couple of little decorative touches would already be a big improvement. I'm going to need to set a budget for this, though, and then find a way to stick to it. It will be my first real home decorating project (that frame wall still hasn't happened), so it's probably good that whatever trial and error I go through will be on a limited budget. Come to think of it, we have a couple of gift cards--to Sears and The Container Store--that could probably help out with this as well.
  

What about you? Are there some short-term goals that you've been meaning to set for yourself?