5 Year Plan

For those of you who really know me have heard all about 5 years plans....probably more than you've wanted to actually. You may skip this paragraph....the rest of you, here's a simple explanation. I am a firm believer that everyone needs to have some sort of goals and a plan on how to achieve these goals. I also think that you must still be able to be flexible about your goals and be realistic to the fact that very few will ever achieve everything they set out to do; and that is ok. I call my set of goals my "5 year plan" because it takes time to reach goals and I like to give myself some lee-way with them. It is also a long term plan for my life broken into short term objectives.
I first made a 5 year plan when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. Well guess what....that was 5 years ago. Hard to believe, but it was. I achieved some of the things on that plan, others I didn't come close to. Here's a brief rundown of my previous plan....ACHIEVED: get my bachelor's degree, find a full time well paying job with benefits, move out of my parent's house (pretty much to be self-sufficient). NOT ACHIEVED: get married, buy a house, lose the weight I knew I was bound to gain.
I feel like I achieved the most important things. Although, I wish the married one had been achieved. You'll notice that some of the unachieved items will making another appearance in my new 5 year plan-with some modifications.
So, here it is. The big 5 year plan. My goals for the next 5 (or so) years. I'm actually setting these goals until the end of the year 2012, which is a few weeks after I turn 30 (YIKES) and Elisabeth turns 10. Here it goes. (side note, I reserve the right to add, delete, and modify and and all parts of this within the next 5 years)

1. Get my Master's Degree-I am currently looking at Social Psychology with a strong look at victims.
2. Write a book. (I know, this seems so off the wall, but I love to write and have seriously thinking about a book. I don't even care if it gets published, I just want to write one!)
3. Be in at least one serious relationship ( I have realized my dreams of being married in the next 5 years are as unrealistic as my dreams of being married in the last 5 years, so I'm not even shooting for that anymore!)
4. Find a church that I love and become involved in it. (Harder than most people think-especially those who know how critical I am of things.)
5. Run a marathon. (Erin and Hanz, I'm gonna need your help here!)
6. Go to DisneyWorld with Elisabeth. (I went when I was 17 and loved it, I want Elisabeth to go when she is still young)
7. Take a pottery class-or any kind of make it with my hands type class, but I've always liked the things you can make with clay. (Delilah, this is where you come in!)
8. Re-learn my passion for playing music. (It's been a long time since I've really played and loved it...I play the flute by the way.)
9. Find a charity organization that i really believe in and become active in it.
10. Put together a collection of poetry book. Poems that I have written and that friends have written. (So start emailing me your poems everyone!)

For now, that is all. But like I said, I reserve the right to change it at any time in the next 5 years.
I challenge everyone to think about what they would like to accomplish in the next 5 year. Or even 2 or 3 years. It's best to write it down somewhere so you can look along the way and see how close you are to some and how much you really no longer even want to accomplish others. It's something you keep to yourself or share with others, either way, it's a starting point and a good way of looking deep into yourself and finding out what it is that you want to do.
Until next time......what's your 5 year plan?