This is me and my guy tonight. For my 50th birthday dinner he took me out to Bis on Main, a restaurant in old Bellevue restaurant that seemed to be filled with old Bellevue type-residents (refined, of money, conservative), but with a distinctly forward looking idea about food — my salad included pickled rhubarb that was good enough for me to want to try to mimic it at home.

I usually take stock of my life at the Jewish new year each fall. Sometimes I reapply my navel-gazing glasses at the secular new year. But this is a milestone birthday, right? I figure I might as well set some goals for myself. And rather than keep them locked in my head, I figured I could have a little bit of accountability if I published them for my 14 loyal readers to see. You can pester me about the at will.

1. I want to move more. But my goals are modest. I want to increase my steps by 10% a week every week this year. I’ll set a baseline on Monday, once the weekend is over and I find my pedometer.

2. I’m going to do that weekly savings thing where you start by saving one dollar the first week, two the second, and so on. By the end of the year, you have more than $1,300. That’s quite a present I can buy myself for 51!

3. I want to spend more time doing the writing I love, even if it means I have to give up something else, like (gasp!) Colbert or Chelsea Handler (both of whom are retiring this year, making my sacrifice a little easier). That may mean finding paying gigs that allow me to write on topics that engage me, or it may mean more work on essays that have no paying home yet, or more work on my memoir or one of the three novel ideas I have. But more of that kind of writing. I’ll set a goal of three more hours a week doing that, starting next week. An hour every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.

4. Be more patient with my Darling Teenage Son. My psychologist told me yesterday that you don’t have to like everyone all the time, not even your own child. Mom’s feel a lot of guilt about this, she said, especially with their teenagers. But it’s quite normal to equate the behavior you don’t love with the person you do love. And the behavior will end eventually. The sweet boy I had before puberty will show up in the form of a nice young man. Eventually. For now, I will show more patients.

5. Less swearing in traffic.

6. I’ll try meditating. Again. Maybe I can make it beyond three minutes this time.

Feel free to ask how I’m doing on any of these at any time. And tell me your goals. I’ll be your accountability partner, too!