Cassie
An excellent question and one that many of us have thought about. For me the most valuable thing I have done is start to record the objects I have observed. I now have 5 volumes of notebooks with over 1200 observations logged.
The point is that making record keeping part of my routine when I am outside really helps keep the hobby fresh for me. I have lots of observing guides that I can tick off objects and when I get new magazines with observing ideas (Sue French's column in S&T is often a good one) I can go through it and see if there are new objects I haven't yet nabbed and compare my notes to what others have seen.
Takes a little discipline but really helps to keep me interested. I really enjoy being able to look at my notebook after a good session and see a dozen or so new objects recorded.
Try setting yourself an observing challenge. Some ideas:
Track the moons of Jupiter, make a simple sketch of their positions, and come back an hour later and see how they have moved. Remember that it was discrepancies that early astronomers found in the orbit of Io that lead to the realisation that light has a speed and it's first approximate measurement.
Messier objects. most of these are easy to spot with a large number starting to wheel into view in the next few months. A really great guide to them is this book
http://www.bintel.com.au/Accessories...oductview.aspx which I can highly recommend. On the exxy side but one of the best introductory astronomy books out there. Has excellent hints, star hopping directions, history of the objects and much more.
Anyway, just a couple of ideas.
Cheers
Malcolm