2012 Goal Update

As the year draws to a close, I figured I should see what my goals were this year and how I did with them. Let me just say right now that I sort of forgot about the list sometime in February until just now so.... my expectations are pretty low! Updates are in purple, because what isn't made better by purple?

Blog goals:

• Continue to grow my readership. Did it! I don't remember how many I had last January, but I've at least tripled it, even with a currently modest following.
• Continue to seek out blogs of people living the way I am and/or the way I want to for encouragement, support, and ideas. Did it! Still doing it. 
• Meet the local bloggers. Did it! I met FIVE bloggers/Cathsorority sisters this year! That's pretty good for a group of about 135 women from all over the country!
• Make, and use for inspiration, a list of post topics I want to eventually write. Did it! I wrote them all, went listless for a while, and just started the list back a few weeks ago. 
• Review some products (one book review in the works but I need to give myself a deadline!). But also only review products that have something to do with my blog! Did it! I love free stuff, so I did quite a few reviews this year- especially book reviews. 
• Do a few more guest posts and eventually host someone here (I have an idea I'm throwing around... we'll see.) Did it! I hosted two series and guest posted for a few other bloggers. 
• Not let my love of reading and writing blogs get out of hand (in other words, if I am neglecting household chores or, uh, late to work in order to read blogs, I need to reel it in!). Fail! Um, that could use some improvement. I need to spend more time reading books and less time reading blogs/social media,

Health goals:

• Get my recipe book together so I quit using my phone in the kitchen to look them up! Flour embedded phones aren't that easy to clean. Fail! I have the 3 ring binder in the kitchen with one recipe haphazardly stuck inside. Otherwise, I've been taking my computer in the kitchen and pulling up Pandora and the recipe. It's worked well except, yes, I do have flour permanently in some crevices of the laptop.
• Continue to add more whole grains, lean protein, fruits and veggies; continue to reduce empty calories, unhealthy carbs, and sugars/sweeteners. Work in progress. We did way better with this during the first half of the year, and so so the last half. There are some things that are just normal for us now (reducing sugar and artificial sweeteners, avoiding processed foods), but others (increasing intake of fruits and veggies, avoiding carbs) are a work in progress. 
• See the NaPro dr (already scheduled). Did it! Well, *technically* he's not Napro but he audited the course. And yep, I've been going to him for almost a year now and have another appointment coming up in January.
• Continue charting and meeting with our NFP practitioner. Did it! We last saw her in August and have our 6 month follow up in February, where I can sing my version of the Lambchop song, "This is the cycle that never ends. Yes, it goes on and on my friends...."
• Exercise 5 days per week (doing this now for the most part, but sometimes have slack weeks). Fail! I was doing it 5 days a week through our wedding, then got slack. Then I started back early fall, hurt my ankles and saw the doc about it, and slacked up BIG TIME. I've basically been a potato the last month or two.
• Explore the greenway past the two paths I've taken so far. Fail but this is only sort of my fault. We bought a house mid year and moved away from the greenway that ran behind the apartment. I have explored 2 local park trails though! 
• Buy us bikes to use on the greenway. Fail but, again, we moved away from the greenway. There's a greenway here that we haven't explored much and we decided to wait on bikes til we had rugrats. For now, we're hoofing it around the neighborhood when we aren't laying on the couch eating bonbons.

Personal/Faith goals:

• Learn to sew, knit, and crochet (at least elementary knowledge of each)... I'm already signed up for a knitting class (after debating for a week whether to take the knitting or crocheting class first)! FAIL!!! Biggest fail of the year, possibly. I took a knitting class, hated it, and promptly quit knitting when the class was over. That left a bad taste so I never took the sewing or crocheting class, though I did get a sewing machine that I have yet to figure out how to thread. I desire craftiness, but wish I would just wake up with the knowledge. 
• Finish my 2010 and 2011 scrapbooks. I don't even know if I did this or not... I think I finished one of them. The bigger scrapbook fail was that I have yet to scrapbook our wedding festivities, even after discussing the guilt in our 6 month wedding post. 
• Attend all holy days of obligation. Done! Funny how when I used to skip them, they seemed like such an imposition. Now that we go to them, they feel like such a nice break from the normal grind of life. 
• Continue celebrating the liturgical seasons at home. Done! We need to improve on the Easter season next year (we pretty much let it go after Easter day) but we rocked Lent, Advent, and Christmas. 
• Pray the rosary more often. Done/work in progress. I was part of the 24 hours of the rosary with Cathsorority for a few months, and then gave up my hour because Saturday seems to be the only day that isn't consistent/able to be planned around. We slacked for a while and now pray a Rosary every Friday in lieu of the no meat penance. 

Finance goals:

• Develop and use a joint budget (we have separate ones til we get married). Done! It was difficult in the beginning but we are doing pretty well now.
• Combine bank accounts the week or two before the wedding. Done! One of my favorite perks of married life! It's so nice not discussing who pays for what and being on the same page financially. 
• Get back to substantially saving after the wedding . Done! We are saving even more now than we were when we were saving for the wedding.
• Continue to find ways to save (free entertainment, good deals on the foods we buy, re-purposing things, thrifting). We slacked up on this a bit, just because we have a false sense of security with the above goal met. We definitely do frugal dates, but we need to work on it a little more. 
• Make a plan for the future regarding living on one income (books reserved at the library!) and the smartest decision to make regarding my student loan. Done! I never did check out that book (lol!) but I do still want to. We are saving like 97% of my paycheck, so we are way ahead on this goal of just making a plan. Regarding my student loan, there basically isn't a non-crappy option but we did make a decision on it. I think I might post separately about it one day, although that's a LOT of personal information on the interwebs.

Relationship/Marriage goals:

• Finish our pre-marital workbooks... we have lots so we will have quite a bit left to do after we get married, but we really enjoy them and I think will be glad to have them through our first year of marriage. Fail. We did most of them, but technically did not finish them nor go back to them after our wedding. 
• Begin our prayers for couples book. I can safely say this is a fail since I'm not sure what book I was referring to...
• Continue to improve our communication through new communication techniques we have learned. Done! I'm not saying we don't argue, but I am saying that we argue much less and much better since being married. It was kind of like a light switch... like it clicked that we are really on the same team, for better or for worse. The pre-martial workbooks were a big help.
• Pray the rosary together more often. See above rosary goal. Whenever we pray it, we do it together.
• Continue to read and discuss daily Mass readings together. I'm not calling this a fail, because we made the decision to stop doing the daily readings and start doing the Catechism. Once that's finished, we want to tackle reading the Bible in a year. 

Future goals:

• Continue discussing where we want to live long term (the options we are considering is staying here or moving closer to Charlotte- not in Charlotte, but somewhere like Kannapolis or Concord) since we need to decide soonish if we will buy a house or not (no sense in buying if we are moving in the next 3-5 years). We are pretty sure we want to stay here, but need to really flesh it out. Done! We bought a house here, and Steven recently got a promotion, so we are here for the indefinite future :).
• Continue researching things like homsechool curriculums (yes, I know I won't have a 5 year old for a long time, but I am so much less stressed in life if major plans are made way ahead with tweaks where needed, rather than put off until the decision needs to be made... I pretty much know the curriculum I want to use, but I want to have an arsenal of information book marked for me to go through when it comes closer to the time), and how I want to live life as a stay at home mom/wife so I don't feel lost when I wake up one day and my home and family has become my job. Done! I've found some cool stuff via Pinterest and blogs, but it's just something I look at here and there, not routinely.

Now I have to decide if I want to do this for the 2013 year or not! It wasn't as depressing to update as I thought it might be, so I might give it a go in the next few days. If you have 2013 goals or resolutions, leave me a link in the comments so I can check them out!