Being as this is the first time I’ve ever made public New Year’s resolutions, this is the first time I’ve had to admit how well I actually followed them. That being said, I’m excited to share this list and work on finishing up our list for next year.
Just as a recap to last year, I decided to go with specific, easily trackable goals for resolutions instead of the traditional open-ended “do better at this…” etc. I think when I thought about his list of goals as a long-term to-do list, it made it easier to follow through and keep track of our progress.
If you want to see more about our resolutions, check out my New Year’s post from last year, the first update on January 1st, the 6th month mark, and our last push toward the end.
I’d definitely recommend trying this method. It’s easy to switch. Instead of saying, “I want to be healthier,” try “I want to eat vegetables as part of our main meal everyday,” or “I want to join a gym and go there to work out 2-3 days each week.”
See how much easier it will be to track those specific goals off? Plus, I prefer to do things that aren’t so much long-term changes, as single things I want to accomplish, such as “Go to Florida to visit family,” or “Read all the magazines within the month they arrive.” (That last one might actually go on my list this year!)
So, without further ado, here’s our little resolution recap for you!
1. Take a weekly walk together. Every week. Hubs hates to go on walks, so this will be tougher for him than me.
Not a total check, but definite progress. When it was cold or hot, we didn’t take walks, but I’d estimate we took a walk about twice a month or more so that’s pretty good!
2. Vacuum more. This should be easier with my new Oreck!
Check. Hubs and I both have vacuumed our house more in the first few months in our house than we did the entire year at our apartment. Especially in the first few weeks, but that’s a story for another day…
3. Work on portion control at meals, even when eating out and dishing up bowls of ice cream…we both need to work on this, as we both love to eat and can get carried away easily.
Check! We still sometimes go a little overboard, but we are doing a lot better at not going back for seconds and thirds. Plus, I’m getting better at cooking smaller portions since it’s just the two of us, and more food just makes us want to eat more of it. Also, I think that one trick is to fill our plate, or ice cream bowl as the case may be, with a little less, and then go back for more if we’re still wanting it later on. More often than not, we decide we don’t need it.
- 4.
Buy a house. I realize this is a tough one, but it’s top on Hubs’ list. Wish us luck!
CHECK! Biggest success of the year!
- 5. Write at least five things that are just for me. I can worry about what to use them for later, if anything.
Nope. I did buy my domain name and launch the new blog, which was a personal goal, but other than that, my writing has been almost entirely for work or some other specific purpose. Sorry, self. I’ll commit to spending some time just connecting to my writer’s soul this year.
6. Run more races. I’d love to do another half…maybe a full 26.2? I’m young now, and my knees and ankles and hips will only get worse, right? I only ran 1 or 2 in 2011, and they were fun, so I’m ready for more.
Check! I ran a half (which was awesome) and Hubs and I ran two 5ks together.
7. Finish reading 8 books that I ALREADY own and have squished into our bookshelf. I’m terrible about buying new books instead of reading ones I already own but haven’t read.
Check! We read 14 books this year, (a lot more than that if you count any new ones–these were all already on the bookshelf). Here’s what you would have found our noses buried in:
8. Use more coupons and take advantage of price matching. I also need to do a better job of keeping track of how much we spend and save.
Check! I do the price matching and coupon organizing. Hubs made a spread sheet and enters in the costs/savings after each grocery store trip. In 2012, we saved approximately $615.50 at restaurants and stores just by taking the time to pre-plan our purchases and use coupons or find the best price. And that doesn’t include using sale prices or shopping on special event days (after Christmas/online shopping codes)!
9. Find a church home where we really feel connected to. I miss the fellowship I’ve been so used to my whole life. We need to be surrounded by people encouraging us in our walk.
Sorta-check. We started attending a church up by our apartment fairly regularly, but then we moved about 45 minutes away so the search began all over again. Here’s to another round of church-searching.
10. Go on another road trip. There’s something so special about traveling with the one you love, and we love the sense of exploring that comes with driving around on our own. Our honeymoon was some of the most fun we’ve ever had and we’re committed to doing this together again as often as we can.
Sorta-check. Since we bought our house and started working on it, the road trip fund got absorbed into the house-repair fund. So, we didn’t take a big trip. We did take 3 short trips together though in the car, so I think this still sort of counts. We even took a bus trip adventure to Chicago to watch the soccer game! (It wasn’t that great of a trip, but I guess these smiles prove we can have a good time no matter what…maybe…I seem to remember a fairly big fight that night. Still, it counts.)
And there you have it! I think we did pretty well. I’m giving us about a 77-80% on this year. So that’s for sure a passing grade. I however, I was never a C-student and neither was Hubs (A-honor-role nerds at heart!) so we promise to use the success and failures of this year to help us set better, more realistic goals for next year. I realized about halfway into the year that some goals counter-acted each other. When we bought our house, we made taking a road trip and finding a church almost impossible for this year. But, if I had to choose, I’m super thankful the house came first!
What about you? How much did you accomplish this year? Did you set any conflicting goals like we did? (oops!) What grade would you give yourself on how well you did? Or do you not make resolutions at all? Let’s hear about it!
