June goals (our Summer bucket list)

Last month’s goals went really well. Yay accountability!

1. Morning walks. This did not happen. We’re shooting for this in June or July.
2. Get library cards. Done.
3. Catch up with PL. I’m still four weeks behind, but I’m calling this one a partial success because I worked my booty off on PL last month, completing 29 pages!
4. Participate in NSD. Done, here and here.
5. Finish prepping for the summer. rent car, program GPS, Summer Daily template, gather craft supplies, Summer 2014 bucket list- All done, except getting crafty stuff
6. Daily writing. Done, which explains my freakishly regular posting schedule this month 🙂
7. Have a bookstore coffee date. We attempted this, but sadly our B&N isn’t very conducive to coffee dates. But we did go to the bookstore and had coffee on the same evening so I’m calling this one done.
8. Hang pictures. Done

Now on to our summer bucket list! I’ve been doing one of these every summer for a couple of years. (2012 and 2013) It’s fun to go back and look at the things we wanted to do each year. They reflect the pattern of our summers and the near frantic pace of our time with the Little Man. We always take a trip. We try to get outside as much as the blazing south Florida weather will allow. We always have a couple of parties. This year is no different.

Things to do this summer-

• North Dakota and Minnesota
• camping
• geocaching
• swimming
• explore lots of parks
• Tampa
• picnics
• build an epic sand castle
• work on a puzzle together
• play games
• teach LM how to change a tire and how to cook three meals
• make lemonade and pizza
• take 100 family photos
• daily documentation
• soccer and football
• comic book store
• beach
• Father’s Day
• LM’s birthday
• 4th of July
• eat on the balcony
• watch super hero movies

Lots of fun stuff to do. I can’t wait to get started!

October Goals

Here is a reminder of last month’s goals–

1. Walk or run 40 miles.
2. Listen to 10 How Stuff Works podcasts.
3. Participate in Week In The Life, 30 Days of Lists, and Project Life Lessons.
4. Blog or scrap 10 more summer adventures.
5. Donate blood OR donate to Goodwill.
6. Finish that gallery wall in our bedroom that I’ve been working on since April.
7. Swim or take walks with Jason three times a week.
8. Plant some more seeds.

Last month was a pretty decent exercise month. I’m not very great at documenting each walk or workout I do, but I estimate that I got in around 30-ish miles. But I also added in strength training to the routine towards the end, in place of my usual Pilates workout. I’m happy to say that I’ve finally found a strength training workout that doesn’t bore me to tears, so yay!

I listened to a bunch of random How Stuff Works podcasts this month-
Did a cow start the Great Chicago fire? (spoiler alert, probably not).
How the Musketeers Worked.
How Ramadan Works.
Can we build an elevator to space? (Which I still don’t understand, despite listening to it twice. A bit over my head)
How Shark Attacks Work.
The Shark Diaries.
Did Reagan’s Star Wars campaign win the Cold War?
How Crack Works (in keeping with the Reagan theme, now let’s bash on Nancy! I thought this one was a little mean spirited, but very informative on certain racial aspects of America’s “war on drugs”).
How the Rosetta Stone works (probably my favorite).
How Dying works (a bummer, but really went into a lot of important things and reaffirmed a lot of things I learned in my CNA training).
And also, Does owning a gun change your behavior?

Lots of good stuff. I also relistened to every single episode of the Digi Show, including the first fifty or so that were under the Paperclipping umbrella. Learned a ton! That’s what I love about PRT and TDS, you can listen to them over and over and still learn things.

Number three was hit or miss. I participated wholeheartedly in WITL, but I haven’t blogged it yet. I’m not sure if I want to. Still thinking on that. My 30 Days of Lists got sorely neglected. You can see my first few here. I was able to get to all three chats for my Project Life Lessons class, but I’m still working through the assignments. My first two are here.

This was not a huge month for blogging or scrapping summer memories. I only did three actually, so that wasn’t great. I think maybe I’ll start numbering them to motivate myself.

We gathered up a big bag of clothes to donate. It’s kind of crazy that I actually found clothes that were too big for me! They’re riding around in the trunk of the car waiting to be dropped off.

I did nothing on the gallery wall front.

Jason and I took a lot of walks this month! Even when it was hot and gross, and we were in danger of random spiders dropping from the massive webs that hang from every tree in our complex, we walked anyway. And it felt great. We didn’t get any swimming in, partly because it’s rained almost every day this month, partly just laziness.

I planted more tomato and pepper seeds this month to replace the ones that were stolen. They’re doing quite well so far.

Geez that was long….

Okay on to October Goals!

1. Do 10 (non-Pilates) strength training workouts.
2. Make a dent in my stack of non-fiction books. (There are nineteen in two stacks!)
3. FINISH one of my September projects.
4. Donate to Bald for Breasts. (I am a terrible procrastinator!)
5. Document 10 more summer memories.
6. Decorate for fall and Halloween.
7. Do a Photo Walk with Jason.
8. The Un-Challenge Challenge.

September Goals

These were my goals for August–

1. Walk 40 miles. Maybe run a couple too.
2. Read 5 nonfiction books.
3. Participate in the 30 Day self portrait challenge from A Beautiful Mess.
4. Blog or scrap at least ten of our summer adventures.
5. Donate blood.
6. Continue looking for a part time job.
7. Try yoga with Jason.
8. Start planning a fall garden.

I walked maybe 20 miles this month. I’m not sure why, but I just don’t have any exercise mojo lately.

I’ve read 5 NF books this month! Woohoo! My reviews for the first 4 can be found here and here. I’ll blog the 5th one this week.

I did take a photo of myself every day for thirty days. I’ll blog about the awkwardness that entailed, plus a few things I learned next week.

Looking back through my archives, I was surprised to find that I’ve scrapped or blogged 9 summer memories. I didn’t think I’d done that many at all! It was a lot more LO’s than the long blog posts that I wanted, but I’m pretty proud of myself for doing that many.

I did not make it to donate blood this month. There were a lot of scheduling conflicts with Jason having to work on the weekends this month. And truthfully, I think he doesn’t want me to donate blood. I’ve had some bad reactions in the past, so I think he thinks he’s protecting me from the mean people at the blood bank 😛

No news on the job front. Still.

Oh I forgot all about yoga! Jeez… I need to review these goals more often.

My fall garden is off to a fantastic start! I cannot even tell you how excited I am about this. I’ll do a post on this very soon!

So, on to September goals…

1. Walk or run 40 miles.
2. Listen to 10 How Stuff Works podcasts.
3. Participate in Week In The Life, 30 Days of Lists, and Project Life Lessons.
4. Blog or scrap 10 more summer adventures.
5. Donate blood OR donate to Goodwill.
6. Finish that gallery wall in our bedroom that I’ve been working on since April.
7. Swim or take walks with Jason three times a week.
8. Plant some more seeds.

It is going to be a jam packed month. I’ll have a lot of time to myself at home this month, so I want to make the most of it!

My first guest post, August goals, and other random Friday stuff

I was super excited to do my first guest blog post over at the Nerd Nest on Sunday! It was all about food (some good, some very very bad). Go check it out 🙂

I saw that Elise has started blogging regularly again after going on maternity leave. Yay! That reminded me that I haven’t done a goals post in a while, so here goes…

1. Walk 40 miles. Maybe run a couple too.
2. Read 5 nonfiction books.
3. Participate in the 30 Day self portrait challenge from A Beautiful Mess.
4. Blog or scrap at least ten of our summer adventures.
5. Donate blood.
6. Continue looking for a part time job.
7. Try yoga with Jason.
8. Start planning a fall garden.

The past two months have been sort of “survival mode” around here. I’m ready to find a little balance and normalcy. It’s been an extremely busy time at work for Jason lately, and it’s taking its toll. I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to help him. I can’t change his work situation, but I can make home as nice as possible. It’s important for both of us that we find things to do together that don’t involve How I Met Your Mother marathons. (Although we need that too).

For me, I’ve found that having structure in my days is absolutely essential. We always have more of a schedule when the Little Man is here. I’m bringing aspects of that into my days by myself and I’m feeling much more productive.

I told you this post was going to be random…

Anyway, I’ll end with some Currents-

Watching HIMYM, Sharknado, and Glitter Girl.
Reading You Can Buy Happiness (and it’s cheap). Taking a little break from Phryne. She kind of went off the rails in that last book.
Listening to Garbage, Frame Rate, PRT, and Pop Culture Happy Hour.
Making LO’s for challenges.
Feeling very anxious all week.
Planning ways to fill up the weekend that don’t involve spending a lot of money.
Loving that my dad emails me about stuff he reads here.

Annd I think that’s about it. As LM says, I’m “out of information”. 🙂

#30Lists Day 5 (March Goals)

Before I get into this prompt, I’ll take this opportunity to review last month’s goals.

• Walk 40 miles again. (I’ll have to work a little harder to get this, since it’s a shorter month).
• Add Pilates to the mix. I like Pilates a lot better than regular strength training, so maybe that will be more motivating. I want to do one or the other 3 times a week.
• Try the stationary bike or elliptical. After 2 months of walking, I need to shake up my cardio routine.
• Catch up on blog posts I want to write, or let them go. Who wants to read about Christmas in February?
• Continue working my cleaning routines, and add in Weekly stuff. (ahem, mopping)
• Have an awesome birthday.
• Track meals for a week. I use the LoseIt! app.
• Try some new recipes for foods I usually buy in boxes and bags. This is why.

Looking at this list, I did a not so great job with goals. I think it as a really “off” month for me.

I didn’t even make half of my walking goal. I think I did 16 miles. I did Pilates and made it to the gym for biking and elliptical a few times, but not nearly as much as I would’ve liked.

I caught up on a few posts I wanted to write and I’m letting the rest go.

I actually did ok with the weekly cleaning stuff.

My birthday was awesome, but that had more to do with Jason than me 🙂

The thing I did the best at was keeping up with my meals on LoseIt! I figured out that you can set an alarm so that if I forget to log a meal, it sends me a notification. I did two full weeks of logging food in February and am going strong so far this month.

I tried a few new recipes this month, most notably this chewy brownie recipe. So good I didn’t even have a chance to take pictures before they were gone.

Now on to March goals!

Set a workout schedule and stick to it, using bribery if necessary.
Make plans for Jason’s birthday in April.
Look for new plants.
Blog fun and exciting things within the week they happen.
Do something crafty.
Go to the beach.
Celebrate spring.
Go to Hatsume or an Air Show
Start a new series.
Find something green to wear.
Catch up on Project Life.

February goals

I’ve decided to work on monthly goals this year instead of making New Year’s resolutions.

Here were my goals for January–

• walk 40 miles
• do 12 strength training workouts
• continue working through my Project Life for 2012 and start 2013
• work my daily housekeeping routines
• make it to 250 blog posts
• do some just for fun LO’s
• use my big camera more

I did walk 40 miles. I think I actually walked a little more than that. Yay! I think I do a lot better with this kind of goal than I did with doing a thing every day for a set amount of days. I like having the option to skip a day here or there and double up on other days. I did a few longer walks too, and that felt really good. I’m still mostly walking in my house to exercise videos. That may not seem like a good workout, but you’re using weights a lot and the pace really gets up there on some of them, to where you’re actually jogging. I continued walking through some knee pain this month. (non-exercise related injury) and I’m pretty proud of myself for that. A+

I did not do 12 strength training workouts. I did do seven, which is seven more than I did all of last year. My enthusiasm waned towards the end of the month. After 20 straight days of muscle aches, I just got tired of it. C

I did a couple of PL pages, but haven’t blogged them yet. I did Week 51, plus my opening pages for 2013. I also started Week 1. B

I started out really well working my cleaning routines. That tapered off towards the end of the month. My house isn’t messy, but it’s not where I’d like it to be. C

This will be my 247th blog post. I have one already scheduled for next week, so I’m “this” close to 250. I can’t believe I’ve kept up with it for a whole year now! I was going to take a break this month with everything going on with Jason, but I found that keeping up with the blog actually helped me this month. A

I did some just for fun layouts. I’ll post more next week, but here’s the first batch. A

I did not use my big camera at all this month, except to photograph this Project Life post. F

Overall, I think it was a good month, considering everything that happened. Now, on to next month!

I’m going to repeat a couple of goals that I want to solidify, and add a couple of new ones.

• Walk 40 miles again. (I’ll have to work a little harder to get this, since it’s a shorter month).
• Add Pilates to the mix. I like Pilates a lot better than regular strength training, so maybe that will be more motivating. I want to do one or the other 3 times a week.
• Try the stationary bike or elliptical. After 2 months of walking, I need to shake up my cardio routine.
• Catch up on blog posts I want to write, or let them go. Who wants to read about Christmas in February?
• Continue working my cleaning routines, and add in Weekly stuff. (ahem, mopping)
• Have an awesome birthday.
• Track meals for a week. I use the LoseIt! app.
• Try some new recipes for foods I usually buy in boxes and bags. This is why.

2013 Goals

I’m apparently pretty lousy at making long-term goals. I’m way better at making and sticking to shorter monthly ones. So much happened last year with moving, new job, family illness and crisis, health junk, etc. I am certainly not in the place I thought I would be this time last year. Literally.

So we need a year to maintain.

• Maintain our home, wherever that is. We made a lot of big purchases this year, so we need to slow down on spending and keep the things we have in good shape.
• Maintain the healthy habits we started last year. Moving our butts, continuing to clean up our diets, all that fun stuff
• Maintain our relationship at the optimal level it is now. This has been a seriously stressful year at times, but we remained Team Awesome. It takes work, but it’s the best kind of work.
• Maintain our sanity in the face of what could be the most crazy hectic summer to date.

So that’s the plan for 2013. I could list 1,000 other things that I’d like to do and accomplish this year. But this is it, broken down into the simplest of terms.

Maintain.

Some smaller things I want to work on in January-

• walk 40 miles
• do 12 strength training workouts
• continue working through my Project Life for 2012 and start 2013
• work my daily housekeeping routines
• make it to 250 blog posts
• do some just for fun LO’s
• use my big camera more

Fall Manifesto

Have I mentioned that I love fall? Oh yeah maybe I did. Like 20 times. 🙂

Anyway I thought it would be fun to make a Fall Manifesto like I did this summer. And to include Jason in on it too. So here’s what we came up with.

I think we got a little overly ambitious. (and we could have kept going and going…) But who knows? We could do all that stuff. We’ll have fun trying!

In case you can’t get past my bad handwriting/ bad photography, here’s the list.

• Green Market
• Coffee Date
• Lake Worth (for Halloween)
• Bedner’s again (hopefully I can stay on my feet this time)
• Christmas tree lighting (mid-November, so still technically fall)
• One last swim (or more)
• Sunrise on the beach
• Busch Gardens or a trip to the Keys (or any kind of road trip really)
• Lake Okeechobee
• Camping
• Everglades
• Something NASA related

Summer Manifesto Update

I was going to write about our new Fall Manifesto, but realized I haven’t finished up the summer one. There are a lot of summer things I haven’t finished though. Nothing new there.

This was my Summer Manifesto List. You can follow the links for specifics.

1. Do something cool for Father’s Day. Check.
2. Do something new in California. Check Check.
3. Go to St. Augustine. check. to be blogged eventually
4. Go swimming as much as possible. Check
5. Go to a park. Check.
6. Go to a water park. no
7. Make homemade lemonade. Check
8. Make ice cream. no
9. Make pickles. no
10. Do something for the 4th. Check
11. Make pizza. Check. We made this plus thai chicken pizza
12. Eat outside. Check
13. Go to the beach. Check (also to be blogged one day)
14. Do crafty stuff. Check.
15. Love on these guys. A lot. Check plus 🙂

I really loved doing this, and might make it a recurring seasonal thing. We did our list for fall yesterday. It’s kind of ambitious, but we’re going to have a blast checking things off.

Summer Manifesto

I know the summer is partially over for most people, but ours got started a little late this year. So here is my Summer Bucket List for 2012.

1. Do something cool for Father’s Day. Check.
2. Do something new in California. Check Check.
3. Go to St. Augustine.
4. Go swimming as much as possible.
5. Go to a park. Check.
6. Go to a water park.
7. Make homemade lemonade.
8. Make ice cream.
9. Make pickles.
10. Do something for the 4th.
11. Make pizza.
12. Eat outside.
13. Go to the beach.
14. Do crafty stuff.
15. Love on these guys. A lot.

I’ll be linking up to Ali Edwards’ Summer Manifesto post.