I hope you all had a very merry holiday!!! Forgive me for escaping my computer mid-December, with no real effort to celebrate here! Christmas with my loved ones was just what I needed after a big move. It was nice to step back and to be more 'unplugged' (mind you, my Instagram is constantly providing snippets and updates!) Steven and I have been caught up with little Finley and we were back in North Carolina for about 12 days. It was so great to be able to visit with our families and friends. Home cooked meals, lots of running around and much company kept us busy. I loved every minute of our trip. We came back to Texas yesterday and I'm took this morning to rest, regroup, reflect, and consider what 2013 should look like. Yep, I'm ignoring our suitcases for the moment. Unfortunately, we had little down time just the two of us to talk about the upcoming year and what we want to strive for, but I have come up with a few things. Hoping life will adjust back to normal this week so we can create a more detailed plan.
Considering our life got turned upside down in July of 2012, the last few months have been a bit crazy. We've been back and forth from NC to TX and tons of places in between. I've been on TWO cross country roadtrips and we even explored New England! Luckily, we checked off a few of our "biggest cities" of the US tour. We got to celebrate our first anniversary, we witnessed a few beautiful weddings, we sold a home, bought a home, and brought home our first puppy. Hopefully, now that we're in a new place, we can pump the breaks on having so many commitments that tend to distract us from our own goals and plans. That may sound a little wierd (because, don't get me wrong, having a full life of events and gatherings to attend is a blessing and I'm thankful), but I'm taking advantage of a very fresh start in a new place where we hardly know anyone! Time to breath and make anew.
Here's what I'd like to accomplish in 2013, broken down into a few categories:
Self, Home, Faith, Creative, Health, Fun&Travel, Finance&Life
Self:
-5 camelbacks of water per day
-Lose 10-15 lbs. However, if it's not that much, it had better be because of muscle!! (Generally, I'm OK with my pant size, but I would like to become leaner and more tone. Time to lose the chub)
-Find a gym here and work with a trainer to acheive those lofty goals above or to just get started again. I started before the big move and I was doing great, but haven't stuck with any real routine since then
-Change my hair- figure out something different, but still longish
-Stick to a skincare routine and get the occasional facial (and not feel guilty about it)
-Manicure-once a month, and if need be- learn to do on self
-Start each day with a devotional & journal
-Read one book a month- this month- Blog Inc.
-Wake up early (Finley helps with that!)
-Volunteer with something twice a month -(or join Junior League?)
-Swear less (I curse like a sailor around friends, in case you didn't know. Classy.)
-For anything negative said about anyone (hello, I am human) say 3 positives. Keep my mouth shut if I can't think of 3 positives.
-Make creativity a priority (see more below)
-Become a better friend to those who mean alot to me so far away- send cards, birthday gifts, or surprises because being far away sucks
-Fresh start with new people here- make wonderful first impressions and show appreciation more often
-Be early
-Let go of dissapointments in others /be more understanding of people
-Expect less so maybe I can be surprised more
Home:
-Decorate Master bedroom (in almost 2 years of marriage this always gets stuck on the backburner and I want a pretty little room that we can just call ours)
-Create a functional office/guest room-complete with craft organization and an inspiration board!
-Attempt wallpaper for the first time-bathroom!
-Paint wood floors (also in the bathroom)
-Give some love to our gorgeous back yard-needed: lawn mower, new grill, patio furniture, and firepit
-Also- figure out how to maintain our pretty manicured lawn-what kinds of plants we have, etc
-Organize drawers and paper trails. Make a system stick.
-Implement 15 minutes of cleaning/day (not including the dishes-which we do after dinner)
-Buy some plants for inside and some topiary!! for our porch
-Continue to make the bed each day
Faith:
-Find a church we both love
-Get plugged in-join a small group or a ministry and participate weekly
-Discuss more with Husband, pray more together
-Really apply lessons learned to actual life. Every day. Make sense of it all, if it's even possible
-Continue to pray lots daily, but aim to dig a little deeper
-Read the Gospels
-Listen to an additional sermon on Sundays (which we often do, since we haven't joined a church)
-Acts of kindness-2-3/month
Creative:
-Spend more 'downtime' focused on talents and figuring these things out, rather than watching tv
-Revamp blog-complete with weekly ideas, maybe some tutorials, organization of posts, and more features. Be better at posting updates so they aren't so stinking long! Blog Goal :4 times / week
-Find a new blog design, fonts, etc. so I'm actually excited about my blog
-Figure out how to make pretty "boards"
-Paint- I'm decent at painting, so I need to practice more and get back into creating art
-Photograph- Put down the iphone and pick up a camera. I obviously love taking pictures, but I used to be more into actual photography. Learn more, potentially upgrade my old Nikon to a Canon.
-Find locals who have jobs that I'm interested in and intern or learn from them. This includes: Interior designers, event designers, floral designers, and creatives who work with magazines or art. Also-starting with where I work now-the boutique-learn more about how that works behind the scenes.
-Assist in a wedding inspiration photoshoot for the local magazine and implement!!
-Etsy shop?
-Network through blogs and through my new community--make 5 connections/month
-Create blog and help with online shop for JBS Linens
-Potentially attend High Point Market in April?
-Learn more in the realm of online marketing
Health:
-revamp our dieting choices
-Whole30 Challenge?
-shop local produce
-be more intentional each week for meals-we have slacked SO much lately
-eat breakfast
-gym (previously discussed)
-get more outdoorsy- Hike more at the Palo Duro, find walking trails on vacation, picnic, pick fruit or something, spend time at a friend's ranch
-take Finley for a 30 minute walk each day
-purchase a bike to ride with Steven (nothing crazy-just a hybrid neighborhood bike)
-buy new tennis shoes
-attempt a class and stick with going- yoga, barre, or pilates (whatever they may have here-options slightly limited)
-find healthy snacks that I like
-make kale chips
-take vitamins
-Find a doctor, dentist, and dermatologist in town and make appointments (ugh)
-rest well (I love sleep!)
Fun & Travel:
-See more movies
-Implement game nights
-Restaurant "club"-once a month scout out local places to eat and dine with friends
-Supper Club-host dinner for the group and create a themed dinner party!
-Plan ski trip with new friends!
-Save money for a spa afternoon in Santa Fe on said ski trip
-Horseback riding through the canyon
-Host 5th annual Chili Cookoff
-Go to the fair
-Celebrate 2nd Anniversary!-do something very thoughtful (not last minute) for husband.
-Vacation in San Fran & Sonoma in October
-Host family in Texas (inlaws and my own)
-Explore Texas
-Date nights at the theater: West Side Story, Spamalot, and ELVIS LIVES!! (Husband's Christmas gift from me!)
-Attend a couple of concerts, even if it means to travel
-Skype often with NC friends
-Attend a rodeo
-Find a lake to enjoy
-See a real longhorn
-Create Spotify playlists (not just 'subscribe' to a few)
-Attend a cooking class
-Go out dancing
-Enjoy a boatride (oh, how this was taken for granted in NC!)
-Meet Giuliana Rancic at a speaking engagement!!! eee!
Finance & Life:
-Start saving for an SUV(research and figure out what we want!) and figure out when we can buy one with cash
-Shop smarter for clothing-make a list of wants/needs because I'm constantly updating my wardrobe. The older I get, the nicer things I prefer, so I'd like to save and purchase quality over quantity (ahem: 2nd year in a row I've had "budget friendly" boots to break because they were not so great...time for some Frye Boots?)
-Be more on board with monthly budget. Pretty good with following along, but I'm real great at not being involved
-Upgrade to the iPhone5
-Get computer fixed (computer and phone both moving at a snail's pace and I just need to outsource because I fail everytime I try to figure it out myself) SO annoying!!
-Switch licence/bills/accounts all over to Texas
-Be a better giver-make a goal for later this year and achieve it
-Once joining a church, begin tithing again
-Create savings for pet & flights back to NC
-Register Finley with AKC!
-Attend a marriage conference or something along those likes with Steven
Whew. So that seemed like a huge to-do list. Who's overwelmed?!?!? ME!!!! But I'm so thankful to have a new season to refresh and get back on track! So, I need to go through all this and discuss with Steven and break things down into monthly, weekly, and daily goals that are actually attainable and possible. Change and goals can be daunting and hard. However, feeling less than par, weak, or wasteful with time and life gets real old, real quick. I'll be the first to admit that structure and goals can annoy me because life usually gets in the way and then I'm dissapointed because I made the goal in the first place. Excuses, excuses! And here's the thing- I love vegging out with the television. I love french fries and shopping at Target and staying up to the wee hours socializing with friends on weekends. Life can be really fun!....But then I turn out to be not so happy because something's missing. Week after week of all that though, and I become pudgy, tired,negative, and frazzled. Moderation needs to play a part of the fun side of life, I believe. Sometimes I read other folk's goals and I compare myself because and I feel like a crappy person because my life seems all over the place and I don't have it together all the time. Maybe I should have started this sooner. Do I suck at life because I'm almost 30 and I still have no clue "what I want to be"? Am I really living with purpose? Is my husband motivated to help? How can I be more of a motivator and less of a nagger to him because I want all this stuff to happen? What if my blog still stinks in a year? Why am I even blogging? These little worries are usually constant. I try to be faithful in all of this that there's a reason I'm putting goals and blog posts out into the world. And maybe if all THIS is actually out there for y'all to read, I'll be more likely to stick with the goals and become more motivated to get this little blog back to going again. Time to suck it up and just start doing. Time to stay away from looking at everyone and everything else and just do my own thing. Just maybe I'll finally figure something out for myself this year! And then share it here. Bring it on 2013!
Are you making goals this year? Any tips? Share and link up!
xo,
SugarMeg
1 comments:
Hi my dear! What an incredible list! Since you asked, I wanted to offer a few thoughts. While I love your list for its exuberance, if you did everything on it, you'd pretty much have a brand new life!! And while that might be totally awesome, it might not also be totally practical for a 12-month period? Since you've said you get frustrated when you don't stick to your goals, I would humbly suggest maybe choosing 12 of the things you've listed here -- or, at the most, 24 -- and then focus on just one or two a month for 2013. That way, you have a whole month to build a solid foundation and firmly incorporate whatever "it" is into your life, instead of running around like crazy in 102 directions.
Or, if you really like the big list concept, maybe a 101 in 1001 type system would work better than yearly goals! Anyway, just a few thoughts! I wish you ALL the best with whatever you choose to do, and will be here cheering you on each month! xo
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