2018 Goals

At the beginning of each year, I state how I don't make resolutions.  To me, a resolution is a change meant to be permanent and if I want to make a change, I make a change.  I don't need for it to be the beginning of the year in order to do so.  (I understand why others choose the new year to make changes though.)  I typically set goals each year.  I view goals as different from resolutions because goals usually are not meant to be permanent.  Although, some of mine below are supposed to be a change that will last.

If you would have asked me last month what goals I had set for this past year and if I had achieved those goals, I would have stumbled through an answer.  I knew I had jotted down goals but I couldn't remember exactly what they were.  I went back and found those goals last week and I laughed when I read through them.  Those goals are unmeasurable and I must have been rebelling against the goal setting process I had become accustomed to at work.  That process was completely exhausting and it's obvious I wanted to be as far away from it as possible.

2017 was an interesting year for me.  I've had time to think and to see myself in a different role.  When the girls went back to school in September, I began to question why I seemed to have a difficult time keeping up with everything.  Yes, there's a lot going on.  There's all the cleaning and laundry.  I try to cook fairly big dinners five nights a week.  There's school and volunteering, and dance five days a week.  And this, that and the other thing.  At work, I was always able to prioritize and multi-task.  So why can't I do that now?

I think I have an answer - lack of goals.  And these don't have to be yearly goals.  Sometime daily goals are needed.  When it comes to housework, I can procrastinate.  I certainly couldn't do that at work.  After the craziness of the holidays died down, I began thinking of what I want to achieve this year and I have a list!

Organization

1.  Clean out and organize my bureau drawers.  (I finished a small, easy drawer the other night.)

2.  Clean out and organize our bedroom closet.

I have tackled a few major clean-out projects over the past few months.  In the fall, I cleaned out and reorganized the hallway linen closet, and the cabinets in the girls' bathroom.  In the middle of December, I pulled everything out of my sewing area and reorganized it.  Allie had requested a Christmas skirt and I couldn't even get in there to sew anything.  After Christmas, I cleaned out the small closet in the master bath.  It's a start.

Cleaning

1.  Come up with a plan to keep the house clean without feeling like I'm being tortured.

I had a fairly affective "routine" in place last winter, and then spring came and the cottage messed it all up.  Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of routine in the traditional sense.  So saying that I'm going to mop the kitchen floor every Monday doesn't work for me.  I also tend to define "clean" as cleaning everything, down to scrubbing the baseboards.  (Thank you, OCD.)  Breaking it down in smaller pieces seems to be the way to go.  

The Cottage

1.  Paint the interior of the cottage.  Excludes the kitchen/sunroom until we decide what we're going to do there.

2.  Sew curtains for the bedrooms and bathroom.

3.  Decorate the bedrooms, bathroom and living room.

4.  Refinish/paint the nightstands, kitchen table and chairs.

Fitness

1.  Run 3.1 miles in less than 28 minutes.  I've done it before so I should be able to do it again.  Also, I purposely made this goal for 3.1 miles and not "a 5k" in case I'm not able to fit in an organized road race.

2.  Be able to comfortably run 6 miles at a 10 minute mile pace.

3.  Be more consistent with weight lifting.



So, yeah.  Not too much going on this year.