12 in 2012

I have always gone back and forth on New Years' resolutions. And I don't mean whether or not I keep them (that is also a problem, but one to be discussed on a different day), but rather whether one should make them at all, simply because many of them are cliche and thoughtless and never followed through with. One of my favorite songs EVA ("New Years Eve" by Five Iron Frenzy) actually describes my feelings perfectly on the subject: "It's New Years Eve and I'm full of empty promises I half pretend to keep this time, just like last year... A year goes by and I'm staring at my watch again, and I dig deep this time for something greater than I've ever been..." 

See? Just what I said. Only better. :-) So this year, I've decided, along with several others, it would seem, to simply make a "12 in 2012" list of goals to move toward and strive for. Not resolutions to be thrown aside once I realize I can't really do them, but goals and life changes to continue to push myself toward not only this year, but in future years as well. Ready? Here goes...


1) Cook more at home. I love eating out--I really do. It's so nice to not have to cook or do dishes. Mainly the doing dishes part, actually. But eating at home is so much cheaper, especially if it's planned in advance. I really want to be better about planning meals for the week around grocery sales and taking my meals to work so I don't have to purchase them there as well. I like to cook, so it's not a matter of not wanting to. I just need to make myself. 

2) Reach an ideal goal weight for me. This is what I say every year, but last year I actually did it! And then came Europe and lots of travel for work, then the holidays, and I gained most of it back. So depressing. But the older I get the more I learn that I don't care that much about my weight, but more about my overall health. So I'll change that to "eat healthier foods, drink water instead of snacking all day, make better choices to reduce my chances of diabetes and high cholesterol, and work out 4-5 times per week". There. Much better.

3) Read my Bible more consistently, which for me means daily instead of every few days or when I "have time"

4) Stick to our monthly budget (which shouldn't be hard given the wonderfulness that is www.mint.com)

5) Shop less and instead create new outfits with what I have

6) Learn to live on less so we can give more

7) Read three books a month. Reading is one of my favorite things in life, so this shouldn't be difficult. I probably already do it anyway. But I need to expand my horizons beyond what I normally read to also include non-fiction, which isn't as "fun" but is much more informative.

8) Memorize a Bible verse per week. I mean, honestly. That is not that difficult. If I can memorize all the lyrics to "Gangsta's Paradise" (hellooooooo, 1995) in one day, then I can memorize a verse per week. I once heard a guest speaker say that we should at least know one verse for every year we had been alive. Anything less showed a lack of dedication to reading and understanding Scripture. That's probably true.

9) Try new things. I have a tendency to get stuck in a rut--with food I eat, restaurants I go to, and activities I participate in. I want to push myself to try new things and go places I wouldn't normally go. This especially goes for recipes at home.

10) Stick to our daily chore list. My life and my house are so much easier to manage when I spend 30 minutes each day cleaning and picking up instead of waiting until it's unmanageable to take care of it. I know that if I wait until "later" to do it, I won't, so I need to make a point of doing it as soon as I get home, before I even sit down.

11) Walk our dogs each day. This may seem like a silly goal, but both of our doggies are pretty active, and after we get home every day (being gone 12 hours including commute), I just don't feel like walking them for 30 minutes after cooking dinner. Lame excuse, I know. They deserve some physical exercise and it wouldn't hurt me, either.

12) Take more pictures and document more. This means blogging, as well. For a while, I just didn't do it. I'm not sure why, probably because it felt like my blog didn't really fit anywhere, because I just posted whatever I wanted. And I like a lot of things, so it was all over the place. But I've decided it's okay to post outfits, home decor, and pictures of my nieces and nephews all on the same place. Because it's my blog, and I can do what I want. :-) We recently got a new camera that I am really excited about, so hold me to this one especially! It will be a great way to document our lives and something I can look back on in later years.

So there you go! Those are my goals for 2012. I probably won't meet all of them, but it's a process. A process of making better decisions each day, preparing more for the future, and denying myself in order to help others more. What are your goals for 2012?

March Recapped and April Goals

March goals:

Fun: Take in a movie with the hubs at the local dollar theater. Semi-success? We did plan it, but JC got sick and we had to postpone. Sad times.
Read 5 books. Success! I actually ended up reading eight, due to traveling for work, delayed flights, and being sick. In case you're curious. these books consisted of authors Karen Kingsbury, Irene Hannon, and Lynn Austin.

DIY/Crafting: Sew something new. Fail. It just didn't happen. I was gone for work and gardening, and I just didn't do it.
Complete at least two projects listed here. Fail. But I did complete a few other projects, to come.

Cooking: Try one new recipe for dinner. Success! This wasn't a new recipe (I had eaten it before), but it was something I had never made on my own--a delicious pot roast in our wonderful crock pot. I also made a new recipe for some incredible pancakes, found here.)

Gardening: Decide what to plant in our mini-garden. Plant garden. Semi-success. I have bought the plants and a new tiller. We are going to work on finishing this this weekend. But we have planted lots of beautiful flowers!
Trim the hedges. Success! They look much less all-over-the-place and crazy now.
Re-do some landscaping in the front. Success. The flowers look nice and everything looks much better. Pictures will be coming as soon as I actually take some.

Home: Finish laundry room reno. Success. We are nearly finished with this. I just need to clean a few things up so I can take some pictures. Are we noticing a pattern, here? I can accomplish things, but I just never post them. Ugh.
Purchase washer and dryer. Success.
Living room (room of the month--read about it here). It's coming along. It takes a lot longer to put a whole room together than I thought.
Take care of electrical issues. Success! Finally, I have outlets in several places where they were needed. And our hallway light switch functions properly!
Get estimates about screening in our back porch. Success. We have gotten the estimates, but we haven't decided if we are going to go through with it or not.
Sew the button back on so I can wear one of my fave sweaters before all the cold weather is gone! Fail. That poor sweater just never got worn. Sad.

Wellness: Work out four times a week. Success. Besides the week that I was sickly.
Follow the Abs Diet (= eat healthy). Success. I have actually been eating much healthier, and I feel tons better!

April:

Fun:
Go to one Braves game.
Read 5 books. (I'll be traveling again, so I feel like this will be a cinch.)
Go to see one movie at the theater.
Visit the Marietta thrift store I have been dying to go to. Buy lots of things (or maybe just a few).

DIY/Crafting:
Make two new crafts.
Sew something. (Anything, Kelly... just pick something already.)

Cooking:
Try one new recipe.

Gardening:
Finish planting veggies in garden.

Home:
Organize two spaces (closets, drawers, etc.)
Follow our chore chart (I developed a nifty little chore chart with weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly chores. We'll see how long we stick to it.)
Finish living room.

Wellness:
Work out five times a week.
Continue to eat in a healthy manner.

I'm sure I'll add things as I think of them. As I've said previously, I'm a goal-oriented person, so I'm always thinking of new things to put on my to-do list.

January Goals Revisited

So I just realized that my sidebar still contained "January goals". Really? That's pathetic, Kelly. And there's no point in making many February goals, because it's a short month and it's nearly over. So now that it's nearly March, perhaps I should let you know how I did on these January goals, and maybe set a few for March.

January Goals:

Fun: Pasadena for the National Championship! Success! Boy, did we have fun. We got to see so many things while we were out there, but most importantly, WE WON! I probably will never get to go to another national championship game, so I was really pumped that Alabama pulled it out.

DIY/Crafting: Sew something new. Fail! Ugh. Soooo didn't happen. I will say, in my defense, that it was probably because I still don't have electricity in my craft room. That could be a problem, right? I mean, the people who owned our house before us (and also planned it and had it built) apparently saw no need to install electrical outlets in the room. So I can't sew in there unless I run a bright orange extension cord halfway through my house. Not happening. Yes, I know it is weird that we don't have any power in there. Yes, I am working on that as we speak--hopefully an electrician will be remedying this soon.

Finish painting guest bath. Success! Yaye! We did this pretty early in the year (with my darling little sister's help), and I like the pale yellow SO much more than the purple that was in there before.

Cooking: Try one new dinner recipe. I know that we did. But it has been so long that I have forgotten what it is. So I will consider that a fail since it obviously made no impression on me.

Use more fresh veggies for each meal. Success! I should have been much more specific, because that's a very vague goal. But I know that we did make an effort to buy and use more fresh vegetables.

Gardening: Trim hedges. Fail! This totally didn't happen. Of course, the good news is that since it's winter, they aren't growing very much. :-)

Decide on window boxes for the bay window. Success! I don't know if I should count this, because I technically just decided on it a few days ago. I had originally said no to the window boxes, because I didn't want to be drilling stuff into the side of our house. But I discovered (whilst taking the dogs out) that there seems to already be hardware there for window boxes. Score!

Home: Finish taking down Christmas decor. Success! I'll just go ahead and leave the winter decor out of it, because by this point it is all gone, also. But just for the record, I did put it up. No I didn't take pictures (I am terrible about this), but it did look nice.

Wellness: Work out three times a week. Uh... er.... does my avoidance tell you anything?

Follow Abs Diet. See above. This didn't go so well. (In my defense, I was gone from home for several weeks at a time, first for Christmas, then for Pasadena, then to DC for two weeks for work... it's just hard to eat well on the road. Phooey.)


I'm just going to do March goals... trying for February is worthless at this point.

March goals:

Fun:

• Take in a movie with the hubs at the local dollar theater (okay, so it's actually $1.75, but if you go on Tuesdays it's only 75 cents!).
• Read 5 books.

DIY/Crafting:

• Sew something new.
• Complete at least two projects listed here.

Cooking:

• Try one new recipe for dinner.

Gardening:

• Decide what we want to plant in our mini-garden and go for it.
• Trim the hedges.
• Re-do some landscaping in the front--it's looking pretty sad.

Home:

• Finish laundry room reno and purchase new washer/dryer.
• Living room (room of the month--read about it here).
• Call an electrician (regarding the aforementioned craft room problem, as well as some others.)
• Do research/make calls for estimates about screening in our back porch.
• Sew the button back on so I can wear one of my fave sweaters before all the cold weather is gone! (I know it's a small task, but I just haven't made myself do it. Small goals count, too, right??)

Wellness:

• Work out four times a week. (I know, I know. You might say, "You can't even do THREE times a week--what makes you think you can do FOUR?" Well, things have changed, my friend, and my motivation is back. I'm tired of being tired all the time, and the 10 lbs I have gained since moving is NOT my friend, no matter how much the brownies tell me otherwise.)
• Follow the Abs Diet (which really just means to eat healthy).

More Goals... and a Stomach Bug

If you know anything about me, you know I love a good list. A good to-do list or list of goals. I've got a couple more to add to my ever-growing, occasionally-achieved list. First, there is this "Read 100 Books in a Year" challenge going on here.

I love reading, I really do. And I'm a pretty fast reader. So I could read 100 books in a year. I promise. But if I stop two seconds and think, I know there are several more things I want to do this year, too. We want to do several (minor and major) renovations around the house, so there is only so much time I have to devote to this reading goal. I decided 52 books would be a much better goal. Before you ask "why 52?", remember that there are 52 weeks in a year, silly. To do this, I'll have to cut out some unnecessary things, like this...

No, not the snuggling part. The watching mindless TV part. I am the queen of sitting down for just a bit and then watching two hours of TV. Or of DVRing TV shows I would never usually watch, and then doing so because I can. That needs to stop. Pronto.

Additionally, because I get really frustrated when there are too many things on my plate (although I nearly always am the one who puts them there), we have assigned a month to each room in our house. For instance, our master bath is March. We are going to try to do anything that needs done in that room in March. That includes painting, new fixtures, hanging stuff on the walls, tiling, etc. It's a big job, so that one may extend a little over. But you get the point. Each room has a month. And I'm excited, because it makes it feel a little less stressed to focus on one thing at a time.

Now to the "stomach bug" part. On our way home Saturday, I started to feel really sick. Like, "pull over HERE!" sick. Not just once, but four times. It was not pretty. Sunday I was so dehydrated and weak that I could barely get out of bed. I told JC that death would have been a welcome friend at that point (okay, so I didn't really want to die, but the thought crossed my mind). Monday I didn't come to work, and I'm glad I didn't. I still felt really weak; Powerade can only work so fast. Monday night I felt much better, and I was excited to get back to work. (No, really.) But Tuesday morning, we woke up and poor JC had it. Unfortunately, his immune system must not work as well as mine, because he couldn't even keep water down. So that meant his medicine wasn't working. He was so dehydrated last night that we had to take him to the ER to get several bags of fluids through an IV. Four hours later, we were home. Thank goodness, he feels a bit better today! I hear this is going around... have any of you had the nasty stomach bug lately?

November Goals

If you know me at all, you know I love lists. I love making them, I love checking them over and over (because I always forget what's on there), and I love crossing things off.

Hi, my name is Kelly, and I am a Type A.

Anywho, I got this great idea from Kim over at NewlyWoodwards, who is always having great ideas. She has a monthly list of things she wants to accomplish (sounds like my kind of gal), and they are all posted on the side of her blog. Each time she accomplishes or finishes something on her list, it is crossed off. After all, what's a list if you don't have the giddy excitement of crossing off your accomplishments?

So I am making a November list. Mind you, I am a very ambitious individual--sometimes (read: always) I try to take on more than I actually can accomplish. But maybe my list will teach me that--that I need to cut down the amount of things I try to do at once. Without further adeiu (because I know you're so excited for it), here is my November list.

Fun:
Finish Christmas shopping.
Plan for NYC. (Yes, I was just there last year. No, I will never get tired of NYC at Christmas.)

DIY/Crafting:
Sew something new.
Paint the Goodwill sleigh.
Finish Christmas sign for entryway.

Cooking:
Try one new dinner recipe. (Suggestions?)
Bake Spanish Cream Cake and another dessert for family Thanksgiving. (If anyone has any suggestions on a must-have Thanksgiving favorite, let me know.)

Gardening:
Trim hedges. (We haven't gotten around to this in a while--luckily ours don't grow very fast!)
Decide on window boxes for the bay window.

Home:
Take down fall decor and decorate for my favorite season.
Organize craft room.

It would be really great if it would look like that, but I have my doubts.

Wellness:
Work out 3 times a week. (Yes, I did used to work out more like 5-6 times per week, but I am now a working woman, not a free-as-a-bird college kid. These adjustments are tough.)
Stick to the Abs Diet. (I started this two-and-a-half weeks ago, and it has been wonderful so far. I feel a lot better since I'm not eating as many processed carbs and sugar, but I still have a cheat meal to satisfy whatever cravings I want. It really seems more to me like a lifestyle change--kind of like Weight Watchers, which I also love--that simply promotes healthy eating habits. I've already lost 5 lbs.)

What do you want to accomplish this month?