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Monday, December 27, 2010

New Year's Resolutions - 2010 Recap

Yes, I do New Year's Resolutions.

And I do them hard core. I brainstorm, I make lists and graphs and charts and spreadsheets and tables and outlines and calendars. And they are all color coded. I kid you not. I totally geek out with the resolutions thing.

So, this post will be a recap of last year's highlights and how I did with them. I won't go into major details. I have a 19 page document with the details. This will just be some highlights (still, it's a long post).

Later, I will post my resolutions for 2011.

2010 Goals - (Abstract versions)

I wanted more of the following:
Yoga
Church
Connection w/friends & family
Home cooking
Savings
Running
Reduce/reuse/recycling
Budgeting
Cleaning
Organized space in the apartment
Study time
Arts & Crafts
Job training/development
Rock climbing

I wanted less of the following:
Negativity
Caffeine
Wasteful spending
Hypochondria
Bugs (in the apartment, ew)
Romance novel reading (I figure I should be better using my time)

See why I'm just doing the recap here? I had very lofty goals. Here's how I did (don't worry, I didn't include the break down of how I would achieve the goals or the time lines or the outline or the charts or the...)...

Yoga
I did okay with this. I got a gym membership and attended yoga classes irregularly.

Church
Total fail on this one

Connection w/friends & family
I did so-so on this one, depending on the month. I made several visits to SC, did a much better job of writing my grandma, and I sort of improved the rate at which I answer and return calls - haha - I really, really hate cell phones. Anyway - I'm glad I had this goal because I did make an effort and do a little better, but I know I can improve a lot here.

Cooking
BAHAHAH. This one lasted... oh... about two weeks? I really wanted to make home cooked meals for Derek because he cooks for me all the time. But yeah. I still suck at this one. Poor Derek.

Savings & Budgeting
I lumped these guys together. Derek and I did make a budget and we updated for maybe half the year? It was good practice to know how much we spend and stuff, so I want to do it again. But definitely did not maintain it. For savings, we have more money in savings now that we did this time last year, so awesome. I still want to set some more specific goals here because eventually we will be buying a house and a second car.

Running
I did good when I wasn't getting hit by cars or having intestinal issues. I actually met all of my running goals for the year though, so I'm pretty happy here. Now I just want to keep it up and make my running more consistent. I ran a half-marathon and a 25K this year, but I didn't train at all for the 25K and that was just dumb. Derek got me a heart monitor for Christmas so I am super stoked to start using it with my training. Plus, I still have the ipod he gave me as a wedding present, so I really have no excuse not to run :)

Reduce/Reuse/Recycle
Ugh. It is really hard to recycle in Tuscaloosa. There is no glass recycling, and no recycling pick up where we live. Derek has been stellar by taking our recycling to work, so that's helped. But it also makes a mess in the apartment because we have these piles of stuff to get recycled waiting around attracting icky bugs.

Cleaning
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHa. No, I did not succeed with any of my cleaning goals.

Organized Space
See the answer for 'cleaning'

Study Time
I over achieved on this goal, at least in terms of library school. The last month of summer was especially sucky. I swear I only slept 4-6 hours each night. No good.

Arts & Crafts
I did pretty good with this over the summer. I made several gifts of jewelry, scarves, a purse, and even a homemade chalk bag. Once school took over though, I definitely failed to keep this up.

Job Training
Even if we don't count school, I did pretty good here. I was able to take another cataloging class through work and I'm learning loads more about Voyager, MARC standards, and library life.

Rock Climbing
This one I will go ahead and post my sub-goals (I wrote up hard sub-goals for all of my abstract overall goals to measure my levels of achievement.) I had six:

1. Lead trad 5.9
I led three 5.7 on-sites, and led a couple 5.5-6 routes that I had climbed before. This doesn't seem like much, but I think I actually did more leading in the past year than any other year to date. So... improvement made, and more to follow :)

2. Lead sport 5.10
I actually attempted this!! It was so cool. But I failed. I fell twice and was too scared to continue.

3. Boulder V4
I came no where near this goal and don't really care. Bouldering is dumb.

4. Do a summer trip
DONE!

5. Learn to rescue a leader or a second
Theoretically, done. But I'd like a lot more practice. And I need to go over some knots again

6. Do an all day climb
Note: not climb all day, but 'an all day climb' - a single climbing route that literally takes a whole day to do.
I think done? It took us all day cause I was there and I'm slow... :)

Overall, I'm pleased with the climbing improvement and I want to continue on this path. Like running and yoga, I want to make this activity a more consistent/regular part of my life. I seem to go in extreme spurts, where I train hard and do really well, then either get hurt or just fizzzle out. I want to maintain my momentum.

Less Negativity
I couldn't think of how to make hard goals and measure this one... any ideas for next year?

Less Caffeine
There were actually several weeks in 2010 wherein I did not have any caffeine at all. Aaaaand then there was at least one month (maybe two) when I ODed on caffeine almost every day to keep up with my school work... school seems to have had a bad influence on the rest of my life...

Less Wasteful spending
This got put under saving/budgeting.

Less Hypochondria
See the answer to negativity. I did have what seems like a ton of legitimate health problems this year - MRSA, shoulder sprain, getting hit by a car, acid reflux, tonsil infection, tonsillectomy... Maybe I should just try for a year of better health? That could be measured by sick days and doctors visits and stuff like that...

Bugs (in the apartment, ew)
Definite improvement here. After many discussions with the land-lady, Derek and I took matters into our own hands and fixed several structural problems with the apartment that had been allowing bugs to get in.

Less Romance novel reading (I figure I should be better using my time)
Yeah. Once school started, this dropped off significantly. I still have binges and read 5 books on an odd weekend. But overall, I just don't have time for it very often anymore.

That's it for the recap! I'm way open to comments and suggestions for next year. Also, if you are doing resolutions and want to post them here or in your blog, I would love to read them!

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