2012 Goals: End-of-Year Review

2012 was an amazing year for Travis and me. Our Christmas card summed it up nicely:

In March, Travis started working from home for a small engineering company. He surveys and designs updates to outdated railroad bridges, which involves quite a bit of traveling, but he enjoys it.

In April, Travis took the Professional Engineer Exam.  He found out in June that HE PASSED!

In May, Travis completed his Masters degree! We also celebrated 5 years of marriage and Kathy was brought on as a permanent employee at her company.

In June, we spent two weeks in Alaska with Travis’ family, where Kathy ran her first full marathon. (That’s 26.2 miles!)

In August, we found out we are expecting a baby in April.

In November, we found out it’s a girl! Her name will be Emma Grace.

As we look back on this year, we are in awe of God’s lavish GRACE. We don’t deserve His blessings. He doesn’t owe us anything. And yet, He overwhelms our days with good. What a privilege it is to know this God — our God!

“Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” (Revelation 7:12)

 “Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” (Psalm 100:6)

May God heap His blessings on you this Christmas season and throughout 2013.

So in light of all the blessings God has given us, I can’t really say anything bad about 2012. I didn’t accomplish all of my “goals” but back when I set them, I wanted them to serve less as a measuring stick for how well I did, and more of a way to be intentional about doing things I enjoy.

With that said, here’s my 2012 goal recap. My goals were to: 

…get pregnant. Check!

…run 700 miles. Close but no cigar… 568.77 miles!

…finish writing my nonfiction book. Didn’t do this, but it’s still on my radar for 2013.

…read 27 books (one more than in 2011). I only read 17.

…consistently track my workouts so I have accurate totals on 12/31/12! Check! With the exception of dog walks during marathon training, I tracked all of my workouts this year using MapMyRun.

…grow in being a loving, supportive wife to my amazing husband. While I still have a long way to go, I do feel like I grew in this area this year. I’ve learned to support my husband’s hobbies, even when I don’t understand their appeal, and to verbally encourage him more about how much I appreciate his hard work in providing for us, taking care of our house and cars, making wise financial decisions, and loving me despite my failures and shortcomings.

And my ’12 in 2012′ monthly goals:

January – Forego sweets for an entire month. Done!

Update 1   |    Update 2    |   Update 3    |   Conclusion

February – Read or listen to the entire Harry Potter book series. Done! And we watched all 8 movies too!

Update 1 | Update 2

March – Try Bikram Yoga. Done!

Update 1 | Conclusion

April – Finish a memory book about our first 5 years of marriage. Still working on this. It’s on the ‘hope to get done before baby comes’ list. 😉

Update 1 | Update 2

May – Make a time capsule for our 5-year wedding anniversary. Done!

Update 1

June – Run a marathon… in Alaska. Done!

Race Recap

July – Bike 50 miles in one ride. Didn’t happen because of getting pregnant.

August – Climb a 14er. No go, due to being pregnant.

September – Complete at least one big home project in preparation for moving in 2013.  Done! We replaced the window in the nursery. Not as “big” of a project as I had planned but it still counts!

October – Make Pull-Apart Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Bread with Buttered Rum Glaze I wussed out on this one. Anything that involves yeast and dough rising intimidates me!

November – Make our own Christmas stockings. Done!

Update 1 | Conclusion (coming soon!)

December – Watch the movie classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. Not done yet BUT after being on a waiting list for about a month, I can finally check this out from the library. So it will get done, just not in 2012. I’m checking it off anyway.

As for 2013…

I am making no goals or resolutions for 2013. There are things I would like to happen – such as giving birth naturally (without medication, I’ll post about that in the next couple of weeks), having a healthy baby girl, being able to breastfeed, losing the pregnancy weight, getting back into running/triathlons, reading more, etc – but to be honest, the goals I set for 2012 ended up stressing me out. As much as I love the idea of being intentional and not going through life on auto-pilot, God has been teaching me to be realistic about what I can handle in the moment and to accept that I can’t do it all – and that that’s okay. So I might set monthly goals. Or I might not. We’ll see. But for now, I’m taking it one day at a time.

Happy 2013!

Christmas 2012

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! Our Christmas was very enjoyable this year (but how can you not enjoy Christmas?).

I worked from home Monday and we left around 2:30 to drop our dogs off at a friend’s and head up to Estes Park (about 90 minutes away). It started snowing as we got into Estes Park and snowed 4-5 inches over the course of the night. We were sharing a condo with our friends and their 2 kids, so we talked for a while, cooked dinner, played Ticket to Ride (love that game!), and watched Elf.

The next morning, we opened the gifts we had brought (Travis and I brought our stockings that his mom packed to the brim) and then ate breakfast. After breakfast, we packed up and headed out into the snow.

We went to pick our dogs up and ate some cinnamon rolls with our friends. Then we headed home. We unpacked, tidied up, put our Christmas dinner in the crockpot and then opened presents. I got nice new headphones, baby bath stuff (hooded towels, washcloths and soap), $50 for a mani/pedi and… a Keurig coffee maker!

The coffee maker is for both me and Travis. We are really excited. We’ve already used it twice and love it. We used to make so much extra coffee (to get the blend right) so I think that even though the coffee will be more expensive than our Folgers, it’ll taste better and we’ll end up wasting less.

After presents, it was time to bum. We watched The Tourist and the rest of Downton Abbey Season 2, while enjoying the awesome surround sound and Blu-ray player that my parents gave us for Christmas. We are fans.

By then it was dinner time, so we ate our chicken wild rice soup and crescent rolls with some sparkling grape juice. Then we tried calling our families (unsuccessfully, though we did talk to mine a few hours later), started a puzzle and then watched The Bourne Legacy. I tried to stay awake but it was way past my bedtime.

We missed being with our families, but it’s really hard to not enjoy a relaxing Christmas just the two of us!

2012 Goal Update

{While I’m off in Alaska reeling in some red salmon (ha, just kidding, I don’t fish!), please enjoy these random posts from the archives and random thoughts library of Life, Really.}

It’s July! My favorite month because it’s when I was born. This year, I’ll be the big 2-9. Seriously, I can’t believe I’m almost 30.

Anyway, I thought that since 2012 is half over, it’d be a good time to give an update on my goals.

Which shouldn’t take long since I haven’t made a ton of progress (but somehow this post ended up being almost 700 words…). I haven’t made a ton of progress in the past few months because marathon training kind of took over my life at the end there. Now that that’s over with (yay!), I can get back to working on these goals.

…get pregnant.

The marathon is over and the plan is in motion. Stay tuned.

…run 700 miles.

If all goes according to plan, by the time I’m doing running the marathon, I’ll be somewhere around 488 miles. Looking good for this one (as long as I don’t abandon running altogether).

…finish writing my nonfiction book.

This is the one I’ve been failing at the most. Since the mornings are the only time I have to write, and they’ve been hijacked for the last several months by sleep and running, this has gotten put on the back burner out of necessity. But once I get back from Alaska, it’s back into the morning routine! I still think finishing it this year is doable. And during this time off I’ve had, I’ve still been thinking and journaling a lot and have a deeper understanding of what I want this book to be.

…read 27 books (one more than in 2011).

Before Alaska, I had read 9 books. Hopefully after Alaska, that number will be more like 15! And now that I won’t be spending every spare waking moment running, I hope this number will increase a lot faster. I mean, 9 books in 6 months? Who am I?

…consistently track my workouts so I have accurate totals on 12/31/12!

I have been doing this! And mapmyrun.com just updated their site with some cool-looking stuff so I might not be switching from them after all…

…grow in being a loving, supportive wife to my amazing husband.

Still a work in progress on this one. I am learning to more often speak my husband’s love languages – physical touch and words of affirmation. 

…………………

And for the monthly goals…

The months that have passed

January – Forego sweets for an entire month. Done!

February – Read or listen to the entire Harry Potter book series.

I am currently on Book 5 of 7. Getting there!

March – Try Bikram Yoga. Done!

April – Finish a memory book about our first 5 years of marriage.

Haven’t started on this hardly at all. But I’m still planning to do it. Now I’ll have a bunch of Alaska memories to add too!

May – Make a time capsule for our 5-year wedding anniversary.

I have a good start on this but haven’t finished yet.

June – Run a marathon… in Alaska. Done!

I’m writing this before the race but I’m being optimistic that I crossed the finish line.

………………….

The months coming up

July – Bike 50 miles in one ride.

I can tell you right now that this 50 mile ride isn’t happening in July. Maybe September or October but not July.

August – Climb a 14er.

We’re talking about climbing Pikes Peak with some friends.

September – Complete at least one big home project in preparation for moving in 2013.

We’re thinking about several of these, including refinishing our bathrooms, painting doors and cabinets, cleaning carpets and replacing our patio. 

October – Make Pull-Apart Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Bread with Buttered Rum Glaze

Mmmm… how could I skip this one?

November – Make our own Christmas stockings.

Say what? Who thought this was a good idea? Oh yeah, me who got sick of looking at $3 red fake fuzz stockings from Walmart. Luckily, I think this will be a pretty easy craft.

December – Watch the movie classic, It’s a Wonderful Life

Why didn’t I make all of my goals this easy?

………………….

And there you have it! Hopefully I’ll have a more encouraging update in September… or sooner!

Memory Book and Goals

As I was driving to work yesterday, I realized that March was over and I had not yet completed my goal of trying Bikram yoga. Whoops. So I penciled it onto my training schedule for Sunday, April 22. (Next Sunday is Easter and the next Sunday is the Platte River Half Marathon!)

Since April is here, I need to start working on my April goal – finishing a memory book of our first 5 years of marriage.

Just last Thursday on our way to the airport, Travis and I were trying to remember the last time my parents had been out to visit us in Colorado. It took some digging around in our brains but little by little, we pieced it together. I had shown them our new bedroom curtains… we had Charlie… we spent a lot of time cooking and baking… Travis and my dad thought about fixing the car but decided against it… oh, they were out here for last Thanksgiving!

That happens often. Holidays and vacations blend in to one another and it’s hard to remember what you did one year. Or if you do remember what you did, you can’t remember which year it was!

Enter the memory book. I envision this being similar to the race memory book I created. I don’t have a picture but it’s pretty straightforward: I print out my race report from the blog, three-hole punch it, and stick it into a binder labeled “Race Memories”. I slide my race bib into a sheet protector and stick that in after each race report. Easy.

For the memory book, I’m going to include all of the big holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, 4th of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day – plus other special times like our wedding anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, birthdays, vacations, etc.

Once I copy the blog posts, I’m going to read through each blog post and add any extra details I can think of, then go through my boxes of sentimental keepsakes and add any that pertain to the specific holiday/trip/day.

After all that hard work is done, the trick will be to keep updating the book. I am already failing on this account for my race memory book so the odds aren’t good. But that’s why having a blog is so handy! All those fun trips and times are recorded here on the interwebs, just waiting for me to put them in my book.

………………..

On another note altogether, I have decided that after the marathon is over, I am going to free my weekends up from workouts. I have so many projects and things that I want to do around the house, and to the house, that it’d be nice to not have weekends dominated by running and recovering. I do still want to keep running and biking (have to, if I want to accomplish my goals of climbing a 14er and biking 50 miles at once!) but I’ll try to confine that to after work during the week, so I can get stuff done on the weekends.

Running is fun, but it takes up so much time!

………………….

Quickly, an update on my other goals:

…get pregnant.

• I went off birth control!

…run 700 miles.

• As of March 31, I was at 179 miles. With marathon training, I think this is totally doable.

…finish writing my nonfiction book.

• I’m still slowing chipping away at writing my book. It’s hard to get up early because I’m so tired in the mornings but I’m really trying to go to bed sooner.

…read 27 books (one more than in 2011).

• I’ve been really slacking on the book reading (I’m only up to 5 completed, thanks to copious re-runs of NCIS) but I am still listening to Harry Potter audiobooks and am about halfway through the fourth book. I am also currently reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, which is really interesting. I want to read Blink too!

…consistently track my workouts so I have accurate totals on 12/31/12!

• I have been obsessively tracking my workouts on MapMyRun.com but am contemplating switching over to RunningAhead.com. MMR has been stupid lately with not loading or mapping courses correctly so I’m kind of over them. But… I want all of my training records to be in one spot. So what I’ve been doing is continuing to track my workouts on MMR but mapping courses using RA. Whatev. It works for now.

…grow in being a loving, supportive wive to my amazing husband.

• I helped Travis with yardwork the past two weekends so I think that counts as being a loving, supportive wife. 😉

{Sidenote: I also realized yesterday that I was quite ambitious when making my goals at the beginning of the year. Especially with wanting to get pregnant, I need to be open to the fact that some of these may or may not happen (ahem, 50 mile bike ride and 14er hike). I’m going to give it the ole college try but I’m also aware that things change and I need to adapt.}

Are you sticking with your 2012 goals/resolutions?

Happy Hump Day!