It's a new....month!

I know, I know...you thought this was going to be about the fact that it's also a new year.  Which is also true, but not what this post is about.  I'm not really into New Year's resolutions - partly because if you mess them up, you have to wait for the rest of the year to be over before getting another chance to plan and feel successful, and partly for other slightly similar reasons.

At any rate.

Monthly goals seemed to work much better for me in the past, because it was 30(ish) days to work on a goal, which was short enough to feel achievable, and long enough to work at building habits.

I do have some things that I want to improve on, and posting them publicly to The Internet seems to help hold me accountable.  Probably in part because I hate the thought of having to admit I failed to The Internet.

All this to say, that I'm getting back to my monthly goals.  And I'm kind of excited.

Here they are for January:

1. Read my Bible at least 25 days
2. Exercise at least 10 days (wimpy, I know, but gotta start somewhere!)
3. Meal plan for 1 week
4. Prepare at least 2 freezer meals 
5. Organize one area/problem spot

I'm kind of excited about getting back into my goals.  I love feeling like I accomplished something, as well as being more intentional with my time.  On one hand, when I had kids, I didn't feel like I had time to be doing this kind of stuff, but really, I need goals and organization now even more than I did before.  

I'd love to hear from anybody who is working on goals as well - whether they're weekly, monthly, or for all of 2012.  We could encourage each other and cheer each other on!

Dear May Goals,

I didn't forget about you.  I, um, just didn't have time for you.  At least not all of you.  It's nothing personal, I just had more fun things to do last month.

Love,

Kelli

May Goals:

I really didn't completely forget about my May goals.  But they weren't exactly top priority.  I did get some organizing done.  In fact, I turned my overflowing, embarrassing mess of a hall closet into a sorted, organized linen/supply closet.  It's SO nice to know what I have, what I could use more of, and know exactly where to look when I need something.  Hooray for organizing!

Food planning continues to not be my favorite, but I'm finding ways to make it my own, and I expect it to make a comeback.

I need to be more consistent in finding personal time to read my Bible on my own.  I love reading Bible stories to Isaac, but I don't think that's quite the same as reading the Bible and having time to think about what I'm reading.

And reviving my housekeeping system?  Well, it's not dead anymore, but I don't know if I would exactly say it's been completely revived.  Somehow, my house seems to get messy SO much faster now (smile).  However, I do have a pretty good idea of what I need to get done each day to keep the house in respectable shape, and I've also been finding ways to improvise when possible as well.  For example, Tuesdays I clean the bathrooms.  I didn't have time today to get to it, but I at least got Isaac's bathroom cleaned while he was in the bathtub (well, except for the bathtub, which was actually in pretty good shape anyway).

Exercise may have to be measured differently.  At this point, it's too hard to get miles in all the time.  I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it's not my top priority right now.  However, we have found lots of active things to do -mostly involving playing in the backyard, walking around at the zoo, and lifting up a 42 pound boy.  I do want to improve and make better goals, but I need to figure out what I want that to look like.

June Goals:

It's pretty simple this month (since, after all, we're half way through the month)

• Read my Bible
• Play with Isaac
• Remember to make goals for July

Wish me luck!

May Goals: Menu Plan for the week

Ok, I'm going to try this menu planning thing again this week.  I still don't love it, but I'm seeing that it has possibilities to be useful, so here goes!

Monday: Hot dogs and salads (in my defense, they're Hebrew National hot dogs, leftover from the weekend, and they "answer to a higher calling," you know...and, the buns were whole-grain.)
Tuesday: Whole-grain spaghetti & meat sauce, salads
Wednesday: Jamaican chicken & potatoes, veggies (recipe coming soon)
Thursday: Citrus Tilapia, brown rice, veggies
Friday: Grilled cheese, veggies

Does anyone else do menu planning?  If so, why do you like it, and do you have any tips or tricks to make it work better for you?

Dinner plan this week.

I know it's already half way through the week.  But, I actually had most of this week's dinners planned before I wrote this, so I'm totally counting this as one of my two weeks of meal planning for the month!

Here is what we have eaten or are planning to eat this week:

Breakfasts:  Some combo of apple-cinnamon muffins, home-made yogurt with strawberries, cereal, oatmeal, and fruit.

Lunches:  Salads, leftovers, or sandwiches, with fruit and/or veggies with yogurt-ranch dip (tastes better than it sounds!)

Dinner:

• Monday: Baked Italian pasta/veggies
• Tuesday: Roast/veggies
• Wednesday: roasted Jamaican chicken & potatoes, salad, veggies, and healthy(ish) chocolate peanut butter balls!
• Thursday: Leftover roast with sautéed veggies and salad 
• Friday: Home-made pizza with whole wheat crust and turkey-pepperoni

Now, since it's Wednesday, and we're having people over for dinner tonight, I'm going to go work on prepping the chicken and potatoes, and make the chocolate peanut butter balls. Yum!

May Goals: Housekeeping and such

It's a new month, and time for new goals!  One of my favorite things about having monthly goals is that it causes me to take stock in how I'm living life on a regular basis, and lets me think about what I can change in manageable steps.  I have felt more organized, and more purposeful, and hope to keep moving in that direction.

This month, I'm keeping a few goals, changing some, and adding a new one.

Still planning on reading my Bible.

I'm still planning on exercising, but 40 miles is a little much for me right now, especially as we transition to a new stage of life.  So, I'm going to pick something more realistic, like 25 miles, for this next month.  One thing that will probably make it easier is that we got Isaac a bike for his birthday, so he'll be able to ride while we walk, which will let us keep a good pace, and let him have fun.  I wish I could post a picture of him on his bike, he loved it.  Unfortunately, pictures aren't an option quite yet.  Bummer.

I'm enjoying having an organizing project each month.  It's such a flexible goal, yet with a plan to get something done.  Perfect.

I think I will try meal planning for at least two weeks (I guess).  I was so disappointed that I didn't love it.  I mean, it's cooking and planning, and I love both of those things separately.  Maybe it will grow on me, and even if it doesn't, I'm hoping it will save me time and money.

And, lastly, housekeeping.  I don't really like it very much.  But I don't want a gross house, so it must be done.  And, with Isaac being here, it's even more important.  Growing up, my mom kept a crazy-clean house.  Not the kind that you couldn't be comfortable in, but the kind where you never heard a surprised "ew!" after touching anything, and everything (except my brother's and my rooms) was always picked up.  I don't remember them even having a junk drawer (not sure how they did that...Mom?  Any ideas?).  I'm fairly certain that between my two parents, our house was a unique mixture of white-glove tested and yet comfortable-for-kids.  And I want the same for my kids.  I actually had a system down at one point, where I had all the regular chores broken down by days, so I think my goal for this month is to revive that system.

So, in summary, my goals are:

1. Read my Bible 24 days
2. Exercise 25 miles
3. Complete one organizing project
4. Meal planning for two weeks 
5. Revive housekeeping system

Wish me luck!  Do any of you have any goals you're working on?  I'd love to hear about them!

April Goals: Win some, lose some....

My April goals were the following:

1. 40 miles of exercise. 
2. Read my Bible 24 days.  
3. Complete one organizing project.
4. Try meal-planning for a week.  

And the results?  Well...you win some, you lose some.  Actually, overall, I did pretty well.  I forgot to keep track of all the days of reading my Bible, but I'm pretty sure I was right around my goal.

I completed my organizing project, and my wrapping paper is much more organized!

I tried meal planning for a week.  For some reason, I didn't really love it, but at the same time, I think it would be helpful long term.  For example, since we were having rice two nights that week (and I make the whole-grain rice that takes awhile to cook), I just made enough for both meals the first time.  So it did save me time.  Maybe it just needs to become more of a routine.  So, I'll probably try it again.

And....the exercise.  Well, as I mentioned before, 40 miles is a long way.  And, I only made 26.8 miles. To be fair, the last three weekends were unexpectedly (but delightfully) spent with Isaac, so we didn't exercise as much then.  Now that we have him in our lives, we will have to work on ways to be active as a family, and to still get our exercise in, while involving him at a level he can enjoy.  So, considering the fact that life changed a lot after I created that random 40-mile goal, I feel pretty good about getting in 26.8 miles. 

So, overall, April went pretty well!  I'll post May goals soon - I'm excited about working on a fresh month of goals! 

First meager attempt at meal planning

Well, we're running out of weeks in April to try meal planning (since that's one of this month's goals), so I decided to give it a try this week.  I decided I don't really want to have specific breakfasts and lunch to remember on specific days, so for those meals, I decided to instead have a list of foods that I have on hand to choose from.

For breakfast, I'm having some combination of oatmeal, fruit, cereal, eggs, or yogurt.  And, of course, coffee with each breakfast.

For lunch, I am having either a salad or leftovers.  For salads, I have tuna to put on it (not to be confused with tuna salad with mayo and such), beans (black beans, kidney beans, etc...a whole mixture of them), artichoke hearts, shredded cheese, cucumbers, carrots and other veggies....and I'll pick some combination of those items to put on the lettuce.

For dinner, here's the plan:

• Monday (tonight): Italian chicken, brown rice, veggies
• Tuesday: Baked Spaghetti (with whole-grain noodles)
• Wednesday: Baked Citrus Tilapia, brown rice, veggies
• Thursday: Roast, potatoes, veggies
• Friday: Out to eat

I think we'll go out to eat on Friday, especially since we're hosting some family for Easter and I'll be doing enough cooking then (and I've already most planned the menu for that meal too! Just trying to decide on the dessert...).

Anyway, hopefully this will keep me more organized, and keep us eating more healthy meals (the spaghetti isn't quite as healthy, but at least it's whole-grain noodles and all-natural red sauce, so it's not too bad).

40 miles is a long way to go.

One of my April goals is to get in 40 miles of walking/running.  Most months, I've given my exercise goals some thought (600 minutes in February meant I had to average 30 minutes, 5 days a week, which seemed doable). To be honest, I didn't really think much about the "doability" of my goal this month.  I just picked what seemed like nice round number out of the air.

oops.

Forty miles is actually pretty far, I'm finding out.  We're at the half-way mark in the month today, and I've gotten 16 miles in.  To put that into perspective, I had to really work to get 700 minutes into 31 days last month.  I've currently done 421 minutes this month, which, at that pace, would equal 842 minutes of exercise in April, and yet I still need to pick up the pace to get all my miles in.

So if I seem a little tired....well, you'll know why.

Last night, I was really tired from all the running and walking, and I made some un-ladylike groaning sort of sounds.  I sighed, turned to Dave, and told him I felt like a 90 year old man.

He looked at me, and with a grin, said, "Well, on the plus side, at least you don't look like a 90 year old man."

He always knows just how to cheer me up.

April Goal Update: Organizing project checked off!

This weekend was ....busy, to say the least.  We're still in the process of moving stuff around in our house, clearing out the basement, plus clearing out the upstairs rooms for future kiddos.  Basically, we're eliminating 90% of our storage space.  Which, really, is a good thing, because it means that we have to think through how much stuff we really need to keep, and do a good job organizing the rest of what's left.

This weekend, among other things, I tackled the wrapping paper chaos.  Before, it was....awful.  It was not only a big pile of stuff, but had even expanded to a bottom drawer of the dresser in the spare future kiddos room. 

Side note -Funny thing, as we've been changing the purpose of all the rooms, we don't know what to call them anymore.  The room that we used to call the spare room is now the future kiddo's room (which is a bit of a mouthful), the room that used to be the office is....well, I don't know.  But it's not an office anymore.  It's the spare room/exercise room/office supplies room.  Then our room is...well, it's still our room.  But it's also the temporary office, as well as the storage unit.  

Back to the wrapping paper project.  Here's the big pile that it used to be (not my proudest moment):

And the spare drawer:

My apologies for the cell-phone pics, but I was on a roll, and wasn't about to stop to get the real camera!

I kept all the wrapping paper rolls in the tub they were in.  It only made sense.   But for the rest of the stuff, I sorted it all, threw out the stuff we wouldn't use (why did we keep the roll of ribbon that Yarbo had destroyed when he was a puppy?  No clue...), then neatly stacked all the gift bags in one area of the tub, then sorted all the pre-done bows into one area, curling ribbon in another area, and finally tissue paper, little gift-card holders, and the tie-on things (I'm sure that tie-on things is not the proper term, but you know, those things you can tie on to gifts?).  I also included a pair of scissors and tape so that the next time I have to wrap a gift, everything I need will be right there.

The finished tub still looks a little crazy, but the difference is that it's all in one place, and I can fit a lid on it, so it stores much better, AND, best part, I know where everything is in it.

I realize I am disproportionately proud of my project, but mostly because the wrapping chaos has bugged me for about 2 years, and now it's finally organized!  Check that off the April list.  

April Goals

I've been thinking about these goals for a little while, and while we're 4 days into April, better to post goals late than to not set/post them at all, right?  So, here's what I'm thinking about.

Dave and I started doing the couch to 5k running plan last week, and we're kind of excited.  Truthfully, I don't love it most of the time, but I can picture myself loving it someday, so I'm glad we're doing it.  So, I think I'm going to measure this month's exercise in miles, rather than minutes (though I do also have 2 classes of Zumba left). 

Bible reading will pretty much be a permanent one.  The first month I allowed myself to miss 8 days, the second month 7 days, and this month will be 6 days.

Organizing project also seems like a good idea.  It's measurable, but also really open and flexible.  I'll have to see what I come up with!

And finally, we're trying to be more intentional about eating healthy foods.  Actually, we're really good at eating healthy foods, so I guess it's more that we're working to eliminate the unhealthy foods.  And I think we'll do better if we're more organized with our food(because more organization can solve pretty much anything, right??) So I think I want to give meal planning a shot.

In summary, here are my goals for this month:

1. 40 miles of exercise. 
2. Read my Bible 24 days.  
3. Complete one organizing project.
4. Try meal-planning for a week.  

March Goals - I made it!

So my March goals were the following:
1. Exercise 700 minutes
2. Read my Bible 24 days
3. Complete one organizing project in the house.

When I last updated, I had 8 days to go, and 330 minutes to do it, due to being sick so much in the first two weeks of the month.  But, I did it! I had a Zumba class, walked over 11 miles, and did various other activities.  

I read my Bible all 24 days.  It was great!  

And I reorganized our bathroom.

Check March goals off the list!

March Goals: Update

My March goals were:
1. Exercise 700 minutes
2. Read my Bible 24 out of 31 days
3. Do one organizing project

Exercising....well, it got off to a slow start.  I had the worst sinus infection I've ever had for the first 2 weeks of March, and it's difficult to exercise all that much when it's hard to breath.  So, not only was I not doing a lot of other exercising, I missed two weeks of Zumba.  I also missed Zumba last night, as it was cancelled due to the tornado warnings.  Three missed weeks of Zumba equals 180 missing minutes.  Sigh...So, I've currently exercised only 370 minutes this month, and have 330 to go.  With only 8 days left in the month.  Wish me luck!

Oh - and while I'm not normally one to point fingers, I would like to say that Yarbo has been of no help whatsoever.  While I was trying to get excited about exercising, he was keeping busy in other ways:

See?  No help from him at all.

Reading my Bible: Going well!  I've missed a couple of days, but am easily on track to completely my goal, and I'm enjoying it so much!  I just finished reading the book of Joshua, and really enjoyed the final chapters especially.

Joshua 23:14
You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.

How great is that?  One thing I've really enjoyed about this reading plan is that I spend so much time in both the Old and New Testaments.  It's been great!

Organizing:  Our house is pulled apart right now due to all the sorting and organizing.  I completely cleared out, cleaned out, and re-organized what was left in our bathroom - both under the sink, and in the little cupboard above.  We now only have items we will actually use, all put away neatly and easy to find.  I thought about taking pictures, but really, who loves bathroom photos?  Personally, I don't. But I did it, Dave can vouch for it!  So, while I'm not done organizing yet, this goal is officially completed. Woo hoo!

March Goals

I kept waiting to post March goals, because I thought if I waited long enough, some kind of Awesome Idea would strike.

It didn't.

However, I was actually pretty happy with last month's goals, and was thrilled that I met them.  It created such a sense of accomplishment, which I really enjoyed!  While it wasn't any kind of rocket science, exercising and reading my Bible were two of the best ways I could think of to improve my life right now, and I really saw the difference.

I'm going to bump up my goals just a little (there are, after all, 3 more days in March than there were in February!), and add one more.

So, here's this month's goals:
1. Exercise 700 minutes
2. Read my Bible 24 days
3. Complete one organizing project in the house.

Is anyone else setting goals?  It could be for the week, or for the month, or any set time, really.  I am thinking about food-related goals for next month, but am trying to decide how to set them so that they follow the rules: being specific, and being measurable.  If you're setting goals, comment on the post and let me know, so we can encourage each other!

February Goals!

Well, the short month of February is pretty much over!  And it feels like we've packed a lot into those 28 days.  I haven't decided for sure what my March goals will be, and will post on that soon, but am too excited about my February goals to wait.

I did it!

I exercised 605 minutes this month, and read my Bible 20 days.  I might have read more than that, but that's the number of days I recorded.

It feels so good to have set goals and met them.

Does anybody want to join me in my monthly goal setting for March?  I'll post my goals tomorrow, so you can start thinking about what yours will be now!

February Goals: Mid-way point update!

Well, it's half-way through February, and I'm doing pretty well on my goals for February!  After another night of Zumba (which once again almost killed me!), I have currently exercised 320 minutes in the month of February.  That does mean I'm about 10 minutes behind schedule, but that's pretty easy to make up over the next two weeks.  It feels great!

I've really been enjoying reading my Bible more consistently too.  This week, Dave and I have been getting up a little earlier so we can read our Bibles together before he goes to work.  I've loved that!  I can't remember exactly how many days it's been, but I know that I'm on track to make 20.

I really like this whole monthly goal thing - it's just a couple of weeks until I can bask in a sense of accomplishment (just kidding....sort of...).  Anyway,  I think this might be working for me!

Zumba might be the death of me.

I'm working on getting in my 600 minutes of exercise for the month, and to that end, went to my first Zumba class on Tuesday night. 

It was horrible. 

Well, not exactly horrible.  It was actually a lot of fun, but I couldn't believe how intense it was!  After awhile, I started hoping that every song would be the last, before it caused me to breath my last.  Finally, 60 minutes later, class was over, and I collapsed in the front seat of my car to drive home. 

Then I ate a piece of birthday cheesecake.  That might have been a little counter-productive.  To make matters worse, I ate the cheesecake while watching Biggest Loser, which seems like a show more suited to air-popped popcorn and vegetable snacks.

Getting back to Zumba: Dave got me Zumba for wii, and I tried it out today.  It's a little confusing, but I think I'll figure it out.  However.  With all the moving around and craziness, Yarbo got all excited and thought we were playing.  Never one to turn down a chance to play, he kept getting all of his balls out of his toy bin, and placing them at under my feet.  That my legs are not broken is proof of God's mercy.

Anyway, I've gotten a little over 150 minutes of exercise in so far this month.  I'm slightly behind schedule, but am pretty happy with where I'm at.  We're supposed to be getting temperatures in the 40's this weekend, so I'll be taking Yarbo out for some long walks.  

Did any of you set goals for the month of February? If so, I'd love to hear about them!

February Goals

January Goals didn't go quite as planned, but I'm excited to set goals for February! As a reminder, my rules for setting goals is that they must be doable, measurable, specific, and no more than a month at a time.

I still want to work on getting more exercise in, but this month might be a little bit different in terms of what that looks like.  I think I will be moving towards working out harder on some days (for example, the days when I have Zumba!), and having some days where I don't want to work out (for example, the day after Zumba!).  

So this month, instead of having a number of days I want to exercise, I want to set a goal for the number of minutes I'll exercise over the month of February.  

I want to average 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week.  Since there's a perfect 4 weeks in February, then that makes the equation easy:  30 minutes x 5 days a week x 4 weeks = 600 minutes.

Since exercising is starting to become a little easier to remember in my routine, I want to add one more goal for February.  A few weeks ago, I said that I was trying to be more organized in my Bible reading, as well as more consistent.  I chose the Shirkers and Slackers plan, which turned out to be exactly for me, because I've already done some shirking, as well as some slacking.  However, February is a new month, and I'd like to get at least 20 days of Bible reading in.  Hopefully more than that, but 20 is the official goal.

So, to recap, my February goals are to exercise 600 minutes and follow my Bible reading plan at least 20 days out of the month.

If you're setting any goals for the month, I'd love to hear about them!

January's Goals: a confession.

Well, I didn't make my goal of 25 days of exercise in January.  After I exercise today, I'll be at 21, so while I still feel pretty good about that, I didn't quite make the 25 days I was aiming for.  I hate not making goals, but I will say that's more days of exercise in a month than I've had in awhile.

The good news?  Tomorrow is a new month, and I can make a fresh set of goals!  I'm looking forward to them, and will be posting them sometime today.

Anyone else making goals for February?  If you are, I'd love to hear about them!

January Goal update

Well, as I mentioned before, my January goal is to exercise for 25 days out of the month.  Since posting the goal, I've logged 9 days of exercise.  Some of them have admittedly been more impressive than others, but I've only missed one day since posting the goals!

I often tell my beginning piano students that they need to practice at least a few minutes at least 4-5 days a week.  When the songs they're working on are only 9 notes long, they don't really need long practice sessions, and I sometimes get asked if all the practicing can just be done in one day (I can always tell who the logical thinkers are by this question!).  However, by doing a little bit each day, it gets them into the habit of practicing, and helps them build good habits that will make progressing musically much easier.

I think that's kind of where I am right now.  I'm not necessarily doing that much for exercise (an ever-varying mixture of a few free hand weights, some ab work, playing with a medicine ball, the elliptical machine, etc), but I feel good about developing exercising habits, and 9 out of 10 days, even if some of the days were a little wimpy, is a really good start for me!

In a side note,  since I signed up for a Zumba class that starts in February (any Des Moines people want to join me?),  I started looking at different beginner videos on YouTube.   Today, I went through one a couple of times to see if I could get the hang of some of those steps.  It was a total of (almost) 11 minutes, and it was tiring! My class is an hour long.  So, for at least the first few weeks, I'm mostly hoping for a soft place to land when I pass out.  

The good news is that doing the moves was really fun - so I should at least have a good time in class before I fall over!

Day 3 and I don't think I like it.

So I've only done 3 days of my January goal of exercising 25 days out of the month, and I don't think I like it.

At all.

I've been using hand weights, a medicine ball, and also doing Wii boxing with these little weighted gloves, plus walking and such.

My back muscles hurt.  My legs hurt.  My arms are kind of achy.

So, I decided to take action with this horrible exercise goal:  I signed up for a Zumba class that starts February 1st.

I know that seems to go against the "I think I might not like this exercising stuff" thing, but I figure that if I don't keep working out now, I'll just fall over in the Zumba class, and that would be really embarrassing.

I don't like being embarrassed.  So...Day 4, here I come (well, tomorrow anyway.  I already did day 3 today).

Who's idea was this to start setting goals, anyway?