Category Archives: 2012 Goals

April goals check-in

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  • Lose 40 lbs. Blergh, y’all. I’m at the same weight, but hope that my improved water consumption will help. I also logged a workout yesterday, so that’s good. I’m thinking about moving this goal elsewhere on my list so I’m not starting with a negative in every month’s followup post!
  • Knit from my stash. I used three full skeins and portions of two others in April, and bought one. I might need to think about the size of the skeins, because those partial skeins are 8 oz., and the one I bought is only 100 grams.

Overall: – 3 skeins, +1. Total: -2.

  • Knit a sweater.
  • Crochet a bedspread. We’re down to 10 hexagons, y’all. I decided that another needed to go b/c I used yarn with the wrong color value. I’ve got a shopping cart at Knitpicks full of yarn for it, but I really don’t want to pull the trigger yet.
  • Knit or crochet 10 projects. April’s blanket was a huuuuge project! Jen told me they’ve already hung it on their rocking chair.

1/10 = 10%

  • Sew a quilt.
  • Do one thing each month that will simplify my life. I added heat-blocking film to my bedroom windows and got the freon in the central air unit recharged. Life is so much better! I was able to work out in my bedroom and didn’t die!
  • Read 25 books this year. One more!

10/25 = 40%! Turns out, there might be something to this whole setting goals business.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close made me cryyyyyy. On the balcony. It’s about 9/11 in a lot of ways. I thought I was no longer affected by overwrought references to that event, but the images got me. It’s also about people who hurt each other needlessly and without meaning to, and old people and man. On the other hand, I really like what the author did with the typography to convey emotion.

  • List my 3/3/3 daily. Yep! Sometimes I add some nice stuff about myself too. Mini therapy!

Mushier goals (these are things I want to do, but don’t want to attach measurements to):

  • Drink more water. I added an app on my phone that allows me to track my water consumption. I’m counting sugar-free fruit punch because it’s basically water with color. But I’m actually drinking real water!

Overall, I drank my goal of 8 cups of water on 11 days in April, and got pretty close (6+ cups) on 5 other days. Progress!

  • Stop drinking soda. I’m gonna guess I had 10ish? Not terrible!
  • Connect with people more. Y’all. I kicked down this month. I called my gramma and my dad and my sister, and I emailed mom and a bunch of other folks to say hey. I even mailed a birthday card ON TIME.

    And if we call sending out applications a means of contact, I’ve done really well there, too: I sent out 31 applications in  April. Now if I could just hear something positive back, that would be great!

Overall, I’m giving myself a big ol’ gold star this month.

April: Goals progress

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Complete five (big) home projects.

20%

I haven’t posted my mirror, and I haven’t made any more progress.

Garden.

Josh and I did a big weekend push to get a bunch of the dead stuff in the backyard. Then it rained, and now stuff is attempting to grow again. Sigh. I’ve resigned myself to catching the fall growing season and just working on grass in the meantime. If I can get grass in during May, I probably can get it established before the big heat hits in July.

Read 75 books.

16 / 75

21.3%

I’m now nine books behind. I didn’t listen to any books in my car during my commute in April, and that hurt me.

Lose 10 13 pounds.

I discovered something about myself in April: I am an emotional eater with no willpower. I “reward” myself with delicious food treats and skipping workouts. That said, I gained weight in April (3 pounds) and then worked hard and lost it. So I still have 13 pounds to go, but I lost a percentage of body fat and stopped snacking. If I could up my number of workouts, I think I could drop at least five pounds in May. That’s my goal at least. I joined a SparkPeople challenge to try to keep on track.

Crochet five projects.

I contemplated a hat, but I want a tam and can’t find a good, free pattern for one. I’ll have to keep poking around the internet.

Make two new recipes each month.

25%

I made no new recipes in April. I did make a version of this, though: Broccoli Quinoa Casserole. This was the second time I’ve made it, and I liked this attempt better. The first time I followed the recipe pretty exactly and used cream of mushroom soup (it’s what I had in the pantry). This time, I used cream of broccoli and omitted the Splenda and nutmeg. I also upped the quinoa to 2 cups of cooked and added another half a cup of broccoli.

And with that, all the quinoa I bought in Atlanta last summer is gone. I think I paid $3 for it and made four batches of quinoa patties, two casseroles and ate quinoa as a rice substitute three times. Worth it.

Teach Josh to cook.

Josh has been making our weekly supply of breakfast sandwiches. At first, I was cooking eggs in a muffin pan and using Kraft Singles. Now, we’ve switched to light English muffins, use Sargento Ultra Thin cheese and cook Eggbeaters in a whoopie pie pan. But a large egg fits in there too.

Stockpile food. (and Use my pantry.)

Stockpiling: 0.

I really need to get my act together and do burritos.

Make clothes.
$198.38 / $500

39.7%

A sample sale and a blazer purchase pushed me up. Eeek! My bar’s getting close to half. This means I really need to get sewing.

Do one thing each month that will simplify my life: I unpacked the last two boxes from two years ago when we moved into our house. I found my social security card!

Composting: I’m taking this off in future updates because it’s established.

Social commitments: I actually dropped down to one a week for most weeks.

The Psychology of Clothes Buying

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Remember how I set a goal to only spend $500 on clothes this year?

I know that actually probably seems like a lot to some people. It both does and doesn’t to me: My family was not the richest. My parents could not be convinced to buy me as many clothes as I would have liked. My father especially. Although I’ve always been a bit of a clothes horse, that made it hard. I bought a lot of my clothes myself. And I would estimate that until I went to college, I spent less than $200 on clothes each year.

But it drastically changed for me when I moved to Los Angeles five years ago. Suddenly, I could buy as many clothes as my heart desired and still have plenty of money to clear my old debts, add money to my savings account, save and then buy a house. I’ve never been as financially stable EVER.

And that’s why I’ve been thinking more about minimalism and spending less. Maybe there comes a point when a woman’s got really all the clothing she needs.

This goal started as a way to encourage me to sew more. I like the idea of sewing clothing a lot. Clothes that are perfectly sized for me? Mhmm. But what’s happened is that it’s also caused me to think A LOT (too much?) about every clothing purchase I’ve made this year and ask myself repeatedly, “Do I really need that?”

For instance, a week or so ago I got an email from J.Crew telling me that I can take an extra 30% off final sale items with a code. I scoped out a couple styles of cords, and then told Tasha (she likes cords, too). She asked me what colors I was getting, and a little back and forth later, I wrote: “I’ve spent a lot of money on clothes this month.”

I’m not lying. My total for the year at the end of March was $70.63. I’m currently at $198.38. Where did that money go? Well, I went to a sample sale with some friends Easter Weekend. That was $98, but I got a bunch of clothes. I could have probably gotten fewer pieces, though. I still haven’t worn some. I also bought a white tuxedo blazer from Daily Look. It’s not the quality I expected (or at least hoped for), so I’ll probably return it.

All that led to me thinking: How many days a week do I wear pants? Two. Otherwise, it’s skirts and dresses. Do I have enough pants for those days? Yes. Should I buy new pants that fit or work harder to drop weight? Work harder.

Verdict: no pants.

Also: I need to make all the dresses.

April’s blanket in April

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I finished the baby blanket Jen commissioned! And it’s even in the mail! I KNOW!

I was wayyy too tired when I started this project, and i knew it. Turns out, this causes some problems.

First, I found out that I had only four colors to use, rather than the five called for in the pattern. This turned out to be  fine — I decided to substitute their “pink row” with whatever I thought looked good at that point. But I also started with the wrong color — I wrote down my substitutions in the order I wanted them, but then I picked up the wrong yarn anyway. And then I proceeded to screw up the foundation chain about three times. I had to rip it out and start over in a few days when I could stand to look at it again.

Then my sister told me that -surprise!- the baby shower was at the end of April, and not the end of May as I’d thought. So I blocked off last weekend and committed to finishing the blanket.

Giant soda and trashy TV make crafts happen.

It took about 15 hours and a giant Diet Coke, but I finished it. That said, the blankie went very quickly with worsted yarn, and the pattern was easy to memorize. It became a slog about 5” from the end, but watching crappy TV on Hulu helped.

I had originally thought I would crochet a border around it, but after looking again at others’ completed versions on Ravelry, I found that I really liked those without the borders. This meant that I had to weave in allllll those ends from the color changes. If I’d changed my mind to go without a border beforehand, I’d have woven in the ends as I went, and made the color changes a bit more neatly.

That is so many ends. So many.

Modifications
Like I said earlier, I went with four colors instead of five, because that’s what I had on hand. I used worsted-weight yarn, rather than the fingering weight yarn called for, held double. I used an H hook for some colors, and an I for others, due to slight differences in the weight of the yarn.

I did follow the color scheme, but I added a row of each color — so instead of three rows of color A, I’d make four. Doing this cut down on the color changes while preserving the color pattern.

I really think I went the right way with my yarn choices. I have no idea why you’d use alpaca; all it would take is one toss into a dryer by a sleep-deprived parent you’d end up with a Barbie blanket!

I’m pretty proud of this one. I almost want to make a queen-size version for my bed, but my wrist is crying at the thought of it!

 

Goals:

I knocked off one of my 10 projects for the year, which is awesome, especially considering that this is a big project. I also used three skeins of yarn completely, and I’m pretty close on two others. Hooray! Those yarns have been in my stash since I first started crocheting in college.

But using yarn also means I free up space for new ones. I got a skein of Cascade Heritage Sock in Tangerine. I technically bought this one before I used up the others, but I’d walked three miles to pet yarn, so I wasn’t leaving without it!

March goals check-in

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Since it’s getting toward the end of April, I guess it’s time to catch up on March, right? Between freelance writing and going to Florida, I didn’t do/make/change too much. Here’s what’s new:

  • Do one thing each month that will simplify my life.  I added birthdays to my Google Calendar. Using my contacts list and Facebook, I added everyone I wanted to get a gift for, send a card to, or wish a happy birthday to (yay ending sentences with prepositions!). For each person, I set at least one alert. Some people got three: one alert a month ahead of time, one 10 days ahead and one the day of. That way, I get an early reminder to get a gift, one to send it, and one to say happy birthday.
  • Read 25 books this year.  I added three more to the list.

36%! I would make a progress bar here, but it always screws something up and I do not need anything else to distract me from finishing this post.

Leaving Atlanta is very good, by the way. It’s the story of the Atlanta child murders in 1979. Don’t let that turn you away — it’s told from the point of view of three children, so it’s not graphic. It’s unsettling, though, in its ability to make you understand the fear and confusion that kids must have felt during that time. It sort of made me understand why that event prompted my mom to tell me, “Somebody’s gonna steal you!” when I’d wander off when I was a kid.

  • List my 3/3/3 daily. Yup.
  • Drink more water. I’m bouncing back from last month, and am definitely drinking more than in Feb.
  • Connect with people more. Does hanging out with Chris’ family count? I say yes.

I also took a bunch of Claritin. Hooray!

March: Goals progress

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Complete five (big) home projects.

    20%

Today’s project: finishing a stand for a full length mirror. While I wouldn’t necessarily classify it as “big,” having a full length mirror in my bedroom is a big deal and clears a large portion of my garage. Watch for the completed project post soon.

Garden.

I’ve been raking up the dead grass and weeds in my yard to prepare for seeding it. I’d love to till it up, but I’m just not sure where my sprinkler lines are. None of my tomatoes or peppers are growing. If I don’t get plants in the ground in April, I can kiss garden aspirations goodbye until fall because I’ll have missed the growing season. That might be OK, though, because this is a much bigger project than I first anticipated it being, and it might be good to have the summer to work on it.

Read 75 books.

12 / 75

    16%

I’m six books behind now, Goodreads. Take that.

Here’s what I’ve read during the first quarter:

1. Georgiana Darcy’s Diary: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice Continued by Anna Elliott
2. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
3. Ivy and Intrigue: A Very Selwick Christmas by Lauren Willig
4. The Virgin’s Lover by Philippa Gregory
5. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
6. Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir by Margaret Powell
7. The Garden Intrigue by Lauren Willig
8. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
9. Out of Oz by Gregory Maguire
10. Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan
11. The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta
12. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Lose 10 13 pounds.

I’ve gained some mobility and energy this month, so I think I’m going to be able to get on track with this. I’ve been doing yoga once a week, stretching everyday and going on short walks during work. I also decided that eating better would go a long way toward making this goal a reality (sorry, Easter candy). I’m tracking my calories better and employing my mother’s “drink a glass of water and we’ll talk about it in 20 minutes” method of starvation. I gained another pound during March, but I’m injured, and recovery is my first priority. Hopefully, I’ll get a little more energy in April and be able to work out more.

Crochet five projects.

Failure to launch. Still. Double sigh.

Make two new recipes each month.

    25%

I made Oatmeal Muffins from this recipe I saw on Pinterest. I added dried cherries, dried blueberries and almonds to mine. I also made lentil and black bean soup with soy chorizo (subbed for andouille sausage) following this recipe. Both are winners.

Teach Josh to cook.

Josh has been helping me prep a little. But he identified the need for expanding his skills and expressed a desire. I suggested perhaps we take a cooking class together. He probably just needs practice, though. Snail’s pace.

Stockpile food. (and Use my pantry.)

Stockpiling: 0.

This month I wanted to make my own version of Near East Toasted Pine Nut Couscous, make freezer burritos, put down some chili and split pea soup, make some meatless meatballs and do some bread doughs. I didn’t do any of that. However, I did make quinoa patties again, so I’m slowly using up that quinoa. I actually might have to buy more soon.

Make clothes.
$70.63 / $500

    14.1%

I made a skirt in March from some fabric I had lying around. (Post coming soon.) And a scarf from the skirt remnant.

I spent $12.98 on a plain black skirt from Target–birthday present to myself!–but I’m still well below my budget.

In April, I want to alter some dress pants I don’t really wear (too flared), shorten a maxi dress I’ve only worn once and fix a hole in a cuff of a shirt I have.

Do one thing each month that will simplify my life: I organized my bathroom. Again. Having a messy bathroom counters is a constant with me that I’d like to work on. Next month, I’d like to organize my fridge like this.

Composting: It’s becoming a regular habit and Josh has even taken to composting the coffee grounds from his K-cups.

Social commitments: I had a couple slips in March, but they were all because I’d been putting people off because I was exhausted (two weeks I had none, two weeks I had three–including yoga).

Organize my clothes: Organized a bit again. I’m working on keeping up with this.

Updated project list

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One of my goals for this year is to complete five big home projects. I haven’t done one yet and it’s almost the end of the first quarter. Sigh.

But, I was keeping a list of projects I wanted to complete. (Started last year.) I thought it might be worth a gander at where I’m at on the list. (The original post is here.)

1. The table.  This really solid table went from a maple-like color to white to a nice cheery cherry. It sucked TONS of my time last year, sanding and listening to the Avett Brothers. Well spent. View it completed here.

2. The hallway. I opted to paint a damask print to our entry hallway. I bought the stencil on Etsy before we ever moved in March 2010. I was laid off, I found a new job, I started other projects and this one didn’t take off. I’ve done two panels.

3. The chair. Tasha and I are in the middle of deciding on a color for this chair. However, the back and forth convos have led up to think that perhaps the coffee table would be better in a blue color so the chair can be green. So, back to the garage with the table and on to the fabric store for vinyl for this chair.

4. The roman shades. Most of the windows in our house have custom blinds. That’s great and all, except some of them don’t. We taped wrapping paper on a window in the master bedroom on our first night in the house. It’s still there. It’s been two years.

5. The yard. This is an ongoing mess. I hired someone last year to weed and cut back everything and replant grass. But he didn’t do it to my standards (the grass part… though I wasn’t really satisfied with the rest, either). The front yard’s fine, but the back yard is under construction.

6. The mirror. I’m done with this and so happy!

7. The mushroom wall. I completed this grouping and moved on to plotting the rest of my hallway.

8. The pressed flowers. Opposite my mushroom wall, I plan to have other nature-theme photos and items. One element is pressed flowers. I pressed some last year, but I need to put them in their frames. I also want to press some roses.

9. The dresses. Oh, the dresses. I bought a dress in December 2010 with a great shape. After discussion with Tasha, I set my heart on dip dyeing it RIT Dark Teal. Then I bought two other dresses, with the hope of dyeing them other beautiful colors. Must. do. this. It’s easy to dye dresses and I already have the supplies.

10. The side tables. After reading a post on Design*Sponge, I decided I MUST have these tables. I’m having a hard time finding logs for this, but admittedly, I’m not trying that hard. I’ve definitely been concentrating on other stuff.

11. The homemade dress. I started making a dress six months ago more than a year ago. It’s actually an easy pattern (1 hour it says! yeah, sure. for masters.), but I lost momentum when I realized my sewing machine needed serviced.Now, I’ve actually bought a new sewing machine. So why haven’t I finished? I’m not the same size I was when I started (remember that goal to lose –now–12 pounds?). I really should just finish this off, though. Either something to look forward to or to give to a friend.

So, reviewing the list makes me feel like I’ve definitely got some progress to make. I think my problem is that I’m thinking about these projects as a “do it all at one time” thing. But, realistically, I could paint a stencil pattern panel each night and be finished in a couple of weeks. Or, cut my fabric for roman shades one night, pin them together one night and sew each of them a different day.

I probably also have a problem with thinking I can do it all.

It’ll be done eventually. And I need to stop guilting myself about it in the meantime.

The handstand

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Well, I said that I wanted to do a handstand by the time I was 30. That was my goal.

I gotta admit, I’m not quite there. I’m a bit afraid of it. But I’ve been steadily improving and getting stronger (it takes a lot of upper-body strength to hold up your weight and lots of core strength to balance). I might have made it if I hadn’t caused horrible damage to my spine a couple of weeks before my birthday.*

Here’s a pic of where I’m at. I tend to lightly touch the wall when I get up and I can’t hold the pose for more than about 10 seconds:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*I’m being dramatic. I was in a four-car accident on the freeway and the body doesn’t heal as quickly at 30 as it did a decade ago when I was last in an accident.

February goals check-in

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Month two of the 2012 goals:

  • Lose 40 lbs.Same.
    12.5%
  • Knit from my stash. All good here — yarn out only, none in.
  • Knit a sweater. I’ve got other stuff in the works, but I’m still holding up hope for this.
  • Crochet a bedspread. So we know that I’ve made some calculations, and the finish line for this project is going to be far, far in the future. Even more so now that I’ve ripped out two of the hexagons. That’s right, I went backward on this goal. I just didn’t like a couple of the colors, and I know they would bother me in the finished blanket, so they had to go. We’re at 10 hexagons now. Out of 320.
 3.1%
    24%
  • Get my eyebrows threaded. Not until Chez Unemployment becomes Chez I Got A Job!
  • Get a mani/pedi at least twice this year. Ditto.
  • List my 3/3/3 daily. Going strong with this, and it’s good to be reminded of all that I have to be grateful for.

Mushy goals:

  • Drink more water. Uh, not so much with drinking water this month. I blame hanging out with Janelle more often since she broke her ankle. She pays me in Diet Coke.
  • Stop drinking soda. So remember how I had eight sodas in January? I had probably that many in the first week of February.
  • Connect with people more. I have done fairly well in this. I need to call my Gramma, but otherwise all is well. I’ve got some posts planned around this as well.

This month I give myself half a gold star for the mushy goals.


Month 2: Goals progress

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Complete five (big) home projects.

0 / 5

My indecision is still holding me up. Mustard yellow? White? A slate blue? Help me. I’ll post pictures.

Garden.

In February, I killed the grass in my backyard to begin to make way for my veggie beds. I started seeds and… yep. March will be my month for this. And then, way too much produce (hopefully). I sowed 16 tomato plants and 40 pepper plants. Don’t worry. Not all of them will grow.

Read 75 books.

7 / 75 (9%)

According to Goodreads, I’m 4 books, or 6% behind. Hey, Goodreads, thanks for being a nag. I’ve been listening to books on CD in the car and reading at home, but I’m still not as into reading as normal. I’m sure I’ll pick up my pace.

Lose 10 12 pounds.

0 / 12

I am terrible at this one. I apparently have no self motivation. I gained and lost the same 2-3 pounds at LEAST twice in February. (I stopped weighing myself for awhile because I was so disgusted with myself.) Ultimately, I end the month having gained. Now, I need to lose 12 pounds instead of 10. I realized I have to make a greater commitment to tracking what I’m eating and devote myself to my elliptical.

Highlights of the month: A 10-mile hike to the Bridge to Nowhere. Lowlights of the month: Eating 2,855 calories on Valentine’s Day. (A cupcake, doughnut and box — yup, the whole thing — of chocolates got me there.) Add in an inactive weekend/week of recovering from a four-car crash at the 101/405 interchange (ranked No. 1 of the U.S.’s worst bottlenecks) and here we are. Tough love from the hubby, too: “You’re barely changing anything, so why should you be losing weight?”

Crochet five projects.

0 / 5

Failure to launch. Sigh.

Make two new recipes each month.

4 / 24 (16.67%)

I made Hearty Black Bean Quesadillas from Budget Bytes, which Tasha got me hooked on. Josh and I each ate a quesadilla, same the next day and then I froze the rest to be dinner/snack/lunch another day. I also made lasagna roll-ups (mostly following this recipe).

Teach Josh to cook.

Nothing in February. It’s been a rough month.

Stockpile food. (and Use my pantry.)

Quesadillas, check. I also noticed a box of lasagna noodles in my pantry, so I used them for the lasagna rollups, which went straight to the freezer. On lasagna rollup day, I also had quite the productive stockpile day. I bought pizza crust from Trader Joe’s and cooked them — into the freezer. Minestrone soup (with the whole wheat rotini, pearl barley and lentils that are definitely more than a year old) — into the freezer. I also made 12 breakfast sandwiches for Josh and I for breakfast during the week.

I want to make my own version of Near East Toasted Pine Nut Couscous during March, make freezer burritos, put down some chili and split pea soup, make some meatless meatballs and do some bread doughs. I also have 12 more english muffins for more breakfast sandwiches.


Make clothes.

$57.63 / $500 (11.5%)

Man, not buying clothes is hard. I spent $30.63 on clothes during the month of February. I bought a pair of hiking pants at REI (marked down from $63). Even though I used my REI dividends to pay for said pants, I have to draw the lines of this goal somewhere, and they count. I also bought a cute two-tone dress from Forever 21 to wear for my birthday. I’m still undecided if I’m keeping it, though.

What doesn’t count? Things I can’t make myself — not including sweaters. So basically: tights, shoes and underwear are fair game. (I HAVE bought tights. I have not bought shoes.) Tasha and I also discussed that if I bought an item of clothing that required special undergarments, those undergarments would count toward the total. If I end up in a wedding this year (not likely), the bridesmaid dress would not count.

Do one thing each month that will simplify my life.

1 / 1

This month, I put scrapbook paper on the outside of a tin can to keep on the counter and put pens in. Because I can never find a pen to save my life.

Composting: It’s going really well, and it’s all because of Josh. He’s the one who’s actually dumping the stuff in the bin. I’ve tried to be a bit more involved as the month’s gone on.

Social commitments: still down to two, tops, each week. Less after the car accident because I am tired, kinda achey and not feeling up to yoga.

Sending birthday cards: my niece and FIL got theirs! I can’t say I’m responsible for that, though.

Organize my clothes: Still (sorta) organized. They’re not all crazy like they were, and I’m counting that as a win.