It’s the end of the month and that means it’s time to check in on how I’m doing with my resolutions for the year. Let’s just say I’m totally kicking butt so far. January has been very productive and while there were a few setbacks and frustrations, overall, I’m really proud of my progress.

Now let’s get specific.

Family and Home:

1.  Do at least one family outing a month. We slam dunked this one. We went to Sesame Street live…

a movie, a neighborhood pot luck, a trip to the playground and the zoo.

We really had a fun month as a family and I’m stoked to see what things we can come up with to do in February!

2.  Tackle the following home projects this year:

• Buy and hang curtains on all the windows. We got a good start on this one. We started with Isabella’s room because we wanted ones that would block out the night, particularly during the day.

We also put up some in the front room, on the window between the dining room and play room.

Pretend the play area is totally neat and organized….still working on a better solution for that. I do think the panel curtains really help separate the 2 rooms more visually. Also adds some much needed color.

It’s amazing how much curtains can add to a room. Such an easy way to add punch and visual interest.

We also got some pictures and a mirror hung on the back wall of the dining room which was a big accomplishment for me. That blank wall has been sticking in my craw for months so it feels great to have it filled. Took a while to find stuff we liked. We knew we wanted a mirror but aside from that, we weren’t sure. I was going on feel and 2 criteria: it had to be blue and bold. As soon as I saw those 2 flower prints at the store I knew they were perfect!

Samson likes them too.

• Unpack the remaining boxes in the basement. Did nothing on this one. The problem is that most of the stuff left in boxes is awaiting another project to be done. For example, the built ins. Once those are done, we can empty a whole slew of them!

• Do something with the front room. I’m getting close on this one. I haven’t purchased anything yet but have more ideas and may even act on one of them tomorrow! Squee!

• Create a sitting room within the master bedroom. Nothing yet. This probably won’t happen until later in the year.

• Add built in shelves to the living room by the end of the year. Again, this is a project that most likely won’t be started until summer.

3.  Break Isabella of the “oobie” habit once and for all. Done! Though she still asks for one on occasion and often dreams of them, for the most part I would call this a success. It wasn’t without a lot of crying, hand wringing and alcohol prayer, but we did it. She can sleep without them so long as she has her blankets and stuffed animals. I imagine the reliance on those will go away too in time so this one can officially be crossed off! Boo-yah!

4.  Move Isabella to a toddler bed. Not yet. Wanted to wait for her to get through the “oobie” withdrawal. And I’m in no hurry so it’ll happen sometime this year, just not right away.

5.  Have Isabella potty trained by her 3^rd birthday (September 30). We bought her a potty book and talk about it but no formal transition plan yet. Not sure she’s totally ready for that. She seems to view pooping as an ailment. Whenever she poops, and believe me, we can tell when that is, I’ll ask her about it and she says, “No I’m not pooping, I’m fine” through gritted teeth. She’s gonna be quite a catch for some lucky young man!

6.  Research pre-schools and enroll Isabella in one to start in the fall of 2012. No. Nada. Zero. Zilch.

Financial and career:

7.  Attend one career professional event a month. I attended one event in January and already have one on my calendar for February and March. Look at me being such an overachiever!

8.  Spend less money – save 5% of each paycheck in a nest egg AND apply 5% of each paycheck toward paying off our credit card balance. This one didn’t go as neatly as planned. With the first paycheck there wasn’t enough left to put money in savings and pay towards the credit card so I chose to forgo the saving. But with the second paycheck, I was able to do both. Money in general stresses me out because it seems that no matter how careful we are, we always end up counting down to the next payday. I’m working on figuring out better ways or not letting it get to me. It’s a process. Fortunately I get paid a bonus every quarter so that fills in some of the gaps.

9.  Save money for Isabella. This part has been easy. I just drop my loose change in a jar every day when I get home. I don’t even miss it!

Spiritual and ethical:

10. Find a church that we all like and attend regularly (at least twice a month). I was all gung ho to get going on this the first week of the month but our weekends tend to be really busy and we haven’t had time to look in to any churches, much less attend a service. Maybe next month.

11. Get back to daily prayers/talks with my Higher Power. I can’t say I did this on a daily basis but I was more regular about it. Maybe once or twice a week. I’ll keep at it.

Physical and health:

12. Adopt one new healthy habit each month. January – Add a fruit and/or vegetable (preferably both!) to each meal. I’ve actually done really well at this one. There were times if I was in a hurry I would be tempted to skip the veggies but most of the time I made myself do it.

I think I only had 2 meals all month that didn’t have at least one fruit or veggie. Most of them had both. I found that overall, this helped me eat better throughout the day and I’ve noticed a difference in my skin and nails.

Social and cultural:

13. Attend at least 4 cultural events this year (e.g. Broadway shows, concerts, museum exhibitions).This month CJ and I went to see Blue Man Group with a bunch of friends and had a blast! I forgot how much I miss going to shows.

Particularly ones with big balls.

14. Regularly participate in events put on by the social clubs I belong to (speaker’s events, parties, happy hours, etc). We did this too! Not only did we go to a neighborhood function but we also attended a Chinese New Year celebration put on by one of the members of our volleyball club.

Both events exposed us to new friends and helped get reacquainted with old ones. Smashing success!

15.  Go on a date night with CJ once a month. Blue Man Group and the Chinese New Year outings were both date nights so we did 2 this month! We already have a couple scheduled for February too. Go us!

Overall, I’m really happy with what I’ve been able to do this month – both for myself and with the family. February is already getting booked with play dates, social events, date nights and cultural experiences so there should be plenty of great stuff to share – and cross off the list!

How are you doing on your resolutions?

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2012 Resolutions

It’s time to step up and look back at the resolutions I set at the beginning of the year, to see what I accomplished and how much progress I made.

I only had 3 resolutions last year but they were pretty lofty. Looking back, though I tried to define how I was going to achieve each one but I wasn’t nearly specific enough – and some weren’t even realistic.

Let’s take a look.

1. Project Tone and Tighten: Goal – lose 3 lbs. of holiday weight gain and then maintain while also toning up all over. Verdict: Fail.

To be honest, I don’t think this one was a very good goal. First of all, lose 3 lbs. Really? That’s like the difference from one day to the next just in retaining water! 3 lbs. is laughable! While saying you want to maintain your current weight is good in theory, there are no parameters around that. No one can be the exact same weight every single day. Our bodies are too dynamic. So something like “stay within the 135-140 pound range while continuing to exercise daily and eat a healthy diet” would have been better.

Also, I never took measurements or before/after pics in January so there was no way to measure the “tone all over” part, other than what I can see in the mirror, which is definitely deceiving. That being said, I did try various workout programs (like the 30 day Shred, P90X and Kosama) to add variety to my workouts. I ultimately weigh the same today that I did when I made this resolution so I didn’t lose the 3 lbs but I did tone up a bit.

2. Operation Dream Home – Goal – sell our current house and buy our forever home. Verdict: Success!

We put a lot of time, money and effort in to getting our old house market ready and were able to sell it in 3 months, which is really good considering the market we were dealing with. There were some frustrations during that 3 months as I wanted things to move faster, but ultimately we got there.

We also found our dream home! At the time of making my resolution, I didn’t spell out any specifics of what that dream home should have but we later did when we were ready to shop. After searching for what seemed like months and looking at hundreds of houses, the very last one we looked at turned out to be “the one”. We’ve been living in it now for 3 months (OMG!) and couldn’t be happier with our home!

3. Mission Debt Diet – Goal – pay off all credit card debt and pay down loans while also creating a nest egg. Verdict: Fail.

This one was definitely not specific or actionable enough. It was also too lofty and not doable, particularly considering Operation Dream Home. I should have come up with specific dollar amounts to put aside each week/month for paying off the credit card and also determined a specific amount for savings. Instead I just threw whatever extra money we had at the credit card. Some months it was only $100 and others it was $600. However, one valuable lesson I learned was that you can’t be so focused on putting all your money toward one thing and forgetting another. I was so hell bent on getting the credit card balance paid off that I would put TOO much money toward it, leaving us with not enough to live on. So I would have to pull money from savings or start charging things, which just defeats the whole purpose. Slow and steady wins the race.

I paid off a good chunk of it for the first part of the year but then as we started working on the house, we added a bunch back on to it. Today, we’re sitting with a little less on the card then we had in January but still have a ways to go. I’m going to carry this goal over to next year only come up with a specific and achievable plan.

There you have it. Overall, I didn’t do all that great. However, I learned lessons that I can apply toward my goals for next year and hopefully be more successful! Stay tuned for my list of goals for 2012!

Oh! One item that I committed to in January which wasn’t really an “official” resolution was to write daily in my Perpetual Journal.

I can happily report that I have done just that! The fun part will be starting back at the beginning come January 1, 2012 and comparing each day of the New Year to the same day the year before. I imagine some days will be eerily similar (“long day at work, I’m tired”) while others will be drastically different (like on the days when we lost a loved one or something of significance happened). Should be interesting!

It’s time to step up and look back at the resolutions I set at the beginning of the year, to see what I accomplished and how much progress I made.

I only had 3 resolutions last year but they were pretty lofty. Looking back, though I tried to define how I was going to achieve each one but I wasn’t nearly specific enough – and some weren’t even realistic.

Let’s take a look.

1. Project Tone and Tighten: Goal – lose 3 lbs. of holiday weight gain and then maintain while also toning up all over. Verdict: Fail.

To be honest, I don’t think this one was a very good goal. First of all, lose 3 lbs. Really? That’s like the difference from one day to the next just in retaining water! 3 lbs. is laughable! While saying you want to maintain your current weight is good in theory, there are no parameters around that. No one can be the exact same weight every single day. Our bodies are too dynamic. So something like “stay within the 135-140 pound range while continuing to exercise daily and eat a healthy diet” would have been better.

Also, I never took measurements or before/after pics in January so there was no way to measure the “tone all over” part, other than what I can see in the mirror, which is definitely deceiving. That being said, I did try various workout programs (like the 30 day Shred, P90X and Kosama) to add variety to my workouts. I ultimately weigh the same today that I did when I made this resolution so I didn’t lose the 3 lbs but I did tone up a bit.

2. Operation Dream Home – Goal – sell our current house and buy our forever home. Verdict: Success!

We put a lot of time, money and effort in to getting our old house market ready and were able to sell it in 3 months, which is really good considering the market we were dealing with. There were some frustrations during that 3 months as I wanted things to move faster, but ultimately we got there.

We also found our dream home! At the time of making my resolution, I didn’t spell out any specifics of what that dream home should have but we later did when we were ready to shop. After searching for what seemed like months and looking at hundreds of houses, the very last one we looked at turned out to be “the one”. We’ve been living in it now for 3 months (OMG!) and couldn’t be happier with our home!

3. Mission Debt Diet – Goal – pay off all credit card debt and pay down loans while also creating a nest egg. Verdict: Fail.

This one was definitely not specific or actionable enough. It was also too lofty and not doable, particularly considering Operation Dream Home. I should have come up with specific dollar amounts to put aside each week/month for paying off the credit card and also determined a specific amount for savings. Instead I just threw whatever extra money we had at the credit card. Some months it was only $100 and others it was $600. However, one valuable lesson I learned was that you can’t be so focused on putting all your money toward one thing and forgetting another. I was so hell bent on getting the credit card balance paid off that I would put TOO much money toward it, leaving us with not enough to live on. So I would have to pull money from savings or start charging things, which just defeats the whole purpose. Slow and steady wins the race.

I paid off a good chunk of it for the first part of the year but then as we started working on the house, we added a bunch back on to it. Today, we’re sitting with a little less on the card then we had in January but still have a ways to go. I’m going to carry this goal over to next year only come up with a specific and achievable plan.

There you have it. Overall, I didn’t do all that great. However, I learned lessons that I can apply toward my goals for next year and hopefully be more successful! Stay tuned for my list of goals for 2012!

Oh! One item that I committed to in January which wasn’t really an “official” resolution was to write daily in my Perpetual Journal.

I can happily report that I have done just that! The fun part will be starting back at the beginning come January 1, 2012 and comparing each day of the New Year to the same day the year before. I imagine some days will be eerily similar (“long day at work, I’m tired”) while others will be drastically different (like on the days when we lost a loved one or something of significance happened). Should be interesting!