new year, new goals

Happy 2014! Last year, I wrote this to recap the previous year and lay out the goals for 2013.  Those were:

1. Find the perfect coconut cream pie recipe.  No progress.  
2. Finish the bulk of Baby #2s baby book.  Done!
3. Find the perfect mac and cheese recipe. Again, no progress. Weird since these should be easier.
4. Add to the Life List.   Added 3--and completed 1--item(s) in January.
5. Eat lunch with someone one day a week.   Maybe about 1/3 of the time?
6. Accomplish more on the house (kitchen and landscaping).  Kitchen mostly done and dining room done. All house trim painted (while we were on vacation--even better!).  Had foyer and front porch lights installed.  Front yard done for now plus work completed in 2 of the backyard beds.  Guest bath finished. Living room painted, started re-staining furniture, hung gallery wall, rearranged furniture. Ripped down the wallpaper in the kids' bath.  So basically blew this one out of the water.
7. Throw really good birthday parties for the kids. Done!
8. Run a 5k.  Done!  In early January!  And multiple times throughout the year.
9. One fun outing a month with either the entire family or just me and one/both kid(s).  I think we did this at least 10 months (and several months had more than one).  We maybe did those other 2 months but I just didn't keep track very well.
10. Date night/excursion at least once a month with Hubby.  We actually did this. 
11. Make it through the Marriage to the Max podcasts as well.  We went to D&M in February and have listened to a few more podcasts. I also had brunch with half of the Hursts.  Pretty successful but still need to listen to more podcasts.

So all in all, not too shabby. Just two relatively minor goals that I made no progress on. And a couple that were partial successes. Yea for the rest! Hopefully #9 and 10 are now just part of normal life so I'll be able to keep them up. So what's the plan for this year?

1. Seriously try to have lunch with someone once a week. But I'll consider it a success if it's about 75% of the time. I really need to try this one again for multiple reasons. (Really bad at this so far...)
2. Eat better. This isn't the "oh, I have to lose 5 pounds thing." I don't, luckily, have issues there but I have been eating like crap since Buns was born. I guess I was trying to make up for the strict gestational diabetes diet. As he's almost 18 months old, I think I should be done making up for it. So more protein, fewer carbs, more water.
3. To really train for the marathon relay in March. It's only 6.55 miles but I want to be faster than last year. (Check! Trained less than I wanted to but more than last year. Beat my time by 11 minutes.)
4. I think I'd also like to try a half marathon. I don't think I'd ever be able to run the whole thing but I'm pretty sure I could drag myself over the distance. I think this will get added to the Life List.
5. Speaking of, cross 3 things off the Life List. I won't limit myself here. (Pay off student loans, ride a gondola, ?)
6. For the house, I'd like to get a lot of the little projects done--stain/paint the picnic table, finish staining the living room furniture, stain/reupholster the breakfast room furniture, upholster our headboard. And I'd like to finish the kids' bath. (Check!) It's in a scary state right now. Ok, and I'd like to at least make a plan for the office. (Check!) I want need a wall of built-ins but I have no idea exactly how I want things to look or how I'd like the rest of the room to play out. Except I really want a sliding barn door. Outside, I'd like to keep everything alive, move the backyard trees to the side of the house, sod the areas in the front where we no longer want beds, and start the butterfly garden in the back.
7. Write a will. Hubby got this done last year but I didn't. Totally need to get on that.
8. Blog more. (Sort of.) I hate that I've fallen off the wagon here. Granted, it's hard to keep all the balls up in the air but writing is good for me. And I like to keep folks posted on the goings on as it seems so hard to get together while raising tiny humans.
9. (and 10) Some things are just personal. These two are. But I'm going to at least acknowledge that there are 2 additional goals to try to hold myself accountable.

So there. Even 10. Hopefully this year will be as good as the last goal-wise. A lot of people seem to have commented lately on how bad a year 2013 was. I don't know. Seemed ok to me. I got the hang of parenting 2 kids (well, I feel better about it anyway). We didn't really have any major personal disasters. Everyone is relatively healthy and safe. My work role changed for the better even though it is often frustrating and I currently (obviously) have zero motivation. It was really the first year since 2005 that there was no major life event. And that? Is kind of awesome.