July "Goals:" New York City!

This year, my usual travelling buddies were unavailable. Henry didn't have any extra time off left over to travel after all his family trips and obligations were accounted for, and Steamboat Willie didn't feel comfortable making travel plans while she was also planning on making a big move. So I had to get a little more creative, rather than just moving on to the next item on my travel list with one of those two, and asked my sister and brother-in-law (who live in upstate New York) if they'd be willing to meet me in New York City for a long weekend. They were on board so last weekend we spent a few hectic days running around and trying to cram as much as possible into two and a half days.

I took far less photos than I normally do, since my family is not nearly as big into photo taking as Steamboat Willie or Henry, but I still have a nice collection.

Our hotel was only a few blocks from Times Square. I still haven't figured out why it's so famous, but all the lights are pretty at night if you can avoid getting run over by all the people!

One item on my bucket list has always been to see a show on Broadway--accomplished! We saw Porgy and Bess. It was a great show, but more of a tear jerker than I was expecting.

We took the ferry ride past the Statue of Liberty. It was cool to really see the Statue of Liberty, but I have to say I appreciated the view all the way along the ride!

We also went to see Cirque du Soleil--something I had always thought about doing but just never done when I had the chance. Some of the acrobats were really amazing, although there were other parts that I got a little bored during. By far, I think my favorite thing about the show was that it was held in Radio City Music Hall--it was an AMAZING venue. I really wish I had taken a few more photos of the interior of this place--it is absolutely stunning.

We spent quite a bit of time testing out some of NYC's famous bakeries and cafes. I had never heard of Roccos before, but my sister recommended it as her favorite bakery and it was absolutely worth stopping in it! I think their dessert menu was around 4 pages long--it had everything from standard cakes and pies to things I had heard about but never seen anyone make (Minnesota doesn't have quite so many bakeries...) and things I had never even heard of. They also had amazing coffee. 

After spending the morning in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which I think I could have stayed in for a week and still not seen everything), we took a walk back through Central Park, stopping for a little bit to listen to a jazz band that was playing.

101 Things List: Matting a Picture

A few years ago, I took a class in cutting custom mats for pictures. I framed two awesome pictures, bought a nice mat cutter at a garage sale and then didn't do a darn thing about it. It was a cool skill that I wanted to make sure I remembered, so I added this to my 101 things list. A few weeks ago, though, Steamboat Willie and some friends had a craft night that resulted in a few pretty cards that Steamboat Willie wanted to frame to put up in her new living room once she moves. This presented a great opportunity for me to cross something off my list, remember how to mat pictures and help my roommate out.

So last week I took a quick break from packing and did this:

I think they turned out pretty well (at least, the parts you can see--my blade was dull, so the edges hidden by the frame aren't as nice). I'm also happy to have remembered that cutting mats isn't as difficult as I thought--and  definitely not worth the money to have someone else do it!

February Mini-Goals Wrap Up

For a broad overview of this month: I did ok. I didn't cross everything off my list of goals, but I did accomplish some things (and generally they were the most important and time sensitive things).

1. Maintain my current weight: Well...Henry's birthday was yesterday. Before all the birthday celebrations started I was back to my current weight, but as of this morning I most definitely was not. With a lot of water and some walking, I think I have a good chance of making it back there!
2. Stay caught up with homework: Done. Thank goodness, this month was easier and less time consuming, so I am comfortably caught up and hope to remain so.
3. Make a trip to the recycling center/Goodwill: This didn't happen. I'm hoping to convince Henry to tell me what I can take soon so I can take this trip in March, rather than continuing to haul all my stuff for the recycling center in my trunk.
4. List all the TV shows from my brother: Done. I shipped out quite a few of them, and the last two days are the first since I listed them that I haven't had outstanding orders that I should be shipping. There's still quite a box full, though. I also shipped a few things out for Henry, and I hope to keep working on that!
5. Cross one more thing off my list: Done, finally! I threw a nerdy board game party for Henry's birthday, which I am fully counting towards my "throw a nerdy board game party" item.
6. Pull off a good birthday celebration for Henry: I win. Not only did he like all of his gifts, I successfully through him a surprise party and took him out for dinner as well.
7. Get rid of one large box of my stuff: Pretty much done. I got rid of one medium-large box of stuff (to the trash), and set aside enough to fill the rest of that large box in items to go to Goodwill. I will keep working on this!!
8. Stick to my budget: Done. I transferred $850 into my savings account on top of my tax refunds, which is making things look quite nice. 

February Goals Update

I did not make a whole lot of progress on my goals this week. Most of the time I'm relatively fine with my never-ending list of things to accomplish, but every now and again I still hit a "rebellious teenager" phase and decide I'm tired of accomplishing things and I just want to sleep in and do nothing. That definitely happened to me this week! So, rather than working on my goals, I went out for dinner, went bowling and watched a lot of episodes of Hell's Kitchen. Today I'm back to homework, but it was a nice little break!

1. Maintain my current weight: I gained some weight this week, but we'll see whether it sticks around or whether it was a temporary result of my bad decisions!
2. Stay caught up with homework: For now, I'm still on track with this. After putting in so much time in January, things have slowed down quite a bit. I still have a lot of panic moments where I feel like I MUST be behind since I'm not putting in 30-40 hours a week anymore, but I'm pretty sure I'm still caught up.
3. Make a trip to the recycling center/Goodwill. Not yet--I think I'm going to try to get to the recycling center this week. We'll see how much stuff I can get out of the house!
4. List all the movies/TV shows from my brother: I mailed out a few more last week and have a few more to go out this week already. Also, Henry has sold a few items on Craigslist and eBay, so his house is starting to (slowly) empty out!)
5. Cross one more thing off my list: Not yet. I did make some progress on a few items (made some new recipes, read Les Miserables, attempted and failed to get 120 points in bowling) but nothing to cross off yet.
6. Pull off a good birthday celebration for Henry: Eight more days! All his gifts are bought, and now I just have to figure out if HE has any plans before I make plans for him.
7. Get rid of one large box of my stuff: This is also on the docket for this week. 
8. Stick to my budget: Depending on how I do this week with grocery shopping/gas/other expenses, I should either be right on target to make my savings goal, or just under. I had previously planned to buy my nephew's birthday gift next month, but decided to move it up to make sure it got here before his birthday, which might shift the budget just enough to reduce the amount I put in savings. If this happens, it shouldn't be a big deal--I'll just increase the amount for next month!

February Mini-Goals: Update Week 2

Things are going slower in February than they did in January, but I have to say I'm really enjoying the slower pace! Friday I went to my nephew's school play and then went out with friends, AND yesterday I spent a few hours reading a book that wasn't a textbook, and I'm not behind yet! After such a hectic January, that feels absolutely wonderful. So, a quick update to keep me on track:

1. Maintain my current weight: I think I'm doing all right on this, but the scale has been a little screwy lately so I'm not 100% sure. I'm trying very hard to cut back on chocolate and sugar now that the worst of my stress is hopefully over (yes, even though the timer for my chocolate cake went off just as I was typing that...) and I've gotten in a few more times of walking lately. 
2. Stay caught up with homework: Still a success! A few very difficult things fell into place the last few weeks, so I think there's a change I'm actually a little bit ahead. It's a blissful feeling.
3. Make a trip to the recycling center/Goodwill: Not yet. But I did list some of Henry's nicer electronics on eBay at his request, and it looks like they'll be on their way out of the house soon!
4. List all the movies and TV shows from my brother: Done. Three of them are already on their way to their new owners, and I sold two more over the weekend. 
5. Cross one thing off of my list: Not done yet. I'm adding some updates this week, though, as I make some new recipes from my cookbooks (hence the chocolate cake--at least, I'm willing to blame the chocolate cake on my goal!)
6. Pull off a good birthday celebration for Henry: Still on track, although it's a few weeks away.
7. Get rid of one large box of my stuff: Not done yet, although I was looking around this week and getting some ideas of things I can clean out.
8. Stick to my budget: I ran my budget a few days ago and it looks like I'm still on track! I'll have to keep behaving myself for the next couple weeks as I buy the rest of Henry's birthday present, but I should be able to meet my goal if I did all my calculations right.

And now...I'm running out of reasons to postpone my last bit of homework for the weekend. Time to get back to it!

February Mini-Goals: Update

I haven't made progress on a lot of my goals, but I'm still feeling like a huge success because I finally just submitted one of the most time-intensive homework projects I've ever done! The project I just turned in (which I had exactly a month to do) might have taken me more time to complete than my capstone project for my Bachelor's degree.

1. Maintain/lose weight: I'm successfully maintaining so far--and hoping I'll be able to exercise an extra day or two this week!
2. Stay caught up with homework: Success! This is the first time since I've started school that I actually feel caught up. After turning in my assignment this morning, I have actually finished everything that's due this week. I have another project that I need to start on, but it's a pretty great feeling to know that if I take today off from homework, I'm not going to be causing trouble for myself.
3. Make a trip to the recycling center/Goodwill: I haven't done this yet. But--Henry let me clean out all the old clothes from his closet and dresser to have a garage sale sometime this spring. At least we're getting prepared!
4. List the movies and TV shows from my brother: I haven't done this yet, but am hoping to get a start on it this week. 
5. Cross one thing off my list: No progress yet--to be honest, I'm not sure what I'm going to try to accomplish this month!
6. Pull off a birthday celebration for Henry: I picked up about half of his birthday present and decided where I'm going to take him to dinner (I think,) but if he doesn't come up with any more plans I might try to plan something else for him, too!
7. Get rid of one large box of my stuff: Again, I haven't done this yet.
8. Stick to my budget: I'm not sure how well this is going. I picked up about half of Henry's birthday present, the birthday present for my nephew and a few other things that I probably didn't need (my 2011 photo book, and a new book to reward myself for finally finishing my assignment). That took care of most of the things I was planning on buying, though, so hopefully the rest of the month will be easier. At any rate, I did submit my taxes yesterday, and I'm certainly excited to get a nice refund to add to my savings account!

And now, off to finish a few more productive things before we head out for a Superbowl party!

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Goals for February

My goals for February are shaping up to be pretty similar to January, but there are at least a few things I'm hoping to cross off my list for good!

1. Maintain my current weight. Best case scenario, I'd like to lose a pound this month, but realistically I'm shooting for maintaining. Honestly, the way that January went I think that will be a decent level challenge for me!
2. Stay caught up in school. This is going to be hard, no question about it. There is a lot of reading, pretty regular papers and projects due, and starting next week I'm going to have to start finding people who will barter their time and opinion for cookies. I need guinea pigs for the instruction I'm developing, and unfortunately I picked a topic with a pretty specific target audience. Once of these days, I hope I'll learn to stop making things harder for myself than I need to! In the meantime, I'm going to continue striving to stay caught up.
3. Make a trip to the recycling center and/or Goodwill. I'm helping Henry clean out his rather cluttered house, including the corners of the basement that have sat untouched for years. It is going to be a long process, but I have him convinced to let go of at least a few things and I want to take advantage of it while I can! My method of cleaning is generally focused around getting rid of everything I haven't used in the last year, so his pack-rat nature drives me NUTS no matter how hard I try to be patient. It's a work in progress for both of us.
4. List all of the movies and TV shows my brother gave me to sell and at least some of the items Henry is planning to sell online. I've always sold books, movies, CDs, etc. online if I decided I didn't want them anymore; apparently I've inspired them both! My brother gave me a box of DVDs at Christmas which have been sitting in a corner until now; it's time to get them out of the house! 
5. Cross one thing off my list. I'd love to do more, but unfortunately I don't think I'll have a lot of time to dedicate to many items on this list beyond #1: Getting my graduate certificate.
6. Pull off a good birthday celebration of some sort for Henry. His birthday is at the end of the month and while I doubt I can live up to the trip to Vegas he decided on last year for his birthday, I'd at least like to avoid another year where he forgets his birthday.
7. Get rid of at least one large box of my own stuff. My lease is up at the end of April and I would like to have less stuff to move. I did some pretty heavy-duty cleansing after the last time I moved so I am going to have a much harder time purging this time, but I'm pretty confident I can still find things that aren't worth moving. 
8. Stick to my budget and add at least $800 to my savings account (in addition to my tax return). Again, this is going to be a challenge (especially with Henry's birthday this month and my nephew's birthday right away in March), but will be worth it in the long run.

Most of these are difficult goals for me because there's no good way to cross them off the list. Getting to the end of the month and staying caught up with my homework doesn't have the same level of satisfaction as crossing as many things as possible off my list quickly. I've also got a lot more goals this month, so we'll see how things go!

January Goals Wrap-Up

I did not achieve all my goals for January, but I'm relatively pleased with what I did accomplish. I absolutely did not anticipate the crazy amount of homework I'd be doing this month, which ended up adjusting pretty much all of my plans and goals!

1. Lose 3 pounds: Fail. I stabilized my weight after the holidays and broke even, and to be honest, I consider that an accomplishment for the month. Between stress, lack of sleep, lack of time to exercise and trying to adjust to my new food budget, I could easily have gained a lot of weight this month. I wish I could make losing weight more of a priority, but as long as I need to spend 4+ hours a day every weekday on my laptop to finish all of my homework, I think my goal is just going to be maintenance. I'm going to strive for more, but I'm afraid that is the most realistic goal for me at this point.
2. Stay caught up in both my classes. For the first time since my first day of class, I'm feeling relatively caught up--I hope it lasts! I have a massive assignment due on February 6--if I can make that happen, I should be all right. 
3. Cross at least two more things off my list: Done! I actually crossed four items off. I learned how to make risotto and brownies (successfully twice now!!), learned how to install a light fixture and made sasparilla. This is definitely one of the more successful items for the month!
4. Get caught up at work: Done-ish. I'm not sure if there is such a thing as being completely caught up for me, but right now I think I'm as close as I will get for quite some time. And the forums were great, with some wonderful food for thought!
5. Stick to my new budget: Success! It didn't make a noticeable difference in my savings account, thanks to my tuition and car insurance being due this month, but if I can stick to it next month I should see the rewards.
6. Make sasparilla: Done. It's ok, but not as tasty as I was hoping. It will probably be awhile before I do this again.

Now, time to figure out my goals for February. Homework, budgeting and weight will be involved somehow, but there are quite a few other things on my long-term to-do list that need to start making their way onto my monthly list. We'll see how it goes--now, back to finishing homework!

Mini-Goals Update

This January, I am finding myself really, really missing the beginning of last semester. At that point, I could safely finish most of my homework within about 8-10 hours every Sunday and be caught up and ready to go for class on Monday.


Not so much this semester. I just finished my homework to-do list to get me through February 1; it has 19 items, including several hundred pages of reading, a few papers and some assignments that I don't even know how to do yet. This is unfortunately seriously cutting into my time for working on my other goals. While I knew this was a possibility with taking two classes, I have to say the workload for one class in particular is really surprising me. I was expecting it to be more similar to my homework load from last semester, and I'm instead finding it to be double or triple the time, even putting in less quality work. So, here comes my update!

1. Weight loss: utter fail. At this point, I'm just hoping to make it through January without gaining any weight. Between the stress and the fact that my routine has pretty much consisted of going to work, doing homework from 5:30 until midnight, sleeping and then repeating, I have not been eating well or exercising. I got in 2 days of walking this week (while doing my readings for class) and even those were a test of my motivation.
2. Stay caught up in my classes: This is, so far at least, not a complete failure. I'm certainly not ahead like I was hoping to be, but I'm not behind quite yet. We'll see where the next few weeks take me, as I have a HUGE assignment due in one class during the first full week of February.
3. Cross two more things off my list: Done. I'd love to repeat this goal in February, but I'm not sure it is something that will be do-able.
4. Get caught up at work. My forums are this week! For the moment I am about as caught up as I get. I still have tons of things that need to be done, but I don't believe I have anyone holding their breath on what I get done at this point. Of course, that could change tomorrow, but I'm trying to keep things under control as much as possible.
5. Stick to my new budget. I have actually been doing all right on this goal, which surprises me. By cutting way down on going out to eat and on my grocery bill, I've actually cut down on my spending quite a bit. Next month will be more of a challenge, as Henry's birthday is coming up at the end of the month, my youngest nephew's birthday is at the beginning of March, and the tabs for my car will be coming due.
6. Make sasparilla: Done. It's not quite as tasty as I was hoping for, but it was an interesting experiment.

I'm starting to get a bit less stressed about this semester this week. Part of it is probably just me adjusting to the lack of time to myself, but part of it is also probably that I took a few more hours for myself this weekend. I know I'm not going to be able to keep this pace up for four months, though, so I'm really hoping that things start to slow down after my first huge assignment is due in February. While I told my friends I wasn't planning on being able to see them until the semester ended in May, I don't think I really believed it, and I'm already of having to turn people down who want to see me because I need to spend yet another Friday night or Saturday on homework.

Mini-Goals Update

Lack of willpower aside, I did make some progress on my January goals.

1. Except for my weight loss goal. That was definitely a fail. I only worked out three days this week, and my progress on my 101 things list involved making both risotto and brownies. My goal for next week is to add at least one more workout and cut out the pan of brownies!
2. I have done homework every day this week except Friday, and it looks like that will be the pattern for the next few weeks. My goal is to finish all my readings for the week, finish my first PowerPoint presentation, revise my final project from last semester, register for Second Life and get started on my second PowerPoint presentation.
3. This week, I crossed two things off my list. I successfully made brownies and risotto! I'll continue working on reading Les Miserables, but I definitely need to take a break from all the food goals for awhile.

The Erosion of Willpower

I read an article once that pointed out that the reason people frequently fail at their goals is trying to do too many things at once--in specific, too many things that they have to force themselves to do. The article claimed that people have a finite amount of willpower, which is one reason why stress makes it so difficult to accomplish things.

My finite amount of willpower was used up this week.

It seems that I don't have quite enough willpower to exercise 5 days a week, eat healthy, go to class 2 days, do homework every day, concentrate steadily on work every day, and drastically reduce my spending. Because by the time all of that is done in a day, not have I run out of time to do anything fun to recharge myself, but it's generally about 2 hours later than I planned on getting to sleep.

I'm trying very hard to get ahead in my classes (class ends the same week as my lease is up, so I'm going to need to be ahead of the game on everything if I expect to make it through without taking a good part of the week off), so I'm hoping that if I succeed my homework load will go down soon. Also, it will be several more weeks before I have a week when I have to attend both my classes. I'm hoping those two things will help! Because I'm not ready to give up on any of my goals, but at this rate I'm not likely to achieve them.

Evidence: Thursday was the first day this week that I had the entire evening to myself. I intended to get a huge amount of homework done, do a workout video, and celebrate by watching the new episode of Once Upon a Time with Steamboard Willie. What really happened: I did read two short chapters of homework, but I spent the rest of the evening on the couch watching TV, and then I went to bed early.

Hopefully I figure something out, or I'm afraid I'll be recording some disappointing results for some of my January (and February, March and April!) goals.

Update on January Mini-Goals

January is flying by. I can't believe it's already the eighth; I hope the rest of the month continues to fly! Because tomorrow, life is going to start getting a lot more complicated. School starts; I'll be in two classes and "graduating" in May. To be prepared, I've been doing my best to work on my goals as much as possible in this first week.

1. I'm honestly not sure how I'm doing on my weight loss goal. My weight has fluctuated so much in the last month, between the holidays and being sick, that I'm not sure what my real base weight was! While I'm not giving up on this goal, I am not going to be heartbroken if I don't get to the weight I had in mind, as long as things keep going in a generally lighter direction!
2. When my last class ended, the professor recommended that we work ahead to be prepared for this semester. While I haven't put in nearly as much work as I intended to, I do have a little bit of a jump start. It's still going to be a heck of an effort to stay caught up, but hopefully this headstart will help.
3. I'm doing a pretty good job at tackling my list! I have quite a few things in progress, although some of them (mostly my reading projects) are undoubtedly going to be put on hold now that school is starting. Yesterday, I did cross one item off the list; Henry taught me to install a light fixture. That's one of the little house tasks that people have always told me is easy, and I just felt like I should be able to do. For Christmas, I bought Henry a few new light fixtures for his house, so it was a good opportunity to learn. It may have taken me two or three times as long as it would have taken him, but I have a pretty decent idea of how to put things together in the future!
4. I'm not sure there is such a thing as being all the way caught up for me at work, but I am definitely getting closer. My first day back at work I finished three manuals, which finished one massive upgrade project that I've been working on since September. As long as I keep focused, I should be able to safely attend my forums.
5. So far, I am on budget! It's still going to be a rough month based on tuition and car insurance, but I've managed to stay under budget so far as far as my normal expenses of gas and groceries, which should help. My goal is to keep on a relatively strict budget for the rest of the year; I'd like to put $10,000 in savings this year. It won't be easy, but Henry and I have been talking about taking a trip to Europe and I'd like to be able to go without regret. On top of that, I've been looking at a lot of people my age and realizing that I'm going to be making my future life a lot more difficult if I don't get a little more discipline. While I'm certainly not in bad shape, if I really focus on saving, I'll be in much better shape when it comes time for me to buy a house.
6. My sasparilla turned out great! I actually did most of the work for this on New Year's Eve before heading out to a party, but it's ready to drink now. It was a surprisingly easy process; I just had to mix a bunch of stuff together and bottle it. The longest part of the process, hands down, was sanitizing all of the equipment. My sasparilla doesn't take like the stuff I remember buying anywhere--I remember it tasting more like cream soda, where mine tastes like root beer barrel candies. 

In the next week, my goals are to focus on school, get back into exercising (now that most of my sickness has disappeared) and, to cross one or two more things off my list for the month, try to make both risotto and brownies.