Out With the Old, In With the New

Happy 2011! I'm still in my pajamas, and I woke up at 9:30. So, so far 2011 has been perfect ;). Hahaha. With the entire day free to do whatever I want (and that includes staying in my pj's all day), I figure it's a good time to re-visit my 2010 goals, hold myself accountable to them, updating the blog world at large on my overall success for the year, and set new goals. I find that I really enjoyed updating my blog about where I was as far as meeting the goals I set for myself. And so I will be doing that again this year. But first to the update:

Out With the Old
In 2010, I set a goal to:
Liken the scriptures. I did not do well with this at all. I will have to try a different tactic this year. I read scriptures daily. But I so easily content myself with "surface reading" rather than really applying them to my life.

Go to the Temple more often. Well, I can officially say I went to the Temple more often in 2010 than in 2009. But only by 1 time. But I have started going with a great group of ladies each month, so this should improve.

Become more humble. Pretty sure I failed on this one. And pretty sure Elka was right when she told me to be careful to ask for humility. As indicated in the previous post, 2010 was a very hard year full of very hard occurrences. Most of which I can't understand. And I probably should have used them as learning experiences. I probably should have tried to gain humility from them. I don't think I did. I think I became more bitter. I am not including this on my 2011 goals. I don't think I want another year like this one. I may get it anyway, but since I'm not really awesome at dealing with it and becoming humble, I don't want to look back and say "I should have been more humble, since I asked for it, but I failed at that" again this year, since I have to acknowledge that very thing for 2010.

Build My Savings Account. I did this. I met my goal for what I wanted in my savings account. And despite the fact that I had to wipe out several other funds to take care of the essential stuff that popped up this year, I haven't had to touch my savings.

Be Debt-free. I succeeded in this. I remain debt-free. And I have been successful for a year in using my credit card for monthly purchases and paying it off each month. All the benfits of points, none of the bad stuff like interest charges. I'm liking this. It helped me get a lot of stuff this past year for free.

3 Months Food Storage/Necessities. I did not do well with this. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around what I need to get, like how much and what.

Start Gardening. I did this. And I really enjoyed it. And though my original goal had been to only grow tomatoes and cucumbers, I also grew acorn squash, green bell peppers, and strawberries. I got a crop from all of them (though admittedly, the strawberries were not plentiful this year, since it was the first year for them). I got an especially great crop of tomatoes. And I enjoyed fresh tomato salsa (which I am totally craving) and we made home-made Ro-Tel! We still have 3 or 4 equivalents of a store-bought can frozen for use.

Walk. I have continued to do this. At one point, I was walking about 5 times a week between walking with Lea and walking with Sue. However, now I have only been walking with Sue 2 times a week most of the time. It has been good for me. And I have enjoyed it immensely, the walking with friends.

Lose 20 pounds. I'm not completely finished with this goal. But I am very close. I have lost between 14 and 16 pounds. Technically I only have 4 to 6 to go to meet my goal. But to get to where I was most of the time in Tuscaloosa, I'd have to lose about 6 to 8 more. It has not really been hard for me. I think it's just a mindset, really. So I anticipate the remainder of the weight will come off easily enough. And I'm okay with it taking a few months. I'd rather lose it slowly and maintain it. One thing I'm particularly happy about is that I maintained -- and even lost -- through the holidays!

Trim apple trees for production. Well it turns out this task needs someone who is not an amateur. I trimmed off a few branches here and there, but it's a way more massive undertaking than I can do with mere hedge-trimmers. We are hoping to have someone come out to trim them in the next month or so, since they say it needs to be done during the winter. But I will report we did get some good parts of apples from the trees. And we made a few apple crisps (and still have some apples frozen to make future apple crisps).

Get a laptop. Done. And it does everything I want. Woohoo!

Accept that there are some things I cannot control. The fact remains. I still don't do well at accepting it, though. Enough said.

Go someplace new. Did this. Twice. I went to the Oregon Coast with my mom in August. And I went to Savannah, Georgia with Julie. Ironically enough, that means I saw both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans this year within a month. And while this was not such a shocking occurence when I lived in Panama (since only 50 miles of land separate the two oceans), it's a much huger undertaking when living in the U.S.

In With the New
My goals for 2011:
Attend the Temple monthly. I will probably do better with this if I am specific rather than just saying "more often." And also, the ladies I go with and I have set a specific date each month, and this will help us all be available and therefore more apt to be consistent.

Read scriptures for 30 minutes each day. Again, putting an actual time-frame on this will help me, I think.

Write in my journal weekly. As a teenager, I wrote in my journal daily. It was mostly just the details of my every day life. But I have looked back on my journals at times in the past and appreciated knowing what I was doing and such back then. I think that is partly why I have such clear recollections of some details of my life back then. Most especially my crushes ;). These days I write in my journal mostly when I'm having a rough day. And my journal is filled with my emotions and feelings now rather than the daily happenings of my life. And both are good (the happenings and the emotions). I just think if I write more often, that there will be a better mix of the two.

Write 30 minutes a day. As I mentioned before, I noticed my writing ability was better in Tuscaloosa when I wrote more often. And as I also mentioned before, I have heard many writers say that, if you want to write, you need to write daily. I have a lot of ideas for things floating around in my head. But they aren't doing me any good there, so I need to do something that will.

Continue adding to my savings account. I have a goal in mind for where I want to be at the end of the year. I don't feel it would be appropriate to list it here, though. So I will keep this one vague and general.

Become organized and stay that way. Once I get all my files and stuff into order, I need to make sure to keep them that way. I don't need to put aside "to be shredded" papers. I need to just shred them immediately. Otherwise, I never get around to the shredding pile and it becomes clutter.

Achieve at least one of my "bucket list" items. This one may be tricky. Most of those items cost money. And I don't really have extra of that. And some of them require other things to happen first, and I don't necessarily have control over that. But I can always set the goal and try, right?

See a new place. I'm adding this to my goals again. Because I want to eventually see all 50 states, so I need to see a new one every once in a while, right :)?

Lose about 8 more pounds. This will help me complete my goal and reach my "I'm happy with myself" weight.

72 Hour Kits. I have a few odds and ends already collected, but I need to organize it, make a list of the things I don't have, and get it prepared. What is this for? Well, this is in case of an emergency that would require me to evacuate my house for some reason. Earthquake for example. It's good to have what I need for survival for 3 days.

3 to 6 months food storage. I'm adding this again. Because I really do feel it is important. I just need to find a better way of achieving it. And part of what I will do to achieve it is to really sit down and think about what I need to survive. I think if I pick it apart and break it down, I will be successful.

Expand my garden. Not making it bigger so much as just having a bigger variety. I will not plant 60-something tomato plant seeds this year. I will not plant 14 tomato plants. I will plant 4 and I will do cucumbers again, and acorn squash. Also pumpkin, jalapenos, green peppers, and lettuce. Most of these I will try to start from seeds I got from last year's harvest. The tomatoes, however, I will buy new seeds. Because I will not be growing the big tomatoes again, as they don't typically do as well. Not enough ripening time here for them. So I'm going to try roma tomatoes and grape tomatoes. Someone recently said, "Learning to garden when you need to know how to survive is not the right time to learn. You need to already know before you NEED to know." So true. So I am learning. I'm learning what works for my area. Also, I want to try a winter garden next year as well. Why not grow things year-round if possible?

Spend less time online and more reading. My goal is 30 books this year. There was a time in my life when I conquered that goal of 30 books in 3 or 4 months. But that was a long time ago. I read 21 books in 2010, so I think I might succeed in making 30 this year. This means I need to give more time to that (reading) and less time on the computer. I am tempted to limit myself to twice a day checking of my email and facebook and blog stuff. I'm not sure if I can succeed in that, though. But I do need to cut back on computer time and increase my reading for pleasure time. Because I love love love to read. And I have enjoyed delving back into the book world in 2010, as I have almost doubled the number of books I read in 2010 from 2009. Plus if I manage to read all 30 books to meet my goal, I will have finished most of my "to-read" list :).

Some of these are big goals. And so I am hoping to actually implement this year the idea of breaking those goals down by month. And by week if necessary.

It feels good to see the things I accomplished in writing. It doesn't feel so good to know that I didn't conquer all my goals. But that's just part of life. And so I start this new year off fresh. I have new goals (some of them are kind of like the old ones), and I try again. But because I succeeded in several areas, I know I have done good things for myself. I know I have improved in at least some areas. And I hope 2011 will allow me to improve in more areas. Because I am quite imperfect. But I can definitely work toward being perfect, even if I never make it in this life.