My Favorite Things: 2012 Goal Review

A good way to keep track of your goals and progress is to revisit them at the end of the indicated time and evaluate your progress. So I have decided to revisit my 2012 resolutions to track my progress in goal setting!

When you do this, remember that it is often just as important to celebrate the small steps toward a goal & goals you don't want to complete as it is to check things off of your list.

Here we go!

~~1) Try 100 new recipes~~

This goal was my BHAG {big hairy audacious goal} and I was really motivated/scared by it! I was SO happy that I was able to complete it, just before midnight on New Year's Eve! I have so far posted all but 6 of the recipes to this blog. I should have them up fairly soon! I will also post my top 12 recipes of the year and my cookbook reviews coming up soon! Through the process I found some really good and really bad recipes! I am happy to say that most were pretty darn good. I definitely found some new favorites, which was the goal. Through this process I feel like a fairly accomplished home cook! :) I've got new skills! I hope you are enjoying the recipes that I have shared so far, and enjoy the last few that have yet to be added! {there are some GREAT ones left! :)}

~~2) obtain and sustain the life of 3 new plants~~

Completed/failed: Depends on how you look at it. Kyle bought me an ivy topiary in February and then at the end of March we bought 7 herbs and planted them. The ivy is still alive and the herbs lasted through most of the summer. It was a dreadfully hot summer here, so that was not ideal for growing anything. So because herbs aren't meant to live year-round, {at least most} this is sort of a pass. This year I made a goal to buy 3 house plants. Which is a better goal I think.

~~3) read 20 books {one more than I finished in 2011}~~

I realized around Christmas time that I needed to read 2 more books. Luckily I picked The Giver and my sister-in-law Kelsey had the companion Gathering Blue. I was able to read each of those very quickly! I was proud that I knocked 2 more classics off of my list and one being the massive Anna Karenina. Favorites among the 20 were: The Host By: Stephene Meyer, Persuasion By: Jane Austen, Elixir By: Hilary Duff, Water for Elephants By: Sara Gruen, Anna Karenina By: Leo Tolstoy and The Giver books By: Lois Lowery.

~~4) make a miller scrapbook~~

I was severely behind on this goal until the last week of March when I went into a scrapbooking frenzy! I have HUNDREDS of pictures from my 2 1/2 years at Miller and its proving to be quite the project! So far I have filled up the pages the scrapbook came with and made one page beyond that! Still more to go, but I think I am about halfway done! I loved this goal, it was a wonderful creative outlet! I am excited to finish it and start more for other subjects :)

~~5) go to 5 new places~~

Completed! Our honeymoon in January took us to Quebec, Canada, It put me on a plane, Our spring break road trip then took us to 5 cities in Texas! Then we went to Tulsa in April and Minneapolis/St. Paul in August! We were busy travelers! :)

~~6) find eco-friendly hair products that I like~~

I have been trying out shampoos and conditioners.. but haven't found any great ones for my hair yet. Looking into doing simple vinegar rinses.. but I am not a huge fan of vinegar! :) I found a wonderful hair cream to use after I wash my hair that works great and smells like a tropical paradise, without the chemical fragrance! I will post about it at some point. So this was a small success! :)

~~7) compost!~~

Completed/Failed: Depends on how you look at this, we realized that there really isn't a good way for us to compost in our tiny apartment with no yard. So we started and then had to quit. There wasn't anywhere to put our food scraps. We are looking forward to having our own home someday where we can compost, or joining a community that has its own compost area.

8) become a merc member

We did not do this. We couldn't decide if it was the best move. Even though it isn't in our 2013 list.. we might continue to weigh our options. :)

9) use daily feats consistently

In the beginning I did pretty well on this goal. I was interviewed by daily feats and did a lot of phone interviews for improving their website. It was fun to help them out :) I downloaded the app when I got my iphone but I have so many feats saved that it takes FOREVER to load. So I need to really do that on the computer instead. So this is a fail, but I still managed to donate quite a bit of money to Companions to Heroes. :)

~~10) blog at least 3 times per month~~

I managed to blog at least 3 times every month except for August. Which makes sense. August is busy with the start of school. I made this goal more for the overall number of posts than the monthly ones so it worked out the way I wanted it to. I posted over the number of times expected this year even though I didn't post 3 times in August. Thank you for reading!!! :)

~~11) shop at the farmer's market~~ regularly

We visited the farmer's market 3 times this season (April-October) this is by no means regularly, but much more than we would have gone otherwise. So I consider this a small success.

~~12) explore local parks and nature trails~~

Kyle and I visited the McGrew nature trail off of 15th street in Lawrence. It was nice for the neighborhood, but not really very outdoorsy. Many more to see though! I didn't get very far on this goal, but I still consider it a pass because I would have seen zero had this not been on my list. :)

13) get into a yoga routine with kyle

We had a few weeks or so where we did really well, but it was on and off so not at all completed. The problem was that I didn't specifically lay out a goal for our routine. So it wasn't set up to be completed. This year's goal is much better. But through trying to complete this goal we did accomplish important things like getting 2 air conditioner units and re-arrange our living room countless times. Now we finally have a decent set up where there is room to do yoga on the floor! This is a pretty darn great thing, even if I didn't accomplish what I wanted to initially.

So I felt like I "completed" or made significant progress on 9 out of 12 goals! Really not bad!

Other Accomplishments in 2012:

Interviewed by Daily Feats!

Graduated from KU!!

Got an A++ in my internship hours!

Gained over 30,000 blog views on this blog! {thanks for reading!}

Finished Anna Karenina!! :)