{"id":3267,"date":"2011-01-03T22:30:58","date_gmt":"2011-01-03T22:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/?p=3267"},"modified":"2011-01-04T05:30:16","modified_gmt":"2011-01-04T05:30:16","slug":"2011-goals-the-first-three-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/?p=3267","title":{"rendered":"2011 Goals – The first three months"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Hey, not bad! I’m sitting and writing down my goals on January 3. Despite the fact that I painted my toenails (with Bella’s new OPI color Extra-va-vaganza) with my first five minutes to myself of the new year (Husband -> work; Bella -> school; Baby -> napping). Last year, I didn’t get to my goals until February 10.<\/p>\n

If you were reading me last year<\/a>, \u00c2\u00a0 two years ago<\/a>, or three years ago<\/a>, you may remember that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve given up standard new year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s resolutions for goal setting three times a year, but that I’ve only ACTUALLY written goals in January for the last three years. My, how time flies.<\/p>\n

I’ve just added April 1 and August 1 as reoccurring annual goal-reviewing and goal-setting events to my iCalendar. We’ll see if that changes anything at all.<\/p>\n

Personal<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.\u00c2\u00a0 My first goal is to continue to implement a weekly routine.<\/strong> I am more apt to get something done if I have a specific focus for the day and I found that Christian and I both really benefited from a weekly rhythm. I also discovered that if I allowed myself not to worry, say about dusting, for the week, I planned a dusting “event” for dusting day. That meant that windowsills got dusted! So did the ceiling fan! In fact more got dusted than ever before. Ditto for the mending – instead of an enormous pile of forgotten items in my closet – I had at least one piece of repaired clothing a week! To be clear, on dusting day, I only gave myself a dusting goal of 20 minutes, which was easy to accomplish. Setting the timer does wonders for making a project seem less daunting.<\/p>\n

Since I’ve found that my own goals don’t always match my goals for Christian, I’m adding another to some of the days. Hope that doesn’t capsize the whole plan.<\/p>\n

Monday<\/strong> – Baking; Art (Watercolor painting\/Drawing with beeswax crayons)<\/p>\n

Tuesday<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Yoga; Clay\/Playdough<\/p>\n

Wednesday<\/strong> -Dusting; Wiping off place mats<\/p>\n

Thursday<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Running; Clear desk<\/p>\n

Friday<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Mending; Toy repair and polishing<\/p>\n

2. I accomplished last year’s goal of getting rid of 50 books. And put another 50 in boxes in the garage. I’m still constantly working on clutter, but right now, money’s more on my mind than clutter. I’d like to open an IRA account ($3000 minimum), while also contributing $100 a month to Christian’s 529 college fund (both through Vanguard). Eeps! That’s $350 a month. So, micro-steps: First I need to grocery shop within my $100\/week budget, which means menu planning.<\/strong> My goal is to plan a weekly menu every weekend for the following week. This shouldn’t be too hard, as I’ve been working towards this already (Monday-Soup and Bread; Tuesday-Chicken; Wednesday-Beans; Thursday-Wild Card; Friday-Fish)<\/p>\n

Business<\/strong><\/p>\n

4. I’ve written longer published art pieces now<\/a> (500-700 words). And I have contacted (without much success) other art publications. I’ve also now edited a small photography book<\/a> and begun trading editing\/writing work with a local non-profit organization. I’m pleased with the work I’ve done, but still my goal is still to write a piece for another art publication, like Art in America, Artforum, or Artillery<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

4. I moved womantalk.org to its own home this year. Woo-hoo! Now the rebuilding and renovating begins. My goal here is to create a tutorial page of all the crafts and projects that have accumulated over the years.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Health<\/strong><\/p>\n

5. Hmmm, Last year, I’d written that I wanted to be less critical of my husband and daughter. I’m still working on that, and I’d like to introduce a more concrete way of being positive using an idea I got from my budding therapist friend Nathen: I’m going to use the 5:1 ratio. Every time I hear myself being critical or yelling, I’m going to be sure that my next five interactions with that person are positive.<\/strong><\/p>\n

6. And while last year I was down to 110 pounds, this year find me nearly 20 pounds heavier, and unable to fit into most of my jeans. Arghhh. And considering that I’m trying to save money, eating less seems more of an option than buying new clothes. Back to counting points in a competitive system with my husband. My goal is to be at 115 pounds by April 1.<\/strong> Losing one pound a week sounds reasonable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey, not bad! I’m sitting and writing down my goals on January 3. Despite the fact that I painted my toenails (with Bella’s new OPI color Extra-va-vaganza) with my first five minutes to myself of the new year (Husband -> … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goals"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womantalk.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}