Thursday, January 9, 2014

January 2014 Goals

As promised, here's January's goals.

January 2014 Goals:


1.  Finish Lord of the Rings and re-read The Hobbit.

2. Post to this blog at least 6 times.

3. Walk for either 30 minutes or 1 mile, whichever is more, per day, for the week ending 1-11. (began this today)

4. Walk for 2 miles a day for the week ending 1-18.

5. Walk for 3 miles a day for the week ending 1-25

6. Walk for 4 miles a day for the week ending 2-1

7. Eat breakfast every day this month

8. Clean and organize the garage

9.  Fix the garage window


I kinda ran out of steam on ideas for this month.  Starting small is good.  If I can succeed here, then next month I'll see about coming up with something more challenging.  Although a few of these might be more challenging then they may appear....I haven't been able to bring myself to pick up Lord of the Rings again yet. :-)

2014 Goals

I've never been one to set goals.  I'm such a perfectionist that I can't accept anything but absolute perfect results on anything, and I consider anything less a failure.  Plus, I have a problem with creating goals that are realistic and measurable, so when I do come up with a list of goals, I can never complete them to my satisfaction.  Therefore, in the past, rather than feel defeated and incapable when I fail, I haven't bothered for the most part.

This year however is about change for me.  So as part of that change, here's my list of goals for 2014.  It will probably be an evolving list as I think of new things or change the measurable parts based on if it's unrealistic (or too realistic to be a stretch or challenge).

2014 Goals, as of January 9th:

1. Read all the books on my kindle app up through the second book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series.  This includes finishing Lord of the Rings, reading The Hobbit, all 7 Harry Potter books, and A Game of Thrones and Clash of Kings.

2. Keep my blood sugar below 120 / lower my A1C level to 6.3 without the need for meds.   This one is the most likely to change, I don't know how realistic it is until I actually start trying.

3. Walk a minimum of 30 minutes per day a minimum of 5 days per week.  Walking to and from the T downtown on my way from/to work doesn't count.

4.  Work myself up to being able to walk 20 miles in one session by the beginning of June - in preparation for the Out of the Darkness overnight.  Keep that up after that, walking a 20 mile session at least once a month after that for the rest of the year.  This may also change, having time to dedicate to a 20 mile walk once a month may not be realistic.

5.  Get all of the storage/non-living areas of the house cleaned and organized by year end. This includes getting rid of things we no longer need and would not have room for if we were to move to an apartment with no basement or garage.

6.  Pay off at least one credit card to a 0 balance.  Currently there are 5 with a balance.

7. Reduce the total debt balance of all debts to a balance that is less than what it was on January 1, not counting E's PLUS loan.

8. Attend at least two Penguins games during the year - preferably one this season, one at the beginning of next fall's season, at a minimum.

9.  Attend at least one Cardinals vs Pirates series, all 3 or 4 games.

10.  Attend either a SU basketball or SU football game vs Pitt, at minimum.

11. Attend at least one Dolphins game.  This season will require travel to either Buffalo, NY Jets, Detroit, or Chicago for an away game, as all others are too far realistically from Pittsburgh.  Unless I can make it to Miami.

12. Finish the year with a minimum of $1400 in savings.

13. Post to this blog at least 4 times per month.


Next post will be January goals.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

That new blog smell is NEVER going to come out!

Welcome to my blog!

I originally had a different first post here, but when I started writing it, it became way more stream of consciousness than I expected, and it went in a direction I really didn't plan on.  So, I re-did it. :)  The basic gist of it was that I'd journaled before, fell out of it during some good times and some not so good times, came back to it, but then fell out of it again.  Now I'm back to it again, this time a tad more anonymous than I've historically been in the past online.  I welcome any and all readers, if you find me interesting feel free to read along, and if you have any questions feel free to comment.