Second Update of 2022

             I decided it was time for an update blog about the progress of my goals for 2022. Considering this is only the second update and it’s the last week of April, that should tell you something about how it’s going. But, hey, it is what it is.

             My first goal was to continue my healthier lifestyle. I’ve lost 52 pounds since December 2020. Originally, part of continuing this included losing another 40 pounds this year. And, that’s still a part of the plan, I’ve just modified it slightly. I’m still counting calories. I’m still tracking what I eat in the Lose It! app. I’m still exercising. For the moment, however, I’ve moved myself to maintenance mode. One reason is that I hit one of the infamous dieting plateaus and it didn’t seem to matter what I was doing, I wasn’t losing any weight. A second reason is that I realized I’ve been losing for over a year and I’m tired. It’s hard to maintain that for the length of time I have. So, I set the Lose It! app to maintenance mode during spring break, and I will stay there until after we return from vacation, around the first part of June. The last day of school is May 20, so I’ll have about another two weeks to do maintenance mode. My hope is that by maintaining my current weight for two months, continuing to exercise and eat within a set calorie range, that when I start back, I can move past the plateau and start losing again. It makes sense in my head; hopefully, it works out. Regardless, I’m still avoiding pop and exercising, and I’m not overeating.

             My second goal was to read at least one complete book per week. I wish that were happening, but it’s not. I’m reading, just not quite at that pace. In fact, I’ve read just four, though I do have a couple more in progress. There’s a lot going on, and while I’ve pretty much stopped bringing work home, there’s still a lot of other things going on. I have several other projects that I also want to work on, and I’ve decided to spend a little time each week on each project, which means the likelihood of finishing a complete book every week is basically non-existent. To modify this goal, I’m just going to read what I can as I can. I’d still like to hit at least 50 books for the year, so I’m hoping that I can do some catch up in the summer.

             My third goal was to write and post one blog per week. Well, this is the ninth blog of the year, and it’s week 17, so it’s pretty obvious this goal isn’t proceeding as planned either. That’s alright, too. At least I’m back to blogging after a terribly long hiatus. If I can produce 26, or one every couple weeks, I’ll be doing quite well.

             My fourth goal was to complete a monthly Bible study plan. Don’t be too surprised, but I haven’t kept this one either. I’ve been doing some Bible study, but not the way I had envisioned it at the beginning of the year. I’d written out a specific plan. I’m still going to try to work through the ideas I outlined, but it’s not moving as quickly as it should. I’m going to keep at it though.

             My fifth and final goal was to try a new recipe from one of the cookbooks on my bookshelf. I’ve tried eight new recipes from these cookbooks, which isn’t even half of seventeen. I have a bunch marked in several of the cookbooks. I just haven’t gotten around to trying them yet. I’m thinking that with summer break coming up, that would be a good time to do a lot of those.

             One thing I’ve learned about myself is that I am usually overambitious in what I want to accomplish. That has proven true yet again. But I’m going to keep plugging along and I’ll get some things done this year. It may not be as much as I originally envisioned, and that’s OK. Another lesson I’ve learned is to be flexible. I’ll lose some weight, read some books, post some blogs, complete some Bible study, and try some new recipes. I’ll also complete (or at least work on) some other projects I have in mind. I’ll get done what I get done, and what I don’t will just carry over to next year. And I’m retiring in 2024, so I’ll have plenty of time to set bigger, loftier goals.

            

2022’s First Update

             Since we’re a month in to 2022, I need to take a few minutes to reflect on how well I’ve done with my goals for the new year.

1. The first goal was to continue my healthier lifestyle. This one has been working out well. I’ve lost five pounds since the beginning of the year. I’m still faithfully tracking all my food. I’ve done more exercise than I had been, but not as much as I should be.
2. The second goal was to read one complete book per week. I’ve read three books so far this year and given that this is nearly the end of week five, I’m a little behind here. I do currently have several books in progress: one assigned to my AP Lit class, a couple devotionals, a Bible study book, and one I’m just reading. So, I may get caught up soon. The books I’ve read so far this year include John Grisham’s The Whistler, Janet Evanovich’s Tantalizing Twenty-Seven: Fortune and Glory, and Alex Trebek’s The Answer Is.
3. The third goal was to write and post one blog per week. Again, we’re nearing the end of week five, and I’ve posted three blogs. After posting this one, that just leaves me missing one week, but I’ll try to do better. I really would like to make it at least one per week.
4. The fourth goal was to complete a monthly Bible study plan. I’m disappointed to say I’m horribly off on this one. I started a study designed for forty days. Thirty-five days into the year, and I’ve finished ten or eleven days. I’ve got to do better. I had hoped to finish that one by mid-February and begin another, but I’ll have to revise it to finishing the current study by the end of February instead. This is doable. I just must make myself do it.
5. The fifth and final goal was to try a new recipe every week of the year, primarily from my cookbooks. I’ve excelled at this one. I have tried five new recipes this year, and four of them came from the cookbooks. I’ve tried Glazed Pork Medallions (from Taste of Home Comfort Food Diet Cookbook), Mandarin Orange Chicken Bites (from Cast Iron Cookbook), Pizza Soup (from Make It and Take It 2022), Shredded Steak Sandwiches (from Make It and Take It 2021), and Stuffed Pepper Casserole (from Pinterest). I enjoyed all of these recipes. I have several already bookmarked to try later.

Overall, I’ve done well on about half my goals and could improve on the other half. The great thing about goals for anything is they can be adjusted as needed. I don’t think I need to make any major adjustments to the goals I want to accomplish, but rather I need to focus on the ones that aren’t going as well and make sure I put myself in a position to do what needs to be done to be successful. Setting goals and working to achieve them is never easy. It does require a lot of work and focus. I simply need to improve my focus. I don’t like to fail so I will do better.

New Year, New Goals

             I’m going to start the year the way I have traditionally done in the past, by identifying the goals (resolutions, if you must call them that) that I have set for myself for the year.

1. Continue my healthier lifestyle plan. This isn’t just about losing weight, though that is a big part of it. I’ll detail my entire plan in a later post, but here are the highlights. I use the Lost It! app to track all the food I eat; it also tracks exercise that can be imported from my Fitbit. I make healthier food choices and I stick to a maximum number of calories per day. I make it a point to do some sort of exercise each day. This worked incredibly well for me throughout 2021; I lost 50 pounds! Since I want to lose at least another 40, I’ll keep doing what is working for me.
2. Read at least one complete book per week. This will allow me a minimum of 52 books over the course of the year. For a lot of reasons, I haven’t read as much the past three or four years as I have in the past, and I want to return to reading at that level.
3. Write and post at least one blog per week. This will ensure that I make time to write but will not be so tedious that it is unattainable. I’d also like to return to some poetry writing, but that seems to work better for me when I’m feeling a particular emotion, so I won’t set a number for how many poems I should produce. I’m just going to hope that I can produce some good blogs and a few good poems throughout the year.
4. Complete a monthly Bible study plan. Last year (2021), I made it my goal to read the Bible entirely through. I had done that before, but it had been a while. So, my goal was just to get through reading it once again. This year, I want to have a more focused plan of study. I have some ideas (and even a plan for January), but I’m still working on developing those into something feasible.
5. Try a new recipe each week of the year. I have a lot of cookbooks on the bookshelf in my kitchen. Lately, the past few years, I’ve been focused too much on Pinterest recipes and have largely ignored those cookbooks. Recently, the past few months, I’ve gotten back into buying cookbooks, but then I realized that I have all these cookbooks that are just sitting there. As a result, I’m going to make it a point to find a variety of new recipes to try from those cookbooks.

If you’ve been with me in the past for these New Year’s Day blogs, you know I try to keep it simple when it comes to goals for a new year. I’ve been guilty of overestimating the things I can accomplish in a given day, week, or year. However, five goals are manageable, and when things are manageable, they’re more likely to get done. I’m looking forward to the journey that 2022 will provide. I’m praying God’s blessings for each of you as we begin this new year.

February Was Not a Good Month for Resolutions

Just like that, two months of the new year are gone, and we’re to the point where we can hardly refer to 2014 as the “new year” anymore. After two months, some of my resolutions are going relatively well, and others, not so much. I don’t think it’s a matter of having too much on my plate; instead, it’s a matter of a lack of willpower to do what I had intended to do. I’m definitely going to have to work on that in March so the third update can show more results.

My first resolution is to revisit the project and decide what direction to take it so I can finish it that year. And I’m still in trouble with this one as I haven’t touched it yet, even with an abundance of February snow days. I can make all sorts of excuses for this, but that’s just what they are, excuses. Yes, I’ve been busy, and, yes, I’ve been working on other things, but if I really set my mind to it, I could find some time to address this project. I’m going to have to make myself do this. I’d really like to finish the project this year.

My second resolution is post to the blog at least three times per week. While that worked out well for January, it didn’t work out so well for February. I only posted five blogs, and one of those was one of my poems I wrote years ago, accompanied by a brief introduction. Again, I could make excuses, but I won’t. I’m simply going to have to do better.

My third resolution is to read 84 books for the year, which is up from 75 from 2013. In order to do that, I need to average at least seven books per month. While I got off to a great start in January, February wasn’t so good. I read nine books in January, which put me ahead of the game. I only finished three in February, which puts me two books behind where I need to be to stay on pace to finish 84 this year. I can take some solace in the fact that I am continuing with my daily Bible reading, so I know by the end of the year that will be one more book completed that I can add to the list. I also am in progress on two books, one I’m reading for pleasure and one because the AP kids are reading it. I’m going to have to do better in March, though. I need to get back on track, which means more reading.

My fourth resolution is to lose an additional 40 pounds. In order to do that, I need to average 3.3 pounds per month. While I managed to lose 4.4 pounds in January, I haven’t lost any additional pounds in February. Last week, I did get back on track with the exercise and with paying more attention to what I was eating, so that should help. In addition, for my last grocery shopping trip, I bought more fruits and vegetables. I am planning to stay on track with the exercise this week and doing a better job of staying within my limits for what I eat. The menu planning helps with that, and I’ve got to stick to that. There are plenty of things I can do to achieve success here, and I just have to make sure those are the things I’m doing.

My fifth resolution is try something new at least once a month. The first four resolutions may be stalled, but this one is going great. Once again, I managed to try more than one new thing this month. My first great endeavor was making homemade boneless chicken wings and four sauces. These were fabulous (a lot of work, but fabulous). We did those for the Super Bowl. I also tried a recipe for a Pepperoni Stromboli, which was OK, but would’ve been better if I had used actual pizza crust instead of substituting pie crust because I didn’t have pizza crust. Jimmy also made a garlic cheese sauce to put on our cheese fries; it was good. In addition, Jimmy bought some Guy Fieri sausage and we used it to make sub sandwiches. The sausage was good, but I don’t know if a sub sandwich was the best way to use it. We’ll likely experiment with it again later. The final new thing for February occurred at Olive Garden when I ordered Rosemary Garlic Chicken instead of my normal Chicken Alfredo Fettuccini. That’s definitely something I would order again.

My sixth resolution is to keep a prayer journal. Again, I’ve been doing well with the keeping part of this resolution, but I feel like I could do better with the prayer part. Again, this is something I could make excuses for, but won’t. I simply need to make an effort to do better with the prayer part.

My seventh resolution is to keep a gratitude journal. This is still one of my favorite resolutions, and I’m looking forward to rereading all the entries I’ve made for the year. I am keeping up-to-date with this one and enjoy deciding what to include and making the entries each day.

With two months down, I’ll have to say that January was definitely more successful than February, and I’ve no one to blame but myself. I’ll definitely have to work harder in March, so that my progress will improve over the next month.

 

Resolutions for 2014

While 2013 saw minimal success with the resolutions I set, that doesn’t deter me from setting new resolutions for 2014. I’m trying to be realistic with what I set as my resolutions for the year, and I’m trying to set resolutions that will be important to me. This should make it easier to attain my goals for the year.

Resolution # 1: I’m going to revisit that project that I didn’t finish. I’m considering revising the way I have it set up. I do want to finish the project this year, and I know that means working on it, which happened very little last year. I’m not sure if the revision I have in mind will require more or less time to complete the project, but I am going to have to commit to finishing 10 pages of the project each week. Hopefully, I will do that.

Resolution # 2: I’m going to continue with my blog, and to keep it from becoming as sporadic as it did last year, I’m going to set a minimum number of blogs to post per week. The first year, when I committed to posting daily, I discovered that was really difficult, though I did it. It was sometimes hard to come up with something to write about, and some days were filled with so many other activities that it was hard to get time to do the blog. Last year, I didn’t set a minimum per week, and as a result, there were weeks with no post at all, and I’m not happy about that. Therefore, for this year, I’m committing to a minimum of three blogs per week. I really do enjoy writing for the blog, but I don’t want it to feel like a job, nor do I want to make a commitment that will be too difficult to attain with everything else I have going on, so three seems like a reasonable number.

Resolution # 3: Having met, and surpassed, my goal (finally) of reading 75 books for the year, I’m going to increase the number to 84 books per year. When the goal was 75, reading 6.25 books per month was the magic number. With a goal of 84, it would be necessary to read seven books per month. That’s just a slight increase which should make this doable. Again, as part of that number, I am going to include that I want to read the Bible all the way through. Last year, I read the English Standard Version. For 2014, I will read the New International Version. Also as part of this resolution, there are three books that I want to reread in July, before school starts, because they are very inspirational and will help me get refocused and ready for the upcoming school year. Those books are Teach Like a Champion, What Teachers Make, and Rigor Is Not a Four-Letter Word.

Resolution # 4: I still need to lose weight so I’m going to set a weight-loss goal of 40 pounds for the year, which averages to 3.33 pounds per month, and seems very doable based on last year’s results. If I can lose more than 40 pounds by the end of the year, that would make me happy, but if 40 more pounds is all that I lose this year, that will also make me happy. Starting this year 35 pounds lighter than I started last year is great motivation to keep this going. Towards the end of last year, I went into maintenance mode and was happy to maintain where I was. With the beginning of a new year, however, it’s time to get back into the routine of losing weight. This requires that once again I start tracking what I eat and making sure I’m staying within limits that will allow me to lose weight. Just as importantly, it requires that I get back into, and stay into, my exercise routine. I did attempt to get back on track with that in mid-December as I knew it would help with the maintenance, especially with all the extra holiday goodies available for snacking. I’ll just have to make sure I make myself get up and do the walking routines before I go to work each day, and do extra miles on the weekends. If I can lose another 40 pounds over the course of the year, then I would only have another 20 to go to be where I want to be. I’ve always read that losing the weight slowly is one way to make sure the weight stays off, and that’s why I’m content to consider just 40 pounds for the year acceptable. It helps that I’m already into the routine of a better lifestyle, with exercise and portion control, so I am looking forward to this resolution.

Resolution # 5: When I started tracking my resolutions two years ago, I included a food resolution because my family likes to eat. The first year, my husband and I made a new recipe every week of the year. Last year, we tried twelve new restaurants. Because we still really like food, I still want to include something food-related, but I want something a little different. Therefore, I have decided that this resolution is simply to try something new, at least every month, but more often is entirely acceptable. This something new can be a new recipe, a new restaurant, a new dish that we haven’t had before at a restaurant we’ve visited before, or a new food (last year we tried asparagus). This gives us a wide range of options for trying new foods, and I must say, I’m really looking forward to this one.

Resolution # 6: For the past two years, I had just five resolutions but I’ve decided to add a couple more for this year. This year, I’m going to keep a prayer journal. We all could make improvements to our prayer lives; I know I need to grow in my relationship with my Savior, and I know prayer is the simplest way to do so. Because I am so fond of lists, keeping a prayer journal seems to be the easiest way to make sure that I’m following through on prayer. While I do pray frequently, I want to make my prayers more focused. My pastor suggested praying for protection, power, provision, peace, and perseverance for those around us. By keeping the prayer journal, I think this will be easier for me to do. In my prayer journal, I will have a list of those I pray for daily, and I will have lists of those special prayer requests that come our way. This doesn’t mean prayer can’t still be spontaneous when needed, but it does provide a way for me to focus more on my prayer life.

Resolution # 7: I saw this idea on Pinterest on Christmas Eve and right away I knew I had to add it to my 2014 resolutions. This year I’m going to keep a Gratitude Jar, and I’m going to encourage my husband and my children (and that includes the daughters-in-law) to also keep one. The concept is simple. Each day, I will write down either something I am particularly thankful for on that day or something good that happened that day. According to the Pinterest post, the jar can be opened either at Thanksgiving or at the end of the year. I’m thinking that my version of this will actually end up being a Gratitude Journal. Rather than writing these entries on a small slip of paper and putting it in a jar, I will get a spiral notebook of some sort and write the entries in that. By doing so, the entries will remain in order and I can review the year from start to finish. At the end of the year, I will be able to read all the wonderful things that happened throughout the year. Some of these might be things that I would easily remember, but I’m willing to bet that by the time December 31 rolls around, many of them will be things I have forgotten. In addition, by taking the time to write either something I’m thankful for or something good that happened every day, it’s a reminder that regardless of how bad a day might seem, there is still something good in there and something to be thankful for.

And there you have it, the seven things I want to accomplish for the year 2014. I love the idea of a new year and the chance to do over what we didn’t get right in the old year. Every new day is a blessing, and it’s up to us how we spend it. I’m looking forward to many hours with my family, but I’m also looking forward to making these resolutions become a reality.

Try a New Recipe

I’ve mentioned before how I watch Worst Cooks in America and how I don’t believe they can really be that clueless when it comes to cooking. These people claim they can’t even boil water and act like they’ve never even seen a stove before. I don’t understand this. I wonder how they’ve survived as long as they have. Surely they haven’t eaten fast food their entire lives and surely there hasn’t always been somebody there to cook for them. Add in the fact that I love to cook and try new recipes, and I just don’t get it. But it does make me wonder how many folks out there can’t cook, won’t cook, or are afraid to cook.

I eat a lot of things now that I wouldn’t eat as a child or even a young adult. I have some picky eaters for children. I’m hoping that they, too, will broaden their food horizons as they get older. I keep trying to tell them what a great food world they are missing out on because they won’t try new foods or new dishes. I’ll admit there are things that I won’t try, but I have as I’ve gotten older been more willing to try things I wouldn’t have even considered trying 20 years ago. Then, there are those things that I have tried and I just don’t like. I don’t think anybody likes everything out there, but you have to be willing to try, and the same applies when it comes to cooking. You have to be willing to try new recipes. I’ve made sure that all my kids can cook enough so they won’t starve when they are on their own, and I’ve also made sure that they know how to follow a recipe (and that they can call and ask when they get stuck on something) for when they want to try something new.

Yesterday, I tried a new recipe because Cody had asked me to. He loves French bread, and he asked me to try to make it. Normally, we just buy it, and let’s face it, it’s a whole lot easier to just go to the store and pay $1.50 for a loaf of French bread. However, because he asked, I was willing to try. I’ve never cooked with yeast. I avoid all-purpose flour and use self-rising whenever I bake anything. Until yesterday. The whole process took a couple of hours, but it was a wonderful feeling of accomplishment when I had finished, and when I took the bread out of the oven and I had two loaves that actually looked like French bread. It wasn’t perfect. The texture was a bit dense, but for a first effort it wasn’t bad. First, we just spread a little Shedd’s Spread on there and let it melt, and later, we used a loaf to make cheesy garlic bread to go with our Cajun chicken pasta dish for supper.

By the time Cody actually got home, the remaining loaf had hardened up. I had left it on the counter, unwrapped, and that was definitely a mistake on my part. Unfortunately, though, that meant he didn’t enjoy it as much as we did. However, I learned my lesson. Don’t leave the loaf out and uncovered for six hours.

I will try to make this French bread again, and I have a few things I’ll do differently. Whenever we do a new recipe, we generally follow the instructions as they are written (unless it calls for an ingredient we don’t like, such as mushrooms, and then we just leave those out), and then based on how it turns out, we make modifications for future attempts. I think the texture of the bread will be a little better next time because I’ll make sure I use warmer water to mix with the yeast, I will cut out about a half cup of flour, I will allow about ten extra minutes of rise time than the recipe calls for, and I will not leave the loaf sitting on the counter for six hours. I’m not going to stop taking the easy route of just buying French bread at the store, but from time to time, it will be a nice treat to do a homemade loaf.

Like all things you do for the first time, trying a new recipe can be a little scary, but that feeling of accomplishment when it turns out pretty good should be enough to keep you looking for new recipes to try. Cooking can be great fun. Think of it as an adventure. So get out those cookbooks or go over to Pinterest and find yourself a new recipe to try. If you’re interested in homemade French bread, here’s the link to the recipe I used: http://www.yourhomebasedmom.com/easy-french-bread/

A Year of Success … and Failure

Wow. It’s finally here. December 31. The last day of 2012. It seems like only yesterday I was writing my January 1, 2012, blog setting my five resolutions for the year, and now it’s time to evaluate how successful I was at achieving those five, seemingly simple, goals.

First, with my writing goal I did achieve some success, but there was also some failure. I wanted to write every day. For the most part, I did actually write something every day. Not always something that would turn out to be anything worth much, but something made it either to paper or to the word processor. Notice, though, that I said “for the most part,” which does mean that there were a few days in 2012 when I didn’t write anything. When that happened, there was usually a pretty good reason, but nevertheless, good reason or not, I can’t claim to have been entirely successful with writing every day. Next, I wanted to post to the blog every day. Again, that didn’t happen. And again, when it didn’t, there were good reasons why – I was on senior trip and had no access to wi-fi to publish or I was sick and in bed for days – but again, good reasons or not, I can’t claim to have been entirely successful with posting to the blog every day. About the best I can claim with these two parts of the writing resolution is that I was more successful with these two areas than I was with the third. The days I spent writing and posting far outnumbered the days I missed. On the third and final part of my writing resolution, though, I can’t claim any real success. I had wanted to work on my project at least twice a week. That didn’t happen by a long shot. Obviously, this resolution needs some tweaking because I would like to finish this project.

Second, with my reading goal, I must finally admit that I did not reach my goal of 75 books over the course of the year. I ended up doing better than I thought I would, but I still fell short of the desired 75. I can take a bit of a hollow victory in the fact that by reaching a total of 67 books, I did set a new record for the number of books I have read in one year. I surpassed the old record by five books. I can feel good about that, but I don’t feel so good about being eight books short and not reaching my goal of 75. This is the point where I’m telling myself that if all those English 100 and AP essays had been bound and in book form, I would have easily surpassed the goal of 75 books. I have read a lot of essays this year. However, student essays don’t count toward the reading goal, so sadly, I have fallen short.

In case you’re wondering what books I read in December that pushed my total up to 67, here’s the list: Bah! Humbug by Heather Horrocks, Christmas Bells by Beverly Nault, The Christmas Tree Treasure Hunt by Joan Campbell, Reflections from a Jesus Follower by Mark Driskill, Home for the Holidays by Christin Lynxwiler, Secret Santa: A Bluegrass Novella by Kathleen Brooks, Miss Kane’s Christmas by Caroline Mickelson, The Angel of 1776 by Jeffry S. Hepple, The Christmas Tin by Roderick Robison, Christmas Future: A Sarah Anne Story by Rita Garcia, The Con Before Christmas by Erik Hanberg, 199 Promises of God by Barbour Publishing, Know Your Bible by Paul Kent, and by Madeleine L’Engle A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Titling Planet. You may notice a lot of Christmas titles, but that’s what I really like to read in December. Of those, I recommend my favorites: The Christmas Tree Treasure Hunt, The Angel of 1776, and The Christmas Tin. I also recommend Reflections from a Jesus Follower, which should be read in conjunction with the book of Luke from the Bible.

Third, with my weight-loss goal, I totally failed. I had set a goal of losing 20 pounds by the end of the year. When all is said and done, I have lost one. I suppose that’s better than none, but it’s still pretty awful. My daughter has managed to lose more than 50 pounds in just under two years. I’m so very proud of her. I’m going to have to set a goal for 2013 and I’m going to have to make myself meet that goal so she can be proud of me.

Fourth, with my cooking goal, I can claim success. The goal was to try a new recipe every week of the year. As you know, there are 52 weeks in the year, and we tried 85 new recipes. Most of those we thoroughly enjoyed, though there were a handful along the way that we decided we would not be making again. Of course, one could argue that my great success with this goal may have interfered with my weight-loss goal, but I’d have to disagree since regardless of how good each dish tasted, it’s still up to me to have the willpower and know when to stop eating. Given the course of the previous three goals, I’m just glad to be able to claim such success with this one.

Fifth, with my update goal, I can also claim success. I did manage on the last day of every month to provide an update blog to allow you to follow my success. This was probably the easiest goal to keep, but hey, we all need at least one easy goal, right? If nothing else, it can make us feel a little better about ourselves when we don’t achieve some of our other goals.

There you have it, my successes and failures for the year 2012. I do feel bad about those goals that I did not achieve. After all, meeting a goal and achieving success feels much better than having to admit defeat. I do take pride, however, in the goals I managed to meet. So where does that leave me? Right now, it leaves me thinking about my 2013 resolutions. I’m a very competitive person, even if the person I’m competing against is just me. I’ll take what I’ve learned in both my 2012 successes and failures and I’ll create a list of resolutions for 2013, and I’ll do my best to make them all a success.

Failure isn’t always a bad thing. If we learn from it, improvise and make changes, and move forward, then failure can be a good thing. Resolutions aside, overall 2012 had a lot more success than failure, and I’m looking forward to what 2013 holds.

October Update Shows End Is Near

The year is definitely winding down, and with just two months to go, it’s time to get serious about making sure those resolutions I set all the way back in January get accomplished. That may be easier said than done for a couple of them.

The writing goal has been one of the easiest to keep. With the exception of a few days while I’ve been traveling, I have been able to write every day. I’m still posting the blog every day. I know I missed a few days earlier in the year, but I have managed to post regularly. I have periodically worked on the project, and if I have something I need to do to tweak this particular goal, it will be to make sure that I give more time to that project. I need to finish it, which means I need to work on it a little bit more. I’m in a bit of a quandary right now, though, between trying to work in more time for the project and trying to address the reading goal, and right now I’m leaning more toward the reading one. It’s fairly safe to say that at least one of these will be a failure at the end of the year, and considering that I haven’t worked at least two days per week on the project like I’d said I wanted to, undoubtedly, the project will not be considered a success by the end of the year. I suppose I’m using that as my rationale to try to save the reading goal so that I only have to classify one as a failure rather than both.

The reading goal is still far from being successful. I had set my goal at 75 books for the entire year, a lofty goal but one I had no doubt I would reach. With just two months left, I’m finally starting to have my doubts. I’m only at 48, leaving me 27 to get done by midnight of December 31. In order to do that, I’m going to have to read at least 13.5 books each month. I do have some days off in both November and December, but with the holidays that cuts into the reading time as well. I’ve been doing less school work at home, which leaves more time for reading, or sometimes napping, and the napping interferes with the reading. I’ve only added five books in October: The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly, The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan, The Fables of Aesop, A Pleasure to Burn: Fahrenheit 451 Stories by Ray Bradbury, and Texas! Lucky by Sandra Brown. It’s time to get serious about this reading goal. I’m nothing if not stubborn and I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet.

The weight loss goal is at a standstill. I had said I wanted to lose 20 pounds by the end of the year. I have lost five. While I suppose that’s better than gaining five, that still leaves me 15 pounds to lose in the final two months of the year, which just happen to be the big holiday months of November and December, the same two months when more baking occurs. Somehow in the midst of all that, I have to try to lose another 15 pounds. It is doable. It won’t be easy, but it can be done. One strategy a friend shared with me is to weigh every day. Now in the past, I’d read articles that said not to do this, but she had heard that this was the new trend. This supposedly helps because you see if you’re losing, and if you gain one day, you know immediately to cut back more the next day rather than not finding out until the end of the week when you may have gained two pounds rather than a half pound. I’ve been doing that for the last week, and it does help with focusing. Hopefully I can get rid of that final 15 pounds during the toughest part of the year for losing weight.

The recipe challenge is still a booming success. We’re finding all kinds of new dishes that we just love and can’t wait to try again. We’ve done 11 recipes in October. The two that were non-Pinterest recipes were the Lemon Pepper Fettucine, a recipe from The Chew, and Herb-Crusted Pork Loin with Potatoes, from about.com. The Lemon Pepper Fettucine was too lemony for me. I would have liked it a lot better if there were less lemon in it. The pork loin recipe, though, was really good. The other nine recipes came from Pinterest. Those included Pumpkin Crumb Cake (fabulous), Crock Pot Chicken and Dumplings (already done this one a second time), Chicken Tacos in the Crock Pot (only three ingredients and very good), Apple Enchiladas (it’s no apple crisp, but it’s fast and easy and quite good), Butter and Brown Sugar Roasted Sweet Potatoes (can’t wait to do these again), Parmesan Pull-Apart Bread (easy bread recipe to add to your supper), Grilled Tomato, Mozzarella, Pesto, and Basil Sandwich (Jimmy used basil, and I didn’t, but still a great change of pace for grilled cheese), Pumpkin Bread (turned out OK, but think I’ll stick to box mix which seems to be eaten more), and Pumpkin Fudge (turned out better than the last recipe I tried for this). This is still one of my favorite resolutions, which is probably why it’s so easy to do. I still have a ton of magazines and cookbooks with tons of recipes, but Pinterest makes it so easy to find new things to try. I know a lot of people use Pinterest for a lot of different things, but for me, it’s pretty much just a recipe finder.

Keeping you updated is the easiest resolution to keep because it gives me a topic for the blog at least once a month. With just two months left, I’ve got to do some serious work in order to make a couple of these resolutions actually pan out. My stubborn streak is just long enough to make me believe that I can do that.

Falling Behind on Some Resolutions

Hard to believe, but it’s time for the monthly update to figure out how I’ve been doing with the five resolutions I set back on January 1. Let’s just say that some are going pretty good, and others need a lot of work during the last three months of 2012.

1. Writing. This one is pretty much on pace, as far as writing every day goes. I do manage to write something every day. As far as posting on the blog every day, I missed that one. If you read yesterday’s blog, you know I didn’t get to post on Friday, because I refused to pay $10 to the Galt House to be able to use their Internet service in my hotel room. I weighed the options between posting and paying. Since I’d already had some days in April when I didn’t get to post while on senior trip, that made the decision a lot easier. Had it been that this would have been the first one I’d missed for the year, I might have actually paid the $10 to avoid that, but as it was, I decided keeping my $10 was the wiser move. In relation to the project I’ve been working on, I have been working on it this month, but again, not the twice per week that I’d like. At this point, I feel good that I spent some time this month working on it. I’m going to have to improve, though. I’m finally settling into a routine for the school year, so hopefully, keeping up with the resolutions will be easier.

2. Reading. I’m way off on this one. I’ve read 42 books for the year. Since I’m posting this in the middle of the day, there’s a slight chance it might be 43 by the end of the day and official end of the month, but I’m not holding my breath on that one. What this means as far as my resolution goes is that I have to do at least 33 more in October, November, and December. If I break it down, that’s 11 each month. That’s still doable. I just have to do it. The two books I managed to get read this month were Save Me by Lisa Scottoline and Mercy by Jodi Picoult. Save Me was a heart-wrenching story of a young mother who was accused of abandoning another child in order to save her own, while Mercy was supposed to be the story of a man who killed his dying wife upon her request, but ended up, at least to me, being more the story of his cousin trying to figure out his own marriage. Of the two, I preferred Save Me. Had Mercy actually focused more on the story of Jamie and the implications of his mercy-killing rather than his cousin’s affair and consequences, it would have been a much better book. This is actually the first Picoult book that I’ve not enjoyed all that much.

3. Weight Loss. Well, I’ve lost 3 pounds since the beginning of the year. I’ve fluctuated between 3 and 10, and at the moment, it’s at 3. I have three months to hit that goal of 20. With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, that won’t be the easiest thing, but obviously if I stick to the Weight Watchers plan, then hitting the mark of 20 over the next three months is completely doable. My daughter has lost 50 pounds in just over a year and a half. I wish I could stay as motivated as she is.

4. Recipes. We got back on track with trying new recipes. This month, we managed to do six new recipes. They were Pasta with Tomatoes, Basil, and Garlic, Baked Chicken Fajitas, Chicken Piccata, Honey Sauced Chicken, Loaded BBQ Baked Potato Soup for the Crock Pot, and Farfalle with Chicken and Roasted Garlic Sauce. With the exception of the Potato Soup, all the others were a success. The Chicken Piccata was a tad too lemony, but not so much to be inedible or untasty. We just decided that we would just cut back on the lemon next time. The Potato Soup was a massive fail. It spent 7 hours in the crock pot on low, and the potatoes did not get cooked through despite being cut into small cubes. It spent another hour on the stove, and the potatoes were better, but still not all of them were cooked through. We have relegated this recipe to the “Never Again” file. For now, I’ll just stick to our usual recipe for Tater Soup.

5. Update. As usual, this is the one I don’t have any trouble keeping. With three months remaining in 2012, as I write the update for September, I’m starting to look ahead to next year. I’m thinking about what I’ve managed to do well in 2012 with regard to keeping these five seemingly simple resolutions, wondering what I might need to change about them next year. I’m already considering some minor changes, as well as some other things that I’d like to add to the agenda for 2013. I’ve no idea how this is actually going to turn out. I’ve done relatively well with the writing one, but I know I need to put more time into the project. I have much to do with the reading one so that it turns out to be successful, but it’s not totally out of reach yet, so I’m not going to give up yet. If I behave and follow the Weight Watchers point system, losing another 17 pounds is also doable. With the holidays coming up, it will be no problem at all to keep finding new recipes to try. I’ll spend the next three months evaluating this year’s resolutions and considering where to go next year.

August Was Hit-and-Miss, but Mady Made Up For It

It’s the end of August, and time for the update, and I’m going to have to confess that August has not been the best month for keeping resolutions. At this point, it’s a toss-up which was worse, April or August. Hmmm…. must be something about those A-months.

1. Writing. Yes, I’ve still been writing every day. Yes, I’ve managed to post to the blog every day. No, I haven’t worked on the project twice a week; in fact, most weeks, it wasn’t even once a week. I’m really going to have to do better with that. I am also exploring some options to publish some other work on Amazon, through their self-publishing program. I’m working on reformatting some of my work into what seems to be a more acceptable font and size for publishing in book form. That takes some time, and that’s the time that should be delegated to my other project, according to my resolution. Granted, in January, I wasn’t aware Amazon had this program, but I still shouldn’t let that interfere with keeping my resolution. In addition, August has been a busy month, full of transitions, and that, too has played a role in my lackluster performance this month. Again, though, I should control that better than I’m currently doing. I really hope I can get something figured out so September is better.

2. Reading. This was definitely my worst month since April. I managed to read two books, well below the 6.25 per month I need to stay on pace, which also puts me down ten books for the year. I should be at 50. I’m only at 40, and my stubbornness of last weekend didn’t help anything because I could have easily finished that book I’d started, had I not been in bed barely able to hold my head up thanks to my untreated sinus infection. That same stubbornness, though, is also why I am not conceding defeat on this goal. I still have four months to reach my goal of 75 books for the year. I have to do 35 more. I’m not giving up yet. I’m nothing if not stubborn.

So what did I manage to get read this month? The first was Mr. Monk Is a Mess by Lee Goldberg. This book caught me up on all the Mr. Monk books that have been published. Mr. Monk is one of my truly favorite characters, and I love reading these books and picturing the actors from the television show Monk as the events of the stories unfold. Goldberg, who was a contributor to the television series, does an excellent job making the characters come to life in the books. The other book I read was on my Kindle, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Before the Prairie Books is a collection of Wilder’s writings that she published in magazines years before writing her series of life on the frontier. I loved the Little House books and television series as a child, and I thought I would enjoy these writings. The articles were interesting, but I must admit, I enjoyed the Little House books more.

3. Weight Loss. What can I say? I’m stuck. I know it’s my own fault, and I suppose given that I’m not working at it like I should, I should be happy to still be breaking even. At this point, I’ll take not gaining weight to be as much of a win as losing weight. Again, I’m hoping once I have adjusted and get things under control with my new schedule that September will be a better month for me in all aspects.

4. Recipes. Up until now, this was the resolution I was having the most success with. Most weeks, we tried not one but two new recipes. I guess that’s a good thing because August has been lackluster at best. In my defense, I could say that since all the other months had been such a success in regard to this resolution, I am allowed one that isn’t as successful, right? And I do have a good excuse. Most of our new recipes are tried on the weekends, and with the exception of last weekend when I was too sick to do anything, we spent our weekends in Lexington visiting our new granddaughter. Frankly, if it comes down to choosing between spending the day with Mady or trying a new recipe, Mady wins. I did manage, however, to get one new recipe in, Honey Garlic Pork Chops. I liked it, but Byron did not. I will make it again so Jimmy can try it because I’m pretty sure he will like them, too. I guess when compared to the lackadaisical success of the other resolutions, I should be happy that this one has only had one bad month.

5. Updates. At least there is one resolution I can be assured that I will meet, and that’s updating you. I’ll confess this one was one that I didn’t want to write, given the hit-and-miss success of the month of August. But one of the lessons my daddy taught me is that sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do, and so here it is. At this point, the best I can do is hope that the September update is a better one.