Goals for the New Year Revisited

Back at the end of December, I set the following goals (now with added progress notes):

1. Eat vegetarian for a month (we're going to attempt this in January)

Check! We didn't eat meat for more than a month, and we're continuing pretty strong at this. We do eat meat out, but haven't been cooking much meat at home. One great (for my waistline and cholesterol) bi-product of this is that I have only eaten at McDonalds (or really any fast food establishment) once this year so far. I had gotten into a bad habit of eating fast food far to frequently, and it had to stop. And it pretty much has! I could still do better, of course, but it's much improved.

2. Read 50 books this year.

I'm making progress on this definitely. We're approximatly nine weeks into year, and of last night I've completed eight books. (Check out the list on my sidebar - I've been trying to update it once a week, since recent weeks have found me reading more than one book a week.) My favorites so far have been The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. Once I started each of these I couldn't put them down! There have been a couple of books that I've started and not finished, because I just wasn't enjoying them enough to power through to the end. This isn't something I normally do, but I decided that if I'm going to make it through this goal this year I need to read only books I enjoy, save for those for my two book clubs (which are helping with this goal, because that's two books a month right there!)

Next on my nightstand: The Red Tent, Love the One You're With, American Gods, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Steamed: A Steampunk Romance.

And after that I'm out of ideas. Any recommendations out there?

3. Train for and run a 5K

I haven't started this one yet, but I plan to soon, I promise! I have a Couch to 5k program downloaded to my iPhone, and I just need to get my butt to a treadmill. Hopefully soon the weather will be nice enough to start running through my neighborhood in the evenings. I can't wait for that to happen.

4. Decorate my house (it still has that just moved-in feeling with nothing on the walls)

We haven't gotten very far on this. We picked out paint colors (tentatively, I'm sure). We did order a new garage door and opener (one of my top priorities when we moved in), and the door has windows which will add some curb appeal to the house. I also have some ideas swirling around in my mind for some art projects, and they're just about bursting to get out, so we may have some new art to hang on the wall soon.

5. Get a babysitter at least once a month so Aaron and I can have date nights

We haven't done exactly this. We've been setting aside movies, shows, and activities (like board games), and having an "After Gabbie Goes to Bed" date night about once a week. We tried to watch one of the movies (The Invention of Lying - meh, which was disappointing because we love Ricky Gervais) when Gabbie was still awake the other night, because we were too tired to ensure we'd be able to watch it all the way through after she went to bed. We weren't very successful because she didn't stop talking THE ENTIRE TIME. Seriously, she talked and babbled and screeched and got all up in our faces for 90 plus minutes of annoyingness. That was the last time we'll try that.

I'm also trying to convince Aaron to take me out to dinner this weekend when my family is scheduled to be in town. We definitely need the alone time, and that will be at least one out of twelve for this goal!

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Inspired by Maggie's Mighty Life List, I've been working on mine. It's not very long yet because I'm putting quite a bit of thought into it and there have been a ton of edits. This month she has her list sponsored again (lucky!) and has challenged her readers to put up three items from their list to work on during March. So, for this month I will have three additional goals. I've only chosen one so far, but it's a fun, cheap, and easy one, perfect for a short timeline:

1. Make cheese at home - this could be something as simple as ricotta, but I'm thinking I'd really like to try to make fresh mozzerella.

I'll post the other two when I decide. This is going to be so much fun!