How I Did With My Third Quarter Goals

I’ve decided to start setting and tracking quarterly goals for myself.  I saw the idea on another blog, and really liked it, so I decided to try it out for myself.  July - September was the first quarter I tracked.  Here’s how I did.  Or in some cases, didn’t.

Home:

We’re still working on getting rid of the clutter, and generally organizing our house better.  My goals for the last quarter were to go through my clothes and get rid of the things I don’t wear.  I also wanted to organize some things and implement some better storage systems.  This quarter wasn’t a complete failure, but it definitely wasn’t a stellar success.

 I did go through my clothes and box up the things I don’t wear to get them ready to ship to Thread Up.  And the box is still sitting in the living room.  I need to print the label, tape it to the box, and take it to the post office.  It doesn’t sound like a complicated thing, does it?  Somehow , though, it’s something I’ve been neglecting to do.  Charlie is thrilled to have a big box sitting around, and is the self-appointed Guardian of THE Box. 

 I did a little bit of food storage reorganization.  I think the changes I made are going to help keep things more organized going forward.  That’s always the real test; to see if whatever system works and keeps working. 

And that’s it on the organizing front. 

Health:

I still need to lose more weight.  I haven’t been as careful with my food choices over the summer.  To be honest, I’ve succumbed to the temptation of summer favorites like ice cream, toasted marshmallows, and grilled hamburgers.  The good news is that I’ve done it with enough moderation that I haven’t gained any weight.  The bad news is that I haven’t lost any weight.  It feels like I’ve just stalled.

On the exercise front, I did meet, and exceed, my goal of getting up to 30 laps in the pool.  35.2 laps in the pool at our gym is a mile, and my personal best is now 36 laps. 

I also wanted to incorporate some upper body weight lifting exercises into my routine.  Nick showed me how to use the machines at the gym, and I’ve been using them almost every time we go and I walk on the treadmill.  I don’t use them on the days I swim because I really feel like swimming gives my arms enough of a workout.  I’m still at 10 pounds, which is the lowest weight, on one of the machines.  I’m up to 25 pounds on a few of them.  And I’m sort of up to 40 pounds on two of them.  I can only do 10 repetitions at the 40 pound weight, and only after I’ve done a round at a lower weight. 

My arms are nowhere near toned, but I do think they’re a little less flabby.  I also feel like my upper body strength, which has always been pretty much nonexistent, is a little better.  I’m still not the person anyone would choose to move furniture with, but I do see a slight improvement. 

I think I did mostly okay on the health front, though I’m very disappointed with myself for not losing more weight. 

Environment:

My main environmental goal for the quarter was to switch from paper napkins to cloth napkins, and to switch from paper towels to reusable cleaning rags. 

I’m very happy to report that we’ve been hugely successful on that front.  The cloth napkins I had been eyeing on Amazon were marked down on Prime Day, so I ordered two sets. 

I was a little worried that it would take some time and be difficult to get into the habit of using cloth napkins instead of paper ones, but it has been an incredibly easy switch.  The cloth napkins are much more pleasant to use, and it helps that I like the colors.  We just wash them with our towels, so it really doesn’t feel like there’s any extra effort required.  

We still use paper napkins for picnics, and I suspect we’ll still use them when we have large groups of people over for a meal.  Overall, though, we’re sticking with using the cloth napkins.

 We’ve also mostly switched from paper towels and Clorox wipes to reusable cleaning rags.  We still use paper towels for some of the dirtier jobs, and I still like to use Clorox wipes in the kitchen to clean up after raw meat, but we’re mostly using reusable cleaning rags. 

I also wanted to be much more consistent about composting.  I’m happy to say we’ve done well there.  Our trash output definitely appears to be lower, thanks to being more diligent about composting and recycling.  And we were able to use some of our own compost when we planted a bush.  That made me pretty happy; not only did that not end up in a landfill, but hopefully it will help our gardenia bush to thrive. 

Personal/Miscellaneous: 

I had the goal of getting caught up on my goodreads goal.  My goal for 2019 is 52 books.  I’m sorry to say that I’m still six books behind.   I also had the goal of reading more non-fiction.  I read exactly one non-fiction book, Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  I’m planning to write a post about it soon.  So definitely a huge fail on the reading front. 

My other goal was to learn two new crochet stitches.  I did make some progress in learning how to crochet, but I’m not really sure how to classify it.  My aunt helped me with some things when she came to visit. 

I feel much more confident now about counting the stitches, and how to turn the work.  Turning it sounds like such a small (and obvious) thing, but it was something I had missed in the videos.  Knowing that seems to be helping a lot.   She also explained how I kept getting weird humps (from accidentally going into the same stitch over and over). 

Aunt Diana did show me two different stitches.  I haven’t mastered them, but I think I have made some progress.  Mostly she helped me with things that are a little harder to quantify like how to hold the yarn, how loose/tight to make the stitches, and what to try next.  She said the stitches that I learned from videos were fairly good, and that I just need practice, so it was nice to hear that I’m mostly on the right track. 

It doesn’t sound like much, but overall I’m fairly happy with the crochet progress I made.  It’s the little things, right? 

Blogging:

Fail, fail, fail.  Huge, gigantic, epic fail.  My goal was to post three times a week, and I only posted a total of seven times during the whole quarter.  So not even close.

I will say that it’s helpful to look over this list, and to be able to track things for a quarter.  It has definitely given me some ideas as to what I need to work on for the next quarter, which will be my next post.  

So what about you?  Did you have any specific goals you wanted to achieve during the last quarter?  How did you do with meeting them?