Happy New(ish) Year!

You can still say Happy New Year in January, right?  Even if it’s the very last day of January?  Anyway, I hope 2019 ended well for all of you, and that you’re all having a great start to 2020.

I meant to do at least a few posts in December, but as usual time got away from me.  I had a few projects at work to finish up, and the usual holiday stuff just seemed to take over beyond that.  Here
are the highlights since the last time I posted:

An oldie but a goody:  Howard the meerkat.

We had our holiday meal at work.  It was a lunchtime potluck in mid-December.  I really like how the new job does it.  There aren’t many nearby options for lunch so almost everyone brings their lunch almost every day.  So bringing food to work and eating it there wasn’t really an inconvenience for anyone.  And I loved that it was during the workday.  It’s so much better than trying to fit in yet another event after work or on the weekend during the holidays.  And the food was awesome, which I’m sure contributed to my good opinion of it.  I got a few new recipes I’m looking forward to trying.  I brought macaroni and cheese, which went over very well. 

Nick and I went to my sister’s for Christmas.  It was just the three of us this time.  Nick’s mom and step-dad weren’t able to come because one of their cats was extremely sick, and they couldn’t leave him.  Fortunately, he’s doing much better now.  Our friend Alex ending up going to Florida to be with her family.  It was a little odd without our usual group, but the three of us still had a great time.  We’re working on putting together a second Christmas so everyone can get together to see each other and exchange gifts.

I bought a camera.   A nice one.  I’ve been toying with the idea for a long time.  I took pictures for a Realtor for a couple of years while I was going to school, and I fell in love with taking pictures.  I’ve never had any formal classes or training, but I love it, and I’ve dabbled with trying to improve my skills over the years.  I’ve never taken the plunge on a good camera, though.

One of my coworkers, Doc, has a degree from an art school and has done professional photography.  He was nice enough to look at some of my pictures (taken with a cellphone) and offered me some pointers that have been helpful.  He also said I have a good eye and have potential.  One really good Cyber Monday sale later, I was the proud owner of a new camera. 

Doc showed me a few things with the camera, and has sent me out into the world to practice.  He has promised to look at my pictures and tell me what’s working, what isn’t, and how to get them to turn out how I want them to.  I haven’t had as much time as I had hoped to experiment, but I think that will change now that the holidays are over.  You’ll probably be seeing more pictures from me.  Hopefully you’ll also notice an improvement in the quality. Just FYI, the pictures in this post are the usual cellphone pictures.

Nick’s mom sent the cats some catnip bananas for Christmas.  All six of the cats absolutely love them.  Tara loves them, which made me so happy.  Tara was a few years old when we adopted her, and had an extremely hard life.  She’s still very skittish around people.  Some days seem better than others, and lately she seems to be really coming out of her shell.  She loves the bananas so much that she came out and played with them, and even let me get some pictures of her playing with one.

Tara

 It snowed today.  It started off light around mid-morning, and then started coming down heavily.  We have the option to work at home during bad weather, so I panicked, took my laptop home, and finished up my work for the day at home.  I’m a South Carolina native, and we don’t handle snow well!  It’ supposed to get warmer this evening, so the snow should all be gone by tomorrow.  I certainly hope so!  Nick sees this as a dusting.  I see it as accumulation.   I think most of you who read and comment regularly live in colder climates, so I suspect most of you will see it as a dusting like Nick does. 

The view down our street. 

In my defense, it did snow some more after this picture was taken.

We had a Crock Pot cooking competition at work last week for a fundraiser.  I entered my macaroni and cheese.  I came in second place.  Obviously, first place would have been great, but I don’t think second place is too bad. 

Duke had surgery a couple of weeks ago.  He had two cysts on the top of his head that needed to be removed.  He also had some broken teeth that needed to be pulled.  The vet thinks he probably broke the teeth chewing hard on something.  Given everything Duke gets into, I think that’s an excellent explanation.  He did well with the surgery, and is recovering nicely.  Duke is pretty popular at the vet’s office, so I know he was treated very well.  He insisted on going around to tell everyone bye before we left.  He did manage to look very pitiful the next day, and convinced us to give him quite a few treats. 

Duke

Nothing else is really coming to mind that merits posting about.  It always seems strange to me how the end of the year seems insanely busy, but whenever I try to list what we did there’s just not much.  Does that happen to you? 

So how has 2020 started off for you?  Was the end of 2019 insanely busy?

Of course, no catch up post is complete without random cat pictures, so here are a few more for you to enjoy. 

Charlie & Mortimer

Howard

Mortimer

Caroline

Quarterly Goals - Last Quarter of 2019

I think tracking my goals by quarter has been helpful, so I’m doing it again this quarter.   It’s weird that this year is almost over!  It’s also the last chance to meet yearly goals, so there’s some pressure to aim high.

Charlie

I don’t really have any pictures to go with this post, and as you know by now, that means I share some random cat pictures.  I always have cat pictures! 

Here are my fourth quarter, or October - December, 2019 goals:

Home:

Actually take the ThredUp box to the post office!  It has been sitting in the living room for entirely too long.  I’m definitely not aiming high with this one.  The box really needs to go.

I need to go through my clothes again, and get rid of things I don’t wear, which probably means another ThredUp box.  I think some of my sweaters will be too big to wear this year, and I have at least one summer dress that was too big when I tried to wear it last week. 

In continuing with the theme of boxing things up (and hopefully taking said boxes to the post office!), I’d like to get another box of books/movies/CDs shipped off to Decluttr.  We seem to constantly acquire new books, which isn’t a problem as long as we also part with some. 

Mortimer

My night stand tends to stay somewhat cluttered, so I’d like to tame that clutter this quarter.  At the moment, one wrong move sends the leaning tower of books, magazines, and notebooks toppling.  I’d like to eliminate that problem.

We’re still working on general organizing, getting rid of clutter, and implementing better storage systems, but I’m not setting any other specific goals for this quarter. 

Health:

I still need to lose more weight.  I stayed at the same weight last quarter which makes me nervous for how I’ll do this quarter with the holidays, and all of the holiday treats, coming up.  Last quarter I didn’t set any specific weight loss goals, so I am going to set a specific goal this quarter to see if that helps.  My weight goal for this quarter is to lose nine pounds.  That would put me at a certain threshold I’d be really happy to reach.

On the exercise front, I’m a little lost.  Here’s my dilemma:

Mortimer

I love, love, love swimming.  The gym we go to has an indoor pool, so in theory, swimming is an option year round.  The gym also has a 100 Mile Swim Club.  You track your laps/miles, and when you reach 100 miles, you get a 100 Mile Swim Club t-shirt.  I want that t-shirt!  There’s no time limit, and they say it takes most people over a year.   I have a very long way to go.  My trouble in setting a swimming goal this quarter is that during the colder weather I’ll have to take the time to dry my hair after I swim.  I know that sounds really dumb, but during the week swimming for 45 minutes to an hour, then getting a shower and drying my hair can put us getting home kind of late for a weeknight.  It’s easier during the warmer weather because I just leave with wet hair and let it dry on its own.  Going outside with dripping wet hair when it’s 30 degrees does not sound at all pleasant!  The gym closes at 4:00 on Friday, which means I can’t go because of work.  It’s also closed on Saturday, so Sunday is the only weekend day available.

Charlie

My other exercise of choice is the treadmill.  I’ve been trying, off and on, to do a Couch to 5K program.  I’m much, much closer to couch than 5K!  On treadmill days I also have the goal of using the arm weight machines.  I’d like to increase my weights on the machines.  I’m still at the lowest weight on one of them, so I’d to at least move up a weight on that one by the end of the quarter. 

I don’t think it’s realistic to set a big swimming goal and a 5K goal, but I’m not sure how to split it up either.  Any suggestions? 

This is new for me since we just joined the gym in March.  The goals I’m leaning toward at the moment are to consistently go to the gym at least three days a week, hopefully four days a week, but a minimum of three.  I think Sunday may end up being my only regular swimming day.  If that’s the case, my goal is to get up to a mile and a half at a time, which would be 54 laps.  The Couch to 5K program is a six week program, at three days a week, so if I do only swim one day a week that means I should be able to complete the program. 

Honestly, this feels very daunting, and not as focused as it probably should be, but it’s something I’m figuring out as I go.  I’d love any suggestions anyone has for narrowing it down, or how you manage your exercise goals. 

My much more straightforward exercise goal is to get my daily step average up to 10,000.  According to my tracker my daily average as of today is 9,827 steps.  I think I should be able to get that up to 10,000 by the end of the year. 

Environment:

One goal is to definitely keep being diligent about composting, and not getting lazy and tossing compostable things in the trash.  It’s a little more of a challenge for me during the colder weather since it does involve going out into the cold. 

Caroline

Additionally on the compost front, I have the goal of not composting things that should have been used in the first place.  The compost bin is for things like veggie scraps and tea bags, not bunches of celery that I neglected to use in a timely manner.  Obviously composting spoiled produce is a little better than just throwing it in the trash, but it’s far from ideal.  My goal this quarter is to get better about using up food before it goes bad, weather that means freezing it, changing up what I may have planned to cook, or getting a little more creative in the kitchen. 

The other, bigger, goal is to reduce the amount of plastic waste we generate.  My goal for this quarter is to stop using the plastic produce bags.  I bought reusable produce bags, and I’ve used them twice in three months.  I almost never remember to bring them with me.  So my goal for this quarter is to switch exclusively to them for produce, and not to use any of the plastic produce bags the stores provide. 

Personal/Miscellaneous:

I still feel like the human version of a fixer upper house! 

My goodreads goal for the year is 52 books, and I’m currently six books behind schedule.  I would love to actually meet that goal.  I think it’s possible, especially if I watch less TV. 

I’m also setting the goal of reading more non-fiction.  I think fiction will always be my favorite, but I think I would definitely benefit from reading some non-fiction.  My non-fiction goal for this quarter is to read three non-fiction books, basically one per month. 

Since this quarter includes November, there’s also the question of participating in NaNoWriMo.  I’ve signed up off and on over the past six years, and never even come close to the 50,000 word goal.  Earlier this year, I had no intention of even going through the motions of signing up this year.  Lately, though, I’ve had an idea that I want to try out. 

Realistically, I know the chances of writing 50,000 words in November are extremely low.  Basically nonexistent.  But, there’s something about the sense of hope and optimism at the beginning of November with that goal in place.  So my goal is to sign up, and get as many words written as I can.  I know it’s not the most ambitious, or even specific, goal, but it’s one that makes me happy.  Something is better than nothing, right?

I’m hoping to make much better crochet progress this quarter since I’ve finally been shown some things in person.  Aunt Diana suggested granny squares as a good way to learn.  I’ve also read that dish cloths are a good place to start.  My plan is to practice the stitches some more, then look at patterns for granny squares and dish cloths to figure out which one seems more doable.  My goal is to complete at least one this quarter. 

Howard

Blogging:

This year has been my worst blogging year ever.  I don’t think that’s likely to change in just three months, but I would like to improve it.  I love blogging, and I really don’t know why it’s one of the first things I let go when things get busy.  My goal this quarter is to post at least twice a week. 

I’d also like to post at least one video this quarter.  It’s something I’ve never done, but have wanted to try for a while. 

So what about you?  Are you working on any specific goals this quarter?  Are you really pushing yourself to accomplish something by the end of the year?  How do you determine which goals to really focus on? 

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?  

Quarterly Goals

It’s definitely safe to say that I missed the chance to write any new year or goal for the year posts this year.  I didn’t post anything until April.  It has been a weird year; not bad, just kind of different.  I like the idea of tracking things, though, and the blog is a great place to do it.  I already keep up with quite a few of my recipes here.  Why not keep up with everything else here?

I recently saw an idea for tracking goals on a quarterly basis.  I love the idea, so I’m going to give it a try.  I mostly like the categories she uses at She Picks Up Pennies, but not all of them apply to my blog, so I’m changing them up a little. 

Here are my third quarter, or July - September, 2019 goals:

 Home:

Clutter has been an ongoing battle for us.  We actually started the year off great, and made a lot of progress in getting rid of things we don’t use.  Unfortunately, though, we’ve slowed down lately in our efforts to conquer our clutter. 

I definitely need to go through my clothes again, so I plan to do that this quarter.  Beyond that, conquering the clutter is a little harder to quantify.  We’ve gotten rid of a lot of clutter and excess things, so have small, random things left.  We’ve also started to reach the point where taming the clutter doesn’t necessarily mean getting rid of things, but it does mean we need to implement some better storage systems, and generally organize some things. 

Health:

I still need to lose more weight, so that’s an ongoing goal.  I’m getting somewhat close to a weight that isn’t where I need to be, but that would be a real milestone for me.  I thought about setting reaching that weight as my goal for this quarter, but I’m trying to break old/bad habits when it comes to weight loss (and gain in my case!), so I’m choosing less focus on a number (though, if I hit that number, I will be thrilled!), and more focus on some of my habits. 

My exercise of choice is the treadmill and swimming laps.  I haven’t done any strength building or weight lifting exercises, so this quarter I plan to incorporate some upper body weight lifting exercises into my weekly exercise.  I’d also like to increase my lap distance.  35.2 laps in the pool at our gym is a mile.  My personal best at one time is currently 20 laps.  I’d like to get that up to at least 30. 

Food is of course a huge part of health, and of losing weight.  My approach so far has been trying to make healthier substitutions for most things.  That seems to be mostly working, so I plan to continue that.  I also need to work on incorporating more vegetables. 

Environment:  

This will most likely be a much longer post or two at some point, but I have a lot of room for improvement here.  I’m finally beginning to realize that sudden, major changes don’t work for me with anything.  I do much better with small, consistent modifications that become habits. 

So my goals for this quarter are to switch from paper napkins and paper towels to cloth napkins and reusable cleaning rags.  Realistically I don’t expect to ever completely stop buying and using paper towels, but I think I can drastically reduce the amount.  My other goal is to compost more.  I’ve never been very consistent when it comes to composting, so I plan to become much more diligent about making sure that compostable items actually get composted rather than trashed. 

Personal/Miscellaneous:

I definitely plan to read more.  Over the years the time I spend watching TV has crept up, which automatically leads to less reading.  My goodreads goal for the year is 52 books; a book a week.  I’m a few books behind, but it’s definitely a goal I can still make, so I plan to be on schedule with number of books read this quarter. 

I also need to focus on reading some nonfiction.  I love fiction, and it will always be my first choice, but I think some nonfiction would also be beneficial.  I read a lot of historical fiction, so I think I may start to supplement that with some nonfiction related to the historical fiction.

I’m also still trying to learn to crochet.  My progress is very slow, but I’m enjoying it.  I think I finally have the single crochet figured out.  I’m currently trying to learn the half double crochet.  At the moment it feels like I will never get it, but as Nick pointed out, I said that about chaining and the single crochet, and I seem to be able to do those now.  My crochet goal for the quarter is to learn two more stitches. 

Blogging:

I’ve barely blogged at all this year, and I miss it.  It seems to always be one of the first things I let go, but I think I’m happier when I write and post on a more regular basis.  My blogging goal for this quarter is to post at least three times a week. 

In looking over my list I kind of feel like the human version of a fixer upper house!  I definitely have a lot to work on. 

As I’m sure you noticed, the pictures aren’t really related to this post.  I took them earlier this year when those flowers were blooming, but never got around to posting them before now.   They’re late, but still pretty.

So what about you?  How do you track your goals and the progress you’re making on them?  Are you working on anything in particular right now?