I didn't accomplish all of my resolutions this year, but I accomplished many of them! I'm so proud of everything that I did, and tried to do this year. Like most resolutions, I didn't keep all of them. I had roadblocks tossed in my way. You know what? That's okay. Life happens, things don't go the way we plan, and we adapt! It's what happens in life!
Here's the list of goals that I set for myself this year:
1) Remodel the Hallway Bathroom
This is the third year this has been on the list. I honestly thought it would happen this year. But, this has been a year when we had a lot of unexpected expenses pop up. The good news is that we had money set aside for the bathroom. So, instead of remodeling the bathroom, we fixed other things...
It WILL be fixed next year. Whatever money we have saved at the end of March will be the budget that we will be working with. Yes, I'm putting this back on my list of resolutions for 2017. I want to celebrate when this finally gets finished!
2) Improve My Health
This was my challenge for the year, and I believe I have done it! All told, over the 3 years I've been actively working at losing weight, I've lost 40 pounds. On average, that's a little over 10 pounds a year. Not a lot all at once, and not as much as I want, but it is progress.
a) Lose Inches Off My Waist
My goal for the year was to lose a total of three inches. That took
longer than I thought it would! Eight months to lose three inches. I'm
happy to see those inches come off! For now, I am content. Those were 3
very hard inches to lose!
b) Get My Blood Pressure Down into the Normal Range
YES!! 120/60! No lecture from the doctor this year, instead I got a hearty "Keep up the good work!"
This time last year, my blood pressure was at 140/80. Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!
c) Go Down at Least One Clothing Size.
At least one.
The hard work
of the last year has paid off! I bought pants in the regular section
of the store!!!! Even better? No elastic waist on these babies! I want
to lose more. My waist is still not under the "circumference"
guidelines that suggest that women should have a waist measurement less
than 35 inches. Trust me, I'm working on getting that measurement down
there!
3) Restart my Vegetable Garden
Due to a very wet spring and a hideous ant problem, no vegetable garden
got up and going this year. I don't know what I'm going to do this next year. The herb garden is going strong!
4) Learn to Pressure Can
SO, we have a glass top stove. Pressure canners do not work on a glass
top stove because they can't consistently keep the temperature up high
enough. This one will be a wash. Another epic fail. If I
ever do put in an outdoor kitchen, I'm going to make certain I have a
propane or gas stove so that I can pressure can - and I'll be able to do
it outside and keep the heat out of the house.
5) Daughter's Quilt
I have pieced it together! It's sewn! It's pinned! I want to get it finished before she finishes up at
the Community College and transfers on to a 4 year school.
6) Clean Out and Organize the Carport
The kids did this for me when they were all home the weekend after Mother's Day. Thanks guys!
Even more fun, my husband made this wonderful tool corral last back in October!
It's so nice to have everything organized and no longer piled up on the
floor, next to the house. It was a dangerous tripping hazard that had
snared us all at least once.
Bonus - there's enough space in that protected area in front of the tool caddy to put in the buckets full of rock salt for the winter!
7) Exercise Consistently
4 or 5 days every week. Even better, I'm now keeping a hard copy
journal with me when I go. I get to visibly see my progress every time I work out. It's an excellent motivator!
8) Clean Out 23 Things a Week
Originally, the goal was to clean out 23 things a month. Then I changed
it to 23 things a week. For the entire 52 weeks of the year, that
would have required me to get rid of 1196 things for the year. I met
that goal in May.
As of now, and the last Goodwill run, I have gotten rid of 2,000 things from this house. Lots and lots of crap. The house is so much cleaner now than it was before. I have more usable space in the basement.
9) Participate in the NoSpenduary Challenge
I originally found this challenge on the
Frugal, Debt Free Life blog. And I am so glad I did. The challenge wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be, but I'm so glad that I did it! It saved our butts when things broke. I was attempting to pad the savings account to make a really nice working budget to remodel the bathroom. That savings was busted as things broke and continued to break all year. Can I say how glad I was that we had savings to fall back on? It was a blessing to be able to pay cash to repair things and not to add it all onto a credit card at 19% interest (compounded daily, I believe).
So, what did that budget go for?
Daughter's teeth were fixed. She had an abscessed tooth early in the year. This required a root canal and a crown. NOT a cheap fix, by any means. Our insurance covered a little - very little - of the cost. We paid the rest out of pocket.
The van is still running. Not my favorite car, by any means. It broke, twice. I think the next time it breaks we won't fix it. We'd like to have it last through most of 2017, if possible. We'd like to have middle child out of school before we think about replacing it. Ideally, we'd like to have both the younger kids out of college, but I honestly don't think that van is going to last two and a half more years...
The kitchen sink - and the counter underneath had to be replaced. I'd like to thank Habitat for Humanity for giving us the skills to be able to pull out the sink and slide a new cabinet in place under the old counter top without breaking it. Granted, we had to call in a plumber to work on the pipes, but he was worth every single penny that we paid....
The upstairs/hallway bathroom - we've got a leaking toilet. The plumber installed a temporary fix, but the toilet is going to have to be replaced. Long story there, very long story there. BUT- we had the cash to pay him for the fix, and we have the cash to replace & install the toilet. But, I don't want to do it until we can replace the floor, which means we replace the tub and deal with the yellow tile walls..... I swear, it's like the book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie".
Dishwasher - died just before Thanksgiving. New dishwasher installed earlier this month, paid for with cash.
10) Visit One Place on my Bucket List
Niagara Falls! We spent time on both the Canadian and U.S. side of the
Falls. I loved Niagara State Park. If you ever have time to go, make a
point of heading to the state park and walking the perimeter trail
around the island. It is absolutely gorgeous!
12) Scrapbooking
I need to catch up. I know I had years that I didn't do this. I went
through all of the albums and found the years that I have not
yet finished. These are the years I am in search of:
2006
2009
2010
2011
2012
2015
Done and Done! It's been years since I've been this caught up!
13) Walk or Bike a portion of at least 6 Rail Trails
Does the Rideau Canal in Ontario count? I don't think it's an official
Rail Trail, but it is alongside a canal, and at one time, there were
rail tracks nearby. It's officially a World Heritage site, so I'm going
to add it. We hiked a good 10 miles of it while we were in Ottawa!
Such a beautiful place!
This month, I hit up several trails the last couple of weeks of the month, going on my days off in the middle of the week. Some of the days were a little chilly, but it was a lot of fun!
1) NCR Rail Trail
2) Rideau Canal
3) Custis Trail
4) C & O Canal
5) Baltimore and Annapolis Trail
6) Savage Mill Trail
14) Pay off the big debt and one smaller one-
The big debt is gone. It's nice to have one monkey off my back!
The payments on the smaller debt have accelerated. My goal was to have
this paid off by December of this year, but it very well might be Feb. or March of
2017 due to the extenuating circumstances we've had this year.
15) The Recipes Tab
I nicely fixed up the recipe tab so that it is easy to find recipes
that
I've posted on here before. For me, this is my online recipe book.
Some of the recipes are my own. Some, I post direct links to other
sites. You might or might not choose to use it, but I use it on a
pretty regular basis, and I've found out that one of the boys does,
too. He likes the fact that most of what I've listed is food he already
loves and that everything is fairly easy to make and budget conscious.
(Hey Kiddo! Glad you stopped by for a while! Call your mother
sometime. She'd really like to hear from you!)
So, how did you do with your goals this year?
Claire Randall is in Scotland, celebrating her second honeymoon with her husband after the "official" end of World War 2. Both Claire and her husband were involved in the war effort and have seen each other only occasionally over the seven years that they've been married, and this is their first opportunity in a long time to spend some serious time getting to know one another all over again.
