March Goal Recap & April Goals

March Goals
Health/Wellness Goals

• Do pilates video 3 times per week: Partial Check. I kept up with this really well until our vacation by getting up 15 minutes earlier and doing the video before work..it is hard to keep up a workout routine while traveling. We did walk a lot but I only did this goal 3/4 weeks in March. Not bad though and I did notice results!
• Strength training 3 times per week: Partial Check. I met this goal the first two weeks in March, then I only lifted weights once in the third week and not at all during our Ireland trip.
• Continue with cleaner eating and also cut down on soda, coffee, sugar intake, and chocolate. FAIL! Try again?!My co-worker got me a case of real Diet Coke, I enjoyed LOTS of Irish coffee and sweets in Ireland. I am obviously having a really hard time with this one!

Personal Goals

• I am still loving the To Do lists, so I am going to continue with that. Let's see if I can do better than 68% success this time. I didn't write To Do lists on vacation, so I had 21 for the month of March and didn't leave more than one item left undone on 16 of them. That is 72% success, which is better than last month! I guess I have been quite productive. :0)
• Plan/Organize for our trip to Ireland. I would like to create a written itinerary (which I have already started) so that we are really organized when we travel.  I did the itinerary and felt organized, but I would definitely make a better one for our next trip. On most of the sites, the hotel/B&B addresses were not complete, which made entering them into the navigation in our car.
• Try two new healthy recipes. Check! I made Wagon Wheel Soup and Sweet Potato Smash. Both came out really good and I would make them both again. 
• Also, even though it was not a monthly goal, I did read two books for pleasure (reading at least one book a month for pleasure was a New Year's Resolution). I read Three Cups of Tea which I thought was okay and also a book about Differentiated Instruction. I was happy to finally get to the end of Three Cups of Tea because I had started it and put it down at least twice before. 

April Goals

Health/Wellness Goals

• Trying the weight lifting again. I am already almost a week in, but starting this week I'd like to make sure I am lifting weights at least three times per week. Last month I alternated weight and cardio days, but this month I am thinking of trying to do a little bit of lifting everyday and alternating upper body with abs and lower body. Maybe that will work better?
• Pilates. I did good with this goal but since it got interruped for our travel, I want to stick with it. 
• Cut out sugar. A few years ago, I went over 100 days without having any sweets. Surely I had sugar in some forms, but I made a conscious effort not to indulge in cookies, chocolate, cake and all those goodies. I am going to try that again. I have a grand love of baking cookies, which always bites me in the butt because it goes along with a sweet tooth and love of eating cookie dough. No cookies this month! I like to keep a tally of days that I don't have sweets so I can see the number increasing...that helps me stick with it and not give in to temptations.

Personal Goals 

•  To Do lists! I love them too much to stop. I like being able to look back and see how much I have gotten accomplished. 
• Use Rosetta Stone at least three times per week so I can finally start speaking German!
  

Husband Goals  

• Help JT stretch at least 3 times per week.
• On Sundays prepare healthy snacks for JT to take to work. 

I feel like I always have SO many goals, but that is just how I am. I need something to work on, something to focus on, and something that keeps me motivated. Often my workout goals stay the same, but I am ready to actually start seeing some results and experiencing real changes! After 8 days of eating and relaxing in Ireland, I am ready to get fit for summer!

February Goals

Kelly over at She Wears and Red Sox Cap (and her newest blog She Teaches), has inspired me to once again think about goals. Kelly creates monthly goals for herself which I think is a great idea because they are more easy to manage (and to be successful at) than yearly goals. When I read her post checking in with how she did on her January goals, it definitely motivated me to check in with my own New Year's Resolutions and to create some goals specifically for the month of February.

In an earlier post, I listed 5 goals that I have for myself in the year 2010. You can read about them here, but here is the short version recap:

• get in shape & eat better
• go with the flow a bit more
• make a quilt
• think more about others than myself
• read at least one book for pleasure each month

I have been incorporating more weight lifting into my workout routine which I am happy about and I have been trying to eat well. For me, eating well goes in phases and as I mentioned in a recent post, I tend to eat poorly when I am stressed, which has been the case this past week. I am currently reading In Defense of Food which is really helping me to get in touch with what I should be eating.

I think going with the flow is going successfully as well. Along the same lines, I am really trying to think of others and consider how other people might be perceiving a situation rather than just how I perceive it.

I started my quilt and have completed three blocks so far, so that goal is up and running!

Finally, in the month of January I read, The Secret Life of Bees, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Lovely Bones, and at least half of In Defense of Food. I would say I did pretty good with that goal!

So far my progress with these goals has been good, however some of very vague and that makes it hard to know whether or not I am really accomplishing them.  I should know how to write better goals considering I know how to write IEP goals which are about as specific as they get. The main thing is that goals should be measurable....I can count the number of books I read, I can count the number of quilt blocks I made, but the other goals are too vague. For the month of February, I am going to try and be more specific....


Health/Wellness Goals

• No Soda/Coffee- I know I have said it before, but I am still fighting the urge to have diet soda and once I have a little then I tend to fall back into my old habits. My goal is to not have ANY this month. Literally none. When I say it's okay to have it when I go out to dinner or on the weekends, I start having it more and more frequently and things get ugly. I would also like to stop having coffee at work. Usually work is the only place I ever drink it, so I would like to completely cut coffee out as well. The soda habit is more important to kick though because I don't crave coffee as much, I just have it because it's there and I'm cold! I will keep a tally of all the days during the month that I don't have any. I might slide, because I am only human, but I am looking for an overall high percentage of days without!

• Eat fewer processed foods- How to make this measurable? I am going to start by making sure that I eat at least one food with each meal that is completely untouched and not at all processed (so basically fruits and veges with every meal). I am starting to realize the extent of processing in almost everything I eat even if it seems healthy, so I am really trying to be more aware and think where changes can be made.

• Gym-Workout 5 times a week.

Personal Goals

• Read at least one book for pleasure in addition to the one I am currently reading. 
• Leave no more than 1 item undone on daily To Do list. ( I have become obsessed with To Do lists lately and really rely on them as a source of motivation to get things accomplished around the house as well as homework assignments etc. Sometimes multiple things don't get crossed off and I would like to get to the point where everything/almost everything is completed each day.)

School Goal

• Complete 4 pages of Comparative Internation Ed. paper each week. The final paper needs to be between 22 and 30 pages and is due at the end of March (or maybe in the middle of March). I figure I have at least 6 weeks to work on it, so if I complete 4 pages each week (less than a page per day), I will have 24 pages in 6 six weeks.

That is a lot of goals! I think I need to also take into account that success with goals also means not overdoing it, but I am giving this a shot. My intent is to post at the end of the month with how I did.

Happy New Year

We went to Berlin for two days to celebrate New Year's Eve. It was a lot of fun and once I upload all of my pictures, I will post some of them.

Like many others, for me the beginning of a new year marks a time to reflect and think about the past year as well as what I hope to accomplish/achieve in the year to come. On the drive home from Berlin, my husband and I were talking about all that we have done in not only the last year, but the past decade, since it's now 2010. We graduated high school, met each other in college and fell in love, graduated college, got our first place together, got real jobs, moved to Oregon, we both got our master's, got married, bought a house, and moved to Germany, and I started my doctorate (just to name a few things).

I wonder what I will have to say about our lives at the end of the next decade?

There are a few things that I have on my mind for 2010.

1. Get in better shape which includes eating a healthier diet and trying to cut out as many processed foods as I can. I want to do weight training at least 3 times a week and incorporate more running into my workout schedule. It's time to firm up the tush and get in on the skinny jeans action. I would like to see some "winter padding" shed and some inches lost, but I also just want to feel the benefits of being stronger and active in my daily life. Over the holidays I took a little hiatus from exercising and I started to feel awful, so I want to reap the physical and mental benefits of exercise. Hubby too!

2. Relax and go with the flow. I am not gonna lie, I can be really uptight sometimes. Wanting to be in control, not really being flexible and calm, and not liking situations that aren't planned out. But, I have realized recently, during my efforts to be more relaxed, that it is a lot more fun to just enjoy the moments that life has to offer without getting flustered and giving my sweet husband a hard time. When I am more chill, my husband and I get along better and I have a lot more fun. Not everything needs to be planned out and if plans change, sometimes it's for the better.

3. Make a quilt. I am so excited for this one! I met a nice woman here in Germany who is going to work with me and teach me how to make a quilt. When I was in the US over the holidays, my mom and I went to a fabric store and picked out some super cute fabric for my very first quilt. My grandmother makes beautiful quilts and I never learned from her, but I would like to acquire the skills, so that I can someday teach my daughter (or son) and carry on the tradition. I am going to make a baby quilt to start and I am so excited for the day I can bundle by baby in something that I made with my own hands during my time in Germany.

4. Think more about others and less about myself. I would like to make more of an effort to try and see situations from other perspectives and to be more sensitive to the needs/wants/ideas of others both in my professional life and in my personal life.

5. Read at least one book for pleasure each month. I read so much for my classes that it can leave little time for reading for fun. Even though reading for information is important, it's also important to take the time to read for relaxation and enjoyment. I got some new books when I was in the US and I already finished a couple of them. I read Precious and It's Not All Flowers and Sausages. I also bought The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and I am reading The Secret Lives of Bees right now.

I am excited to get started on all of these goals/resolutions.

Happy New Year everyone!