Project 52 Wrap-Up

I definitely started out last year ambitious! I'm glad I made these goals because I feel like I accomplished a lot more last year than in other years, and more than I would have if I hadn't set goals, but I learned something along the way:

PLAN FOR CHANGE!

I packed my year full of great goals, and I honestly feel like I could have accomplished most, and possibly all if we'd always been in our own home and had a stable life style. But we didn't. And when we moved into my parents' home, some of my priorities and projects I wanted to do changed, since I knew my time there wouldn't be long and there were some long-standing projects that I'd always wanted to do and wouldn't be able to do later. So I consciously made the decision to put some of my goals on hold while I did things there.

For the record, I want to record the things I DID do that were not on my list. I basically did a project a month while at my parents' house, starting in September (after all of our traveling and family reunions ended).

September: I sold a lot of stuff on ebay. My parents have a TON of stuff, but are only willing to part with it if they know someone else can use it. Even after all the shipping costs, fees, and splitting 50% with my parents, I still made around $300. But the best part was just having more space in the house:

October: I trained for a half marathon. This would not have been possible if I hadn't had my parents be able to watch my kids during nap times while I went off and 1-2 hours a day.

November: Sold more stuff, completely unloaded, cleaned, and painted my parents' huge pantry, and really dove into the kitchen re-model project. I was surprised how much I loved doing that. I was even more surprised when I got an un-solicited job offer from the cabinet company to work for them planning kitchen remodels. I was going to start in February--until we suddenly decided to move to Idaho. My new kitchen designer dream will just have to wait.

December: Finishing up the kitchen and trying to re-organize the house--just in time to move!

Project 52: 2012

1. Read the New Testament--sadly, this didn't happen. I know, I failed on my first goal! I reading the gospels out of order and was over half-way through, but around August I really felt the need to read the Doctrine and Covenants--so I ended up doing that instead
2. Read the Book of Mormon Accomplished (December 31 at 11:15pm--just by the hair of my chinny-chin chin
3. Make something with a sewing machine (accomplished-made several nursing covers throughout the year)
4. Re-do the kids closet (accomplished)--I know the finished project isn't amazing, but it was an improvement!

5. Teach Jeffrey to read--I made a good start, a third of the way through "How to Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons."
6. Try making home-made yogurt, 2 different recipes (crockpot and stove)
7. Try homemaking binder--didn't happen
8. Listen to all of Michel Thomas' French CDs--I know if I'd made a little more effort, this could have possibly happened while I was running, and I feel bad it didn't.
9. Read 25 books: Daughters in My Kingdom; Entitlement Trap; Parenting with Love and Logic; Logic Magic for Early Childhood; Pope Joan (I found this book fascinating); Hynobirthing; Money Saving Mom's Budget; The Messenger (fantastic); Moon Over Manifest; Michael Vey; The Evolution of Thomas Hall; Prophet; A Short Stay in Hell; Michael Vey Book 2; Confronting Jezebel; An Invitation to the Supernatural; Doctrine and Covenants--only 17 complete books. I did start some others like Chi Running, other parenting books, and a photography book, but didn't finish them yet for one reason or another.
10. Learn Hypnobirthing Yes! And had my first natural childbirth, a great experience.
11. Go to at least 3 Zumba classes this year, try it out I actually only went to 2 classes, then Tyson bought me Zumba on the Wii and I just did that
12. Have 10 cloth diapers for the new baby, try them out Thank you Char! Love these econobum diapers! Cloth diapering was the best while we lived in the trailer--instead of turning around and throwing the diapers in the garbage, I just turned around and threw them in my washer/dryer that was in our bathroom. I turned it on once a day, and cloth diapering added about 2 minutes to do to my day, and saved us a ton of money. Sadly, it was a lot harder at my parents house--having two different bathrooms I changed diapers in, having to switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer (I was just spoiled in Colorado), so I didn't use them as much. Now that we are back in our own place, I'm excited to do them again. . .as soon as we get a dryer!

13. Keep doing budget, pay off X amount in loans We left Colorado completely debt free!
14. Try out Pinterest (I never have), and do at least 3 things I pin from it. Pinterest kind of overwhelmed me the first time I looked at it, and never went back really. I did copy a birthday invitation for Jeffrey's birthday party, so I guess I did one thing.
15. One new recipe each month (12/12) I think I may have missed a month in the summer, but I definitely did at least 20 new recipes this year. These are a few that intimidated me in the past that I finally tried out:

January-Vegetable Lover's Baked Ziti

February--Stuffed Shells

March--Calzones (so easy! Why didn't I try this before?)

April--Crockpot tortilla enchiladas

May--Lemon Meringue Pie

can't remember summer months:

September: falafels

October: Strata with Red Pepper Sauce (so good!)

16. Go to 2 new Temples this year Actually went to three: Reno, Sacramento, and Brigham City

I just realized that I can't find any Sacramento pictures though--and they were on the same day as the Reno Temple.

17. Do an outdoor activity with the family each month--mostly happened (11/12) January--Mesa Verde, February--nothing, March--Mt. Rushmore, caves, hiking, April--more hiking, May--more hiking, June--Sand Dunes, Oklahoma, July--Maroon Bells, California, August--parks, September--soccer, October--St. George parks, November--stuff, December--didn't happen
18. 6 out-of-house dates with Tyson (we are great about doing different stay-home dates, but more out of the house ones would be fun)
19. Take "butterfly" class--didn't happen
20. Take "parenting" class--mostly happened
21. Go to the YMCA at least 2x, try it out did it
22. Make cuisine from other countries 2x--falafels--one!
23. Start blog and take blogging class--do at least 12 posts--I did about 6
24. Family blog posts 2x per month--I did good until our computer crashed in August
25. Finish Jacob's baby book--didn't happen, hopefully this year!
26. Do Joy School with Jeffrey with other family--didn't happen, mostly because of moving
27. Start teaching Amri to read by the end of the year I did get a start!
28. Get Jeffrey and Amri 100% out of diapers before baby comes (they are totally potty trained, and have been for MONTHS, but they still wear diapers to bed most of the time. . . we'll see how this goes).--This sort of happened--I used cloth diapers at night so they were out of disposables, which was the purpose of this goal (stop wasting money on diapers for them). Amri is totally out of diapers now, but Jeffrey STILL wears them at night--and he's 4.5 years now. Should I be concerned? He's only been dry one morning the last six months, and I did try (a year ago) just letting him wet the bed for a week to see if he'd start waking up and using the bathroom--and he didn't at all. He's a very deep sleeper.
29. Prepare for my Church calling during the week (Primary Chorister, then Primary Pianist)
30. Make coupon binder--didn't happen
31. Take kids pictures (the hang-on-the-wall kind) myself with new camera--had a meltdown trying to do this
32. Cross-stitch at least once a month (6/12)
33. Get a nice new family picture this year Thank you Allison! This was a huge deal and I can't wait to post the results!
34. Finish mission scrapbook--made progress, at least
35. Sing with kids (music time) at least once a week for 20 minutes--we sang more often
36. Choose happiness--much better at this
37. Clean bathroom tub at least once a month -- did this until we moved
38. Do another family trip, at least 3 days, with just our family Mt. Rushmore Spring Break

39. Call each brother each week -- did better
40. Have personal morning prayers every day for at least 2 weeks solid
41. Support Tyson 1 hour each week with school stuff (helping him find Cliff notes, etc, for the huge list of books he has to read) I helped
42. Make something for baby silky baby blanket
43. For one month, speak in Spanish 1 hour each day--failed miserably--however I'm trying again because I really want to teach my kids more Spanish
44. Have a planning meeting with Tyson each week--improved a lot here
45. Attend Temple 10 times this year did it!
46. Be back to pre-pregnancy weight by November I was 127 lbs. November 1, thanks to my half-marathon training! Pre-Xandir and almost pre-Jacob and Amri (I was about 125 before them)
47. Exercise at least 1 hour a week (chasing the kids around doesn't count ;)--improved on my exercise habits
48. Family service project each month (8/12)--we had some very cool experiences and I want to keep this up
49. Scripture story with kids daily (we do at least a verse of scripture with them every day, but I want to do more with scripture stories)--did pretty well
50. Nightly personal planning meeting--made this more a habit
51. Learn basic HTML--I checked out HTML for Dummies, but it was right before the baby was born, and Hypnobirthing took priority.
52. Personal portrait--I wanted to write a description of who I wanted to be at the end of the year to have a mental picture of the person I was working to be--I thought about it, but still need to write it down.

I learned a lot about which goals I was good at doing (I was great at monthly goals since I had a deadline, terrible at weekly goals, they just came around too often) and what I want to do differently this year. I have a much better plan in place and will post those goals sometime soon.

And this is another picture I came across as I was going through last year's photos--Amri while she was participating in sleep research. Our little Frankenstein. Just for fun.