A Time For Everything

Image courtesy of IMGBIN.

It's 2025 -- can you believe it?

On the whole, aside from how quickly the year flew by, it was a pretty good year.

On the other hand, in reviewing my 2024 goals...I fell really short in three of five of the major categories.

The journey to being debt free goes on, and I'm making progress. Mom's house finally selling and the money being dispersed really helped. But I also implemented some other protocols that have been keeping things on track. I haven't kept reading financial books as I intended, but debt is reduced. I do plan to re-read four of the books that had the biggest impact though.

The path to health and wellness took a left turn at Albuquerque. Instead of losing ten pounds, I'm now twenty-ish over my preferred weight. My eating is far from healthy. I'm using the Hinge Health app once again and was doing both yoga and Pilates for a while, but they both fell by the wayside.

BUT

I'm getting back on track starting this month. I received a bike for Christmas, so riding my bike is a thing I can do as well.

Writing was the biggest fail, but I've accepted that my brain is not yet ready to be creative in that way again, so I will continue to fill my well with reading, watching, and listening.

Housekeeping and Home Improvement were also a fairly big fail. I have no housekeeping plan in place and didn't improve much of anything inside the house. The back yard is another matter--made a few improvements there and I mostly kept up with the falling leaves. The weather / temperature will be the biggest factor in how much more I can do.

Letters to my grandma went out more regularly and, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I met and exceeded my reading challenge. My pattern offerings on Etsy remained roughly the same...

So that's my report card on not just the fourth quarter, but my whole year as far as my 2024 fresh start goals are concerned. It wasn't great, but, sometimes, that's life. An you can start fresh at any time.

Speaking of starting fresh -- let's get to this year's fresh start goals!

Jen's 2025 Fresh Start Goals

1. Send Grandma a monthly letter...to be sent no later than the second Friday of the month. Yes, she's still alive, much to my delight and surprise. She was moved into hospice last spring, and turned 99 I think on her birthday in August. So if she makes it to August 23, 2025, she'll turn 100. That's very good news for me!
2. Read 60 books for the year. This includes the Bible (#5 on this list), so aiming for 59 other books. Quite a few will be be repeats from previous years because I enjoy them that much. And as mentioned above, there are four financial books to re-read, one each quarter. That brings me to 55 other books.
3. Home Improvement -- a) get the oven fixed, b) clean out and organize both hall closets, and c) clean out and rearrange my bedroom closet
4. Yard Improvement -- a) trim and maintain the holly hedge, b) plant flowers, c) finish tidying up the back yard in terms of things growing in the fence (we have a lot of random weed vines that I'm trying to eliminate) and kill/remove the random weeds in the "lawn"
5. Another read-through of the Bible. I've done two years of the "One-Year Bible" where you get some Old Testament, some New, a Psalm and a Proverb. I've also done a chronological read-through where you skip around and read the Books in the order in which they were written. This year, I'm reading the Bible beginning to end in the order in which the books appear.
6. Lose ten pounds. The ultimate goal is twenty, but I'm going to start with ten. Eating right and exercising is the only way to make this happen, so they don't get their own line items.
7. Self-Care -- gonna try this again. Mostly home pedicures because my feet are in bad shape as well as coloring my hair on a regular basis. But also things like crafting and puzzles.
8. Add Patterns to Etsy -- I've been saying this for years too, and last year I attempted setting up my own pattern website, but couldn't get any traction on customers clicking over from Etsy for the expanded pattern offerings, so I'm just going to stay with Etsy and get to adding. I'm going to stick with the goal of one non-hockey pattern per quarter still.
9. Take better care of my car -- regular car washes and vacuuming as well as cleaning the leather.

I looked back at the last four years of goals and I seem to be pretty set in my ways.

The new things added are Yard Improvement line item and Car Care. That's because I want to be more active and things need doing. I left off any writing related goals. I struggled all of last year to make any sort of progress and I decided to let things lie for now. The car care is probably self explanatory...

So HAPPY NEW YEAR to one and all.

All the best to you and yours.

Well here we are again...time to see how I'm doing with those 2023 Fresh Start Goals. Without having given it much thought before settling in to write this post--I'm feeling good about things. Let's see if reality bears that out!

1) Monthly postcards to Grandma are being dutifully sent. I think I've finally got this one snockered. A+

2) Finish & publish Finders Keepers, book five of the hockey series... I didn't even open any documents in the first quarter. In the second I dig up all pertinent files and set to making sense of what I had. But they're not making much sense. I keep coming up with questions...why did I do this? Why didn't I do that? What does "that" even mean...whatever "that" is.

I've concluded that it's a hot mess in a dumpster fire and I seriously considered writing book six and then swapping the two in publication order. Since they're not linked chronologically, it wouldn't matter.

However, my game plan has changed and writing has taken a back seat for a while longer.

3) I am definitely exercising 3X per week; more often usually. And I'm reaping the benefits. Go me!

4) I'm on pace to read 52 books this year. Ahead, actually. Very very ahead. And definitely on track for the six non-fiction reads. In fact, I think I'm going to probably blow right past six... I'm on my 4th non-fiction book at the moment. :0)

5) I'm definitely not keeping up with writers group duties on a weekly basis. However, I spent a lot of time in the last couple of weeks a) getting caught up and b) contemplating how to streamline the duties so I can start training other people. I have new fish to fry and I don't want to be locked into being treasurer forever.

6) My Etsy shop does have a couple of new patterns for Q2. :0) I've got several things in the works, so Q3 should be fine. I'm also working slowly, so slowly on creating my own online store so I can list all me creations rather than being limited because of listing fees.

7) Self care...has been a work in progress. I'm not sure what I actually had in mind. Some of it was making sure I was seeing doctors and dentists in light of my mom's cancer and death, which I have done/am doing/will be doing. But it was also going to be things like pedicures and coloring my hair and taking time to do puzzles and cross stitch and read. All of which I do. But nothing seems part of a routine. And maybe that's okay as long as I stay in touch with myself...

8) There are no home improvement projects on the horizon at the moment. Mostly because I don't have the money right now. But perhaps I should create a fund and award myself some paltry amount each week. I did eliminate the monthly fee on my savings account...

9) I haven't regularly read anything / listened to anything / watched anything from any of the articles I've saved or the conferences I've purchased...and in light of me taking a longer than expected break from writing, this isn't a priority.

10) Doing pretty good on cooking / eating healthy -- as in I'm cook and eating more regularly. Is it all as healthy as it could be? No, not really. Is there a food plan and do we stick to it? Mostly, yes.

11) I'm doing well with the housekeeping plan. Finally. The little planner sits on the end of my desk so that I look at it each day when I get home from work. it takes me about an hour to accomplish my chores each day and every room in the house gets touched every week. Is there some deep cleaning that needs to be done? Yes. Am I going to be the one to do it? No. It'll have to wait until I can fund hiring a body to come in.

I do have a name though. A friend got robbed by one of her housekeepers and while I don't have any expensive jewelry lying around, there's still a fear that something meaningful or expensive will go missing.

12) I'm blogging. I'm blogging. I haven't missed in quite some time.

13) I've written a couple of articles for my writers group newsletter, but it's been a couple of months since the last one, so I guess I should come up with something soon.

14) Much as I love my Personality Strengths, I'm not sure when I'm going to get around to studying them in general, in depth. I own the books, so that's not the problem, but so many other books that pique my interest in that moment get my attention. But I imagine there will come a time...there is a time for everything, after all.

15) Bible reading / listening is on track. I haven't missed more than a day and I get caught up right away.

16) A visit to Goodreads is on the weekly schedule weekly, so it's going well so far.

I'm making progress on the important things, so I'm counting last quarter a win. Do I have room for improvement? Sure... Leaves me something to keep striving for. :0)

Hope you had a lovely weekend and here's to a great week.

Image courtesy of Pinterest.

It's that time again, dear readers, when I review the progress of my stated goals for the year. So without further ado, let's jump right in.

#1) For the first time in however many years, I can say that I am on track with sending postcards to my Grandma in Denmark!

#2) I haven't yet opened the Finders Keepers file, but I will starting in April. My annual writers retreat is in June this year and that's the project I'll be working on. And in preparation for the retreat, I'll be reading through what I've written so far, maybe making notes as to tweaks to make and scenes to add, etc.

As a side note, I'm "on track" with this--I hadn't planned on looking at this book until the second quarter to begin with.

#3) I'm not on track with exercising 3x per week... But I'm getting there. I was diagnosed with bursitis and prescribed PT as a result. Most of my "homework" on that front is basically yoga, so in order to keep my hips feeling fine and in actual good working order, I guess I'll be doing yoga for the rest of my life. I'll work my chair gym routine back into the mix and that will all come to fruition this quarter. 

Image courtesy of IMGBIN.

#4) I'm most definitely on track for reading 52 books this year, including those six non-fiction titles. According to Goodreads, I'm four books ahead of schedule in general and, as I mentioned at the beginning of March, I've read two, working on the third of my non-fiction books.

#5) I'm not on track for keeping up my writers group duties. I am mostly on track, I just haven't found the best schedule for staying current with it. Still working on that aspect of it.

#6) I added a non-hockey pattern right at the beginning of the year and haven't spent a whole lot of time working in this sphere of interest. I was for a while and then I had some higher priority things come up, but I am on track. I have the next three months to complete and list the next pattern or set of patterns...

#7) I'm definitely on track for self care. This encompasses a wide range of actions from watching TV to working on cross stitch patterns to doing my PT to hockey games to doing nothing. But I'm prioritizing it over many other things.

#8) I have not completed a home improvement project as of yet. I was hoping to do up the middle bedroom properly as the guest bedroom, and bought an actual headboard/bed frame for that purpose. But that project might have to be scrapped, but A) we'll see and B) I'm not technically off track with this either.

#9) I'm definitely off track with regards to reading / watching / listening to writers education. At least as far as my original intention went. I wanted to do something weekly, but as I mentioned, self care has been a priority which sometimes also means sleeping in rather than reading / watching /listening to something. I've done some--but not as much as I'd wanted by this point. The second quarter would be a good time to get this back into rotation.

#10) I am WAY OFF TRACK on the cooking / eating healthy / adhering to a food plan route. That is a priority in the second quarter as part of self care. But DH recently found an exercise plan of attack that will help with both this and #3...

#11) My housekeeping efforts are way off track as of right now. I did good for a while and then...I didn't. I've started penciling things back into my lovely little housekeeping planner.

#12) My blogging is most definitely on track...

#13) I have submitted one article to my writers group newsletter and am working on a second. So on track.

#14) I haven't gotten to the Personality Strengths books yet...

#15) Daily Bible reading / listening is on track. :0)

#16) Goodreads is up-to-date in terms of reading challenge data. This blog cross-posts there. I just need to pencil in the "ask-me-a-question" monthly or something.

Considering last year, I'm feeling fine about my progress. I'm feeling much better in general, both mentally and physically, but I'm still cutting myself some slack.

Hope you're all well. Have a great weekend.