Goals for 2016: Accomplished?

2016 has come to a close. For a lot of people, this was not the best year ever. I had a lot of amazing personal experiences, but towards the end of the year things started to get a little stinky. Here’s my recap of how well I did on my goals for 2016!

Improve My Health

1. Exceed my run/walk mileage for 9/12 months from 2015, even if it is just by a tenth of a mile. My ultimate goal is to make 2016 a 500 mile year! The more I run, the more my running will improve. I totally rocked this goal. Not only did I beat my mileage every month, but I blew my yearly mileage goal out of the water!
2. Reach a goal of running/walking 60 miles in one month. Last year I hit a goal of 50 – I can definitely push to 10 more in a month! Killed this goal too! Apparently running a marathon really helps. ;)
3. Complete a half marathon. This has been a goal of mine for several years. I know I can do it, I just have to put one foot in front of the other and go! BAM! Not only did I complete a half marathon… but I completed a second half marathon… and a FULL MARATHON.
4. Complete one race (of any type) each month. Racing really helps to improve my running by having goals to hit. YES! Two years in a row of running a race every month!
5. Reach my goal of a “normal” BMI by my 29th birthday. Increased activity and better eating has really helped my running. I felt my absolute best not at my lowest weight as an adult, but when my BMI was considered “normal” – it was more maintainable than my lowest weight. I know that this will also help with my running. This did not happen. BUT… I did lose weight this year and I did maintain my weight most of the year. I will hit this goal by my 30th birthday, you just watch!

Expand my Brain

1. Do some continuing education every month – whether it is reading a nutrition related article, attending a webinar, or going to a training/conference. This is important not only to keep me up to date in nutrition, but also to maintain my RDN status. Eh, not really.
2. Read a book every month – new or re-visit one I haven’t read in a long time. I am now a part of a book club that I think will really help with this goal. Reading is so relaxing and I need some more “me time” that doesn’t involve a screen! I did pretty good at this at first but kinda fell off the bandwagon toward the end of the year.

Home Improvement

1. Clean up and organize our office. This room has been a mess since the day we moved in and my husband has begged me for the last two years to clean it up. This is like half accomplished. It’s much better than it was… but still needs improvement.
2. Clean up and organize our basement. We have an awesome basement that could really be utilized for more things. We need to de-clutter our lives and this is a good place to start. Same as the office – Ken did an amazing job making new shelves and putting things away but we still need to get rid of the crap we don’t need and organize everything!
3. Set up a workout room in our basement. We’ve been talking about this for months now because we both want to be able to workout at home more, but don’t have the greatest space. Not quite. We do have a treadmill down there now and we do have a weight bench, but in the future I’d like to set it up even more!
4. Paint our bedroom. We painted the two additional bedrooms when we moved in – they were kids rooms and were pretty gnarly looking! Our bedroom wasn’t bad (purple) so we left it. I’d like a little more calming color in there, though. Nope, didn’t do it.
5. Paint our fireplace living room. This room is currently dark brown and my husband complains about it all of the time. We need a brighter space. YES! DONE! :)
6. Re-purpose our fireplace living room. I don’t know what we are going to do with this yet, but a couple of ideas are to move the couch and table out, put a nicer desk in, and have it be more of a peaceful gathering space. My husband also thinks that if our desk is out in the open I will be less likely to let it get cluttered! Another option that I have considered is putting our dining room table here and getting a smaller table for the kitchen, or getting a small, bar-height table to put in there for people to gather, chat, play cards, etc. Done! We turned it into our dining room. Still have yet to get a smaller table for the kitchen, though!

Have Some Fun & Build Relationships

1. See 311 in concert. My favorite band and I usually see them with some of my favorite people. It’s a tradition! Yes… but they cut the show off early! :(
2. Attend at least 3 concerts in 2016. I love music and I love going to see live concerts. I already plan on going to see Blue October in May and 311 when they tour in the summer. Saw two concerts – Blue October and 311!
3. Play Cards Against Humanity. I can’t believe I still have not played this game! YES! I finally played this game at a girl’s weekend and again on New Year’s Eve!
4. Get away somewhere for a weekend with Ken. We actually have not done something just the two of us away from home in a long time. Those trips are wonderful for relationship building. Nope.
5. Convalidate our marriage or make plans to in the near future. I know that this is something that both of us want, we just have not figured out the best way to go about doing it. I hope that this year we can at least decide some of the details, even if we don’t go through with it yet. We have decided against doing this.
6. Visit my out of town friends at least 6 times. What this really should say is – visit my friends at least 6 times! Because all of them are out of town now. :( With races and everything else, this definitely happened!
7. Visit my parents at least 6 times. I hope to make this happen more often because life is not guaranteed and we never know how much longer we have with our parents. I’m sure that we visited them or they visited us at least 6 times this year. I know Ken really wants to get up to visit them more in 2017 though.
8. Go somewhere that I have never been to before. I did this in 2015 and I’m so glad I did! Although it hurt the pocket book a bit to travel, it was well worth the memories and seeing new places. I don’t have to go far, either – there are some amazing places in Michigan that I have never been to! This didn’t really happen unless you count Sylvan Lake, MI where my friends live – lol!
9. Post 50 blogs this year. I really miss blogging. I remember in high school that I used to blog almost daily. Granted, it was a LOT more personal than I ever care to be on this blog, but it is awesome to look back on those posts and remember my life back then.
10. Complete an Instagram Project 366. I also really miss taking pictures. I love using Instagram, and I was pretty successful with a “Photo a Day” challenge in December 2015. I’d really like to capture moments of my life, even if it is completely mundane, every day. YES! I did it! I am so proud of this.
11. Get together with the Fab Four at least once. We have plans made right now to visit Kendra in February – hopefully it works out! We visited Kendra at her new house in Ohio for Jacklyn’s birthday and I hope we get together again around the same time!
12. Get together with Kyle at least once. I would love for him to come and visit our new house and check out what Saginaw has to offer! ;) YES! Kyle visited me in Saginaw and we also met up for dinner in Auburn Hills on Christmas Eve Eve.
13. Watch all of the seasons of “Lost”. I love binge-watching TV shows and this is one that I really would like to see. Didn’t do this.
14. Visit Kendra in her new home in Ohio. Right now we have a possible Fab Four trip planned to see her new home! We visited Kendra for our Fab Four get together this year.
15. Visit Lorraine and JD in Philly. My other niece Haley and I really want to do this, and this could also be my “visit somewhere I’ve never been before”. Didn’t happen but I really hope it will happen this year!
16. Go to Cedar Point. I am hoping to run the Cedar Point 5k again this year – what an awesome experience! Another awesome Cedar Point 5k in the books!