October Goals

I hope you’ve had a nice weekend so far.  Mine has included some time in the kitchen.

I made something delicious with this

 

Recipe to be posted soon.  Pumpkin Lovers, get ready.

Hint:  Something on the order of these

I also can’t believe it’s October 1.   Where has 2011 gone?

I’ve never posted monthly goals before because honestly, I don’t really set monthly “goals” in my own head.  Yes, I always have things I am working on, projects and tasks I’d like to accomplish, things I’d like to do and items on my radar screen but I don’t write them out because I just keep them all upstairs in my gray matter.  A very loose mental checklist of sorts.

I spent some time pondering what I want to accomplish this month and decided to share some goals for October:

1. Financial

Save money.  I have a specific amount in mind and I’ll let you know if I meet it or not.  I paid off my debt and have been saving money all year, but I’d like to save more before the end of the year.  And no, I won’t be going too crazy with holiday gift purchases.  At all.  Guess I can write off Thursday Things if I want to save more, but I’d rather have zeros in my bank account than random trinkets and knickknacks that don’t amount to much.  I think.

2. Exercise

Do different yoga poses than the ones I usually do; work on poses that I don’t like as much or that don’t come as easy.

I have a tendency to practice the same poses over and over at home because I have my little routine and I whip through it.  I need to push myself to practice asanas that are not in my current repertoire.

3. Health

Get more sleep.  At least 5.5 hours every night.  Yes, I get less than this most nights.

This has been goal of mine for ages, including on my 2011 Goals & Intentions list, i.e. New Year’s Resolutions as some people call them, but I have continued to fail at it, miserably.

I’d like to work on this for my overall and longterm health.  I don’t necessarily think it’s healthy to go without consistent sleep even if I can function “fine”.  I’ve trained myself over the years to function on less and less sleep.  I used to be a I have to have 8-9 hours girl.  But life changed, a baby happened, demands come up. 

I always say, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”   But I would like to sleep a little more now.

4. Cooking

Develop, photograph, and blog about two new original dessert recipes

A few of you have written this week telling me you’ve made Magic Eight Bars which was a fun recipe to tweak and develop.  How could sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, and graham crackers ever be bad though?

5. Photography

Give myself another self-assigned project and just get out there and take pictures.  And not of food.  People or things.

6. Blogosphere

Comment on less blogs.  I know many people want to comment on more blogs and I think that’s great.  It mirrors my own journey with reading one blog and commenting on it, to reading and commenting on more and more blogs until commenting has taken on a life of its own and has become a full time job.  And it keeps creeping up.  It’s also one thing that prevents me from getting sleep, which is when I know that I change is imperative.

For nearly the past three years, I have been what I’d like to think is a team player in the blogosphere by showing my support for fellow blogggers and commenting on at least 30 blogs per day and probably 100 different blogs per week.  I have made amazing friends, and have discovered a world that I never knew existed a few years ago.  But that world has grown and grown and grown.

I read probably 50 blog posts a day but don’t comment on them all.  And going forward, I plan to read in stealth and comment on less.  If all of a sudden you don’t see me commenting on your blog anymore, you know why.  I need to pull back from this commenting “job” and reclaim precious hours of my day for work, family time, sleep, and just real.life.

I appreciate each and every comment I get, and I appreciate my all readers, including those who read in stealth.  I wanted to be upfront that going forward I am going to pare way, way down on the commenting.  I am just putting this out there because I have people who used to comment on my blog and then just dropped off the map and they never explained things in any kind of post and I always wondered, was it me?

With me, it’s a time management issue because I can read in stealth about 5 times faster than if I comment.

I’m still reading, just not commenting.

7. Family

Spend more time with Scott and Skylar.  At least two extra hours per week of family time over what we have now.  Just being together is the most important thing in my life and I want more.

8. Friends

Get together in person with a friend at least once during the month.  That doesn’t sound like much, but I have said before that it gets harder and harder to make time for friends when you’re not in school, and when you have a job and a family, but I need to do this for myself to recharge my own batteries so that I can continue to give to my family and others.

A coffee meetup does wonders for the soul.  Even just an hour.

Questions:

1. Do you set monthly goals?  Do you write them down or keep them in your head?  Do you get down on yourself if you don’t meet your goal?

As I said in the post, yes, I have things I am always working on and a little laundry list that I keep filed away upstairs.  But I thought I’d write things out, share, and maybe help keep myself a bit more accountable.

If I accomplish none of these goals, sure, I may feel a little blah but I really don’t care that much, either.  Practicing non-attachment is important for me.

Yes, it’s nice to have goals but if things happen that prevent those goals, dreams, ideas, or intentions from becoming a reality, then so be it.

Try again another day, another month, another time.  Or don’t try.  Some things just aren’t meant to be.

I don’t get discouraged or beat myself up if things don’t go according to plan.  Life has ebbs and flows and not all goals are right for certain ebbs.  Wait until there’s a flow, and try again if it makes sense.

2. What are your goals for the month?

Have a great weekend and don’t forget to enter the Bella Bars Giveaway