2017 Goals Check In.

In the spirit of publishing my goals and holding myself accountable to how many of them I’ve actually accomplished, I’m going to share my goals for 2017 here and check in on how I’m doing with them. It’s kind of blowing my mind how fast this year has gone by. Wasn’t New Year’s Eve only a couple of months ago?

I actually had two different sets of goals for the year. I have the official list of 2017 goals I had for myself, which are sort of vague and self-improvement-ish, the way lots of people’s New Year’s Resolutions are. And then I had a list of 17 things I wanted to do in 2017, which is less vague and has more specific activities and still has some overlap with my original goal list.

Let’s start with the original goals.

1. Practice hygge.

I did my best with this last winter. There were several moments where I felt like I was getting the hygge thing right, and I did make a lot of hot chocolate. Unfortunately, my bedroom is freezing all the time, so that makes it a bit of a challenge.

2. Remember to breathe.

Well I haven’t died yet, so….

Nah, just kidding. This one is more about taking space to just appreciate what I have and all that jazz. It sorta goes hand in hand with the next goal, which is:

3. Be mindful.

I read an article about mindfulness shortly before making these goals. I haven’t necessarily done a great job at it, but being mindful is something that I occasionally remember to make an effort at.

4. Read to Mackenzie.

I was better at this when she was littler. She got really squirmy and was kind of a brute for a while and would tend to rip the pages while I was reading which made it hard. But recently she started really loving to be read to, so I'll pick back up with it.

5. Read 50 physical books.

I’m keeping a list. So far I’ve read 23 physical books (and am in the middle of three more) but it’s not looking like I’ll meet this one. I spend a lot of time in the evenings cooking, exercising, and spending time with my family, and by the time I’m turning in for the night I’m usually too tired to read.

6. Read all of Jane Austen’s books. (For real this year.)

I bit the bullet and started getting them as audiobooks. I’ve totally read two more! But I might not get to them “all”...

7. Climb a mountain. Or two.

DONE! Tumbledown and Double Top. Boom.

8. Remember that this life is my choice.

A constant work in progress.

9. Learn to sing one song well.

I actually decided I want to play Passenger Seat on the piano. Haven’t really gotten it yet, but I did start practicing.

10. Be more sparkly.

I’ve totally been wearing glitter any time I think it will be acceptably appropriate.

11. Write more letters.

This is always my goal. I’d say I’ve done better writing letters in 2017 than I did for the part of 2016 that I was living in Maine, which is really what that was about. So I'll call that a success.

Now, for my more concrete goals. (Remember, there's some overlap here.) 

1. Climb a mountain.
2. Go skiing.
3. Go snowshoeing. 
4. See a play.
5. Go to a concert. 
6. Paint a picture.
7. Re-insulate bedroom.
8. Get curtains.
9. Alphabetize bookshelves.
10. Go on an adventure.
11. Read every Jane Austen book.
12. Knit something.
13. Write 20 blog posts. (Working on it!! This one makes 14 that I've published.)
14. Shoot 5 rolls of film + develop them.
15. Buy a record player.
16. Grow something. (I'm counting the cosmos that I planted even though there were only two flowers and then my brother-in-law's mom pulled them out cause she thought they were weeds.)
17. Get Kendra to the Common Ground Fair.

So ten and a half isn't bad for that list, in my opinion. There are still two and a half months left of this year, and who knows? Maybe I'll surprise everyone by magically reading twenty-seven more books and re-insulating my bedroom and mastering Passenger Seat and all sorts of things.

Although probably not. 

But really, what matters to me is the attempt. And truly some of these things that I've gotten done have been really great. Like the record player? Probably my best purchase of the whole year. And climbing some mountains has been challenging but incredibly satisfying- I'm going to try to keep it up and actually hike Katahdin next year. And who knows, maybe I'll get really crazy and come up with my goals for 2018 before two weeks of the new year have gone by.

But then again, probably not.