Keeping Up With...2020 Goals (Nov Recap)

Another month has come to an end and it once again flew by! I am anxious to see the end of this year, although it is starting to look like 2021 will start similar to the way 2020 will end. But for me it's just the fact that it is a new year and I am ready for a reset. We have really taken this year to figure out what is most important to us and what we can live without. I know eventually we'll go back to our busy schedule, but for now we are enjoying the pause. One of the things I've decided to do next year is to combine this monthly recap with my weekly recap. I will be listing my goals again in January, but then updating them weekly with a short paragraph about what we're doing. And then I will do special posts if we do anything special or fun during the week.

November was a weird month for me. It started off with me really motivated and focused on my goals, but then we had a bunch of weird things happen. The election really threw me for a loop and I lost a day or two focusing on that. My mom came to visit which was awesome but threw off our rhythm a bit. The boys had a few days off from school and Adrian had a few days off from work which again was awesome but threw our rhythm off. We had our roughest week of school the week before Thanksgiving, not really sure what happened but it was rough. All of this combined with me losing focus and not getting done as much as I wanted to get done this month.

For December, I am focusing on two areas - making sure the kids have a great Christmas season despite everything that is going on and trying to finish everything on my to do list. I'm hoping to catch up on all of the stuff that is on my ongoing to do list over the next 4 weeks so I can go into next year with a clean slate. I am not teaching Zumba classes this month since I would have to be virtual and most of my students would not be able to attend. My only fitness goal is to walk at least 1 mile everyday. Most of them will be with Rocky so they will be slow, but at least it will keep me moving. 

Here's how I did on my goals last month and my thoughts on a few of them.

• Lose 25 20 pounds - I lost about 5 lbs to start the month, then gained it back and I am now back to where I started the year. If I can end here, I will be thrilled, I fear it will get even higher.
• Exercise for 20 minutes every day - I exercised all 30 days this month, 315 days so far this year!! Last year I exercised 340 days out of the year and my one goal was to beat that this year. I am on track to do that by a few days - yay!
• Finish 12 exercise related calendar challenges - I did all 30 days this again month and finished another month! For December I'm not doing a strength challenge, my challenge is to walk 1 mile every day.
• Do 30 40 60 Bible Plans in the You Verse app - I finished 5 plans in Nov, including 4 about Thanksgiving and have finished 63 so far this year. I have revised this goal many times and it looks like I will probably finish with 65 plans since I'm doing an Advent one to start December and then will get one more at the end of the month.
• Read "A Little God Time for Women" - I've read all 335 days so far this year, I'm on track to finish this goal too.
• Read 20 books - I've finished 12 books so far this year.  In Nov I finished "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World." It was a good book and I learned a lot about myself reading it. I made progress on some other books, but this goal will not be hit this year.
• Read the 12 How to Train Your Dragon Books - I finished 0 book in November and 9 books so far.
• Read "Feminine Mystique" - I read 11% in Nov have read 64% so far this year. 
• Write 45 35 meal plan blogs - I did 4 posts this month, 33 blog posts so far this year. 
• Write 52 weekly summary blogs - I did 2 posts this month, 46 blog posts so far this year. I fell behind on this but will catch up this month for sure. This is the top goal to get finished so I have the whole year done by the end of the year.
• Write 12 4 9 goal recap blogs - I've done 8 so far this year so this goal looks doable. 
• Pay off $5,000 of credit card debt - We paid off $750 this month, $4,500 so far this year. We're on track to hit this goal and actually exceed it by a little bit. We actually just realized at this pace we will pay off all of our credit card debt by the end of 2021 - yay!
• Renovate the boys' bedrooms kitchen deck - We are just running out of time this year so we spent a weekend this month staining the deck and it looks awesome!! We are not doing any other home improvements this year because we'll be super busy with the holidays and Adrian's work schedule. We are going to make a schedule next year to get one thing done each month.
• Finish my daily to do list every night - I did this about 15 days in November and it was a huge problem! I was running behind all month and felt stressed out a lot of the time. This is a huge priority in December and going into next year.
• Watch 50 70 movies - We've watched 62 movies so far.  Our November movies were "X2," "Planes, Trains & Automobiles," "Over the Moon," "The Little Mermaid" and "Free Birds." We didn't watch as many movies this month but we'll make up for it next month with a ton of Christmas movies!
• Go on 12 dates with Adrian - We've gone on 10 dates so far this year. This month we headed out on Veteran's Day for our monthly wine tasting. We brought my mom with us this month and had a great time tasting all of the different wines.
• Sub 80 days in the schools - I've subbed 21.5 days so far since January.  Unfortunately this goal is on hold until schools reopen, or possibly next year.  It's looking like next year since the boys will remain virtual until at least Jan. That is where my focus needs to be this year.
• Go to 6 Zumba jam sessions - I did a total of 4 virtual jams so far this year plus a ton of mini jams. I did another jam in November and it was awesome! It was with the Tres Leches, 3 of my favorite jammers. They always do a great job and I can't wait to bring these new songs to my classes!
• Clean out master bedroom - Done!!
• Play 1 game with Adrian each week - I have done this all 48 weeks so far! 
• Play Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 with Adrian once per month - We have played 11 months so far. We lost both of our games in November. We played them back to back one night in hopes of winning the second one but it was just too hard. We may have made some mistakes in earlier months that is making this harder now, but we are really struggling!
• Play Machi Koro Legacy with the boys - We have played 10 months so far and are having a great time playing this game as a family!! I won this month and it was our last month of the Legacy play. We will play it one more time with the game we have "created" by playing it this past year. This was a lot of fun to do as a family!!
• Have 6 9 nights out with friends - I've had 8 nights out so far. 
• Go on an awesome family vacation to the Outerbanks - We have decided to cancel this trip due to the uncertain nature of travel right now. We debated about doing something else as a family but decided to just stay home for the summer instead. Adrian is taking a week off in July and we'll do a few day trips but that's all we have planned for the summer now.
• Do 100 fun family things (one thing each week during school & one thing per person each week over the summer) - We did 97 fun things so far this year and obviously this is a little different right now.  We are still having fun, it's just a different kind of fun right now.  This month we did: family lunch with grandparents, family game night (x2), ice cream at Graeter's, Dungeons & Dragons Night, Get Air, ice cream at Dairy Queen and meal packing at Lifeline.
• Go on 2 family camping trips - Same as with vacation, we went back and forth and decided not to do this but instead save our money and energy for a few fun day trips and invest in one or two big vacations next year.
• Deep clean the whole house - Done!!  We only have the basement left, but that is on hold until we renovate the kitchen.