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

Whew, we made it thru the year. It was by far the most bizarre year of my life! It started off normal and then in March it took a huge left turn and just kept going off course from there. I'd by lying if I said 2020 was all bad for me personally, it was not. There were some amazing things that came out of it, especially slowing down and spending time with my husband and kids. I also really figured out what I want to focus on and where to put my energy. There have been hard times too, which I won't list out on here. I think me and my family made the best of what we were given this year and hope we can do the same next year.

My goals continue to be all over the place. Some of them I kicked butt on this year, changed to be harder and still completed them. Others I struggled with, changed to be easier and still didn't complete them. I have taken a real long look at my goals and decided to simplify them in the upcoming year. I will also be updating my goals each week next year instead of waiting for the monthly recap. I am hoping that is a more streamlined process for me and that everyone reading it enjoys it more. I will still have occasional special blog posts describing what we do as a family, just not the weekly ones writing out everything we do each day. I hope you'll stick around and continue reading!

Now, for the last time with this set of goals, here's how I did this past month and my thoughts on most of them for the year.

• Lose 25 20 pounds - Nope. I'm not even sure how much I gained this month. It has been a rough year with little exercise and lots of stress eating. I gained a bunch this year and I do not like the number I am seeing on the scale. I am ready to recommit to my health with more movement and less junk food next year for sure!!
• Exercise for 20 minutes every day - I exercised 23 days this month, 338 days for this year!! All of these days were walking at least 1 mile with Rocky. I missed a few days when I was sick and then another few because I was just super busy with the boys, Christmas prep and Adrian working a ton of overtime. I'm proud that I worked out just about every day this year, I missed less than 30 days! 
• Finish 12 exercise related calendar challenges - DONE! I walked a mile 23 days this month, however I finished with 44 miles for the month. So while I didn't walk everyday, I did exceed my goal of 31 miles. I will be continuing trying to walk a mile each day next year and my goal is 400 miles for the year.
• Do 30 40 60 Bible Plans in the You Verse app - DONE! I finished 3 plans in Dec and finished 66 plans this year. I enjoyed doing this for the year, I feel like I learned a lot about Jesus, the Bible and myself. Next year I'm switching to scripture writing for my goal. 
• Read "A Little God Time for Women" - DONE! I finished this book and really enjoyed it. I am holding on to it and would like to read it again in a year or two.
• Read 20 books - I finished 14 books this year, much lower than I expected.  In December I finished "Charlotte's Web" and "Feminine Mystique." I enjoyed rereading "Charlotte's Web" with Zak and his class, it's been over 30 years since I read it! 
• Read the 12 How to Train Your Dragon Books - I finished 0 book in December and 9 books so far. I have the last 3 books out from the library, they will be the first 2 books I read in the new year.
• Read "Feminine Mystique" - DONE!! I did not love this book and it took me forever to read it, but I'm glad I powered thru and finished it. 
• Write 45 35 meal plan blogs - DONE!! I only did 2 posts this month, but hit my goal of 35 blog posts this year. I will be continuing doing these most weeks next year, but not stressing about it if I don't blog it. The more important part for me is to actually plan my meals each week.
• Write 52 weekly summary blogs - DONE!! I did 6 posts this month, some of them were catching up on weeks I missed and finished 52 blog posts this year. I actually skipped Thanksgiving week and decided not to go back and try to write it now, just didn't feel like an efficient use of my time. I will not be doing these the same next year, it was very time consuming!
• Write 12 4 9 goal recap blogs - DONE!! Again, I won't be doing these monthly posts next year as part of my trying to simplify things. 
• Pay off $5,000 of credit card debt - DONE! We paid off $750 this month, $5,250 for the year. I'm super proud of us for sticking with this even though our income took a hit when I stopped working in March. We are on track to pay off everything in 2021 and then start working on the cars, student loans and finally our mortgage.
• Renovate the boys' bedrooms kitchen deck - DONE-ish! We didn't get to the kitchen, but the deck looks great. We are going to make a schedule next year to get one thing done around the house each month.
• Finish my daily to do list every night - I did this about 25 days in December. I have deleted some things off of the list to try to make finishing it more achievable. 
• Watch 50 70 movies - DONE!! We watched exactly 70 movies this year.  Our December movies were "Elf," "Grinch," "Christmas Chronicles," "Christmas Chronicles 2," "How the Grinch Stole Christmas Musical," "Christmas Vacation," "The Santa Claus" and "Jingle Jangle." So fun to watch all of those Christmas movies!! And still so many more that we want to see!!
• Go on 12 dates with Adrian - We finished the year with 10 dates. I'll take that as a win since we were staying home for a good chunk of the year. 
• Sub 80 days in the schools - I subbed 22.5 days this year, including 2 half days in my church preschool in December. This was way below what I was hoping but the schools have been virtual most of the year so I haven't had many opportunities. I'm hoping to get back in the schools safely soon!!
• Go to 6 Zumba jam sessions - I did a total of 4 virtual jams this year plus a ton of mini jams. I'm thankful for all of the training Zumba provided us virtually this year. They really went above and beyond for us instructors!!
• Clean out master bedroom - DONE!!
• Play 1 game with Adrian each week - DONE!! I have done this all 52 weeks and we have loved it! It has really brought us together as a couple and given us a fun hobby to have together. Next year we plan to play thru every game we own. 
• Play Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 with Adrian once per month - DONE!! We played the last month this month and had to play twice to win. This second season was a lot harder for us than the first one. We mostly enjoyed this one, but sometimes it felt like it was not possible to win which was frustrating for us.
• Play Machi Koro Legacy with the boys - DONE!! We played one game this month with the game we created over the past 9 months and Daniel won. It's fun to play the game with the choices we made over the past few months.
• Have 6 9 nights out with friends - DONE!! I had 9 nights out with my friends this year. In December we did a quick tacos and margaritas night out over Christmas break when we all needed a few hours break from our respective houses. So thankful I prioritized this and that slowing down a bit in other areas gave me time to do more with my friends. 
• 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) - DONE!! We did 108 fun things this year!! Obviously this ended up being a little different than we expected, but we are still had fun. It's just a different kind of fun right now.  This month we did: Santa visit, light show, Dungeons & Dragons night (x2), Trans Siberian Orchestra concert, game night, Christmas light scavenger hunt, Wildlights, WonderLights, Creekside, family dinner
• 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.