15 in 2015 Review

Well, it's time to wrap up another year of goals for me and I'm feeling pretty good about my results this year. I'm still working on my 2016 goals, so I'll get those posted soon.

I ended up completing 10 out of 15 goals, so that's a win in my book.

I started 2015 with a tiny, cuddly newborn.

1. Write at least 2 blog posts per month.
This didn't happen. I had 19 blog posts in 2015, most of which were Peter's monthly updates. 

2. Read 5 books.
Check! I completed 5 and started probably 3 more that I still haven't finished.

3. Eat more whole foods.
I realize now that it's pretty hard to decide if I accomplished something like this that is pretty subjective, (aren't goals supposed to be measurable?) but I do think I ended the year better than I started. I still love junk food way too much, but I also really like a good variety of vegetables now, so there's more balance than there was before. 

4. Spend less time on my phone.
Again, this is hard to quantify, but I made some real progress in taking time away from my phone this year and prioritizing face-to-face time with others. 

5. Find creative ways to save and/or earn money for our family.
I think my real goal here was to live on one paycheck and not dip into savings. We did it! In fact, we even continued contributing to our savings account each month (although it was a fairly small amount). 

6. Keep up with my One Line A Day journal.
I don't always write in it every single day, but I am able to catch up on the past several days enough to still be going with this. It's already fun to read the entries from last year and remember what happened on that day. 

7. Purge our home of 300 unnecessary items. 
Huge win!! I stopped counting at 500 items, but I donated or sold at least 10 more garbage bags of stuff after that. I actually found and used an organizing/cleaning method called KonMari which I'll post more about in my 2016 goals. 

8. Spend time outside.
Staying home with Peter has made me much more of a home-body than I was before. Too many days go by without us leaving the house. I wish I had done better on this one.

9. Learn how to use our new camera. 
I'm still trying to figure out how we have such an awesome camera and many of our pictures turn out blurry or have weird lighting. I know the problem is the user so I'd still really like to work on this. 

10. Run a 5k.
I completed the Run for Ohm in June and that was pretty much it as far as running goes. I really am only motivated by a race it seems. 

11. Complete 6 crafty/house/Pinterest projects.
I made a doll carrier, pretend tea bags, a drawing pad/crayon roll, a Father's Day framed handprint of Peter's, several mason jar plant containers, quite a few decorations for Peter's birthday party, a Christmas fabric garland, and Frozen-themed hooded towels for my nieces and nephew.

12. Try 12 new recipes.
I did a really bad job tracking the new recipes I tried. I'm thinking I probably tried 12, but since I didn't keep track of what they were, I'm not going to count this one.  

13. Lose 20 pounds.
I'm not 100% sure what I weighed when I made this goal, but I think I was trying to get down to my pre-baby weight and that didn't quite happen. I am 5 pounds away, or at least I was before the holidays. I didn't actually make too much of a concerted effort to lose the weight, so I'm not really upset about not reaching it. 

14. Organize and file our stacks of paperwork.
All the paperwork in our house is neatly filed away or in the trash. I've got one small bin that I keep bills and mail in that needs to be dealt with, and I try to empty it fairly often.

15. Plant a garden.
I planted quite a bit, but the things that actually grew were basil, strawberries, zucchini, tomatoes, lemon cucumbers and jalapeños.

We ended 2015 with a climbing, running, very active toddler.