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. 

14 in '14 Review

So, it's no surprise that Peter took over my brain and my life in 2014. I honestly forgot I even made these goals for the 2nd half of the year. Oops! I did a few recaps in January, February, March, and June to show my progress on these goals, so if you're interested in what I actually accomplished, I'd recommend checking out those links. This will be more of a quick recap with my bragging for doing well or my excuses for why I failed. =)

1. Eat {more} vegetables.

I did well here because I made the goal simple and easy to measure. I ate *more* than I did the year before. So what if I still eat way below what I should? I'm improving and that's good enough for me. 

2. Learn to drive a stick (again).

Yippee! I did this one and am happy to say I could drive a stick shift in an emergency, if needed. I don't plan to ever buy a car that requires it on a regular basis, but I can drive someone else's and keep the car moving, even if it is a bit jerky at times. 

3. Read books.

I did read books, so this gets to go in the success category as well! I didn't complete The Empty Shelf Challenge as I hoped, but part of that was because I was borrowing books or reading them on my iPhone/iPad.

4. Print and make albums with the pictures I take in the year.

This one didn't happen, but I have faith it will this next year. More on that in my 2015 blog post.

5. (Continue to) memorize the book of James. 


I failed here and don't even have excuses. I didn't make the time or the effort. 

6. Crochet a blanket for Kory

I didn't do this one either, but it actually wasn't my fault! Kory decided half-way through the year that he didn't want the blanket anymore. I decided to do a baby blanket but then we were super blessed by family and friends and have a ton of baby blankets and don't need another one. So...I realize I could have finished my blanket I started like 3 years ago and never finished, but I didn't.

7. Can 3 foods.

I did it!! I canned strawberry jam, dill pickles, and salsa. I'm still very much a novice when it comes to canning, but I really enjoy the process. 

8. Do puzzles.

Another yes! I think I did 4 puzzles this year? That's not a lot but one of them was 2,000 pieces and took months and months to complete, so I still spent a good amount of time doing puzzles. I think I should do another one soon before Peter's old enough to help me out, aka grab and eat the pieces.

9. Make my blog prettier. 

Umm...technically, this is a yes. I added a background and changed some fonts. I don't love it, but I do like it. I'd still like to make it better at some point, but it's pretty low on my priority list these days. Still, it's prettier than it was before so I'm calling this a win.

10. Read through the entire Bible.

This is the one goal I am most ashamed of failing at because I failed miserably. I just quit trying. I still had a reminder each day and I dismissed it day after day without even trying to read. I have a whole list of excuses why, but they're all selfish and dumb and embarrassing. I've got to do better here. 

11. Eat more whole foods and, therefore, less processed foods. 

Again, the goal was *more*, so I succeeded. I'm toying with some ideas for how to kick this up a notch in 2015, but haven't made any decisions yet. I still have a deep love for junk food, but I did take some positive steps in the past year. 

12. Get my braces off.

Yeah baby!! This happened! I got them off on October 27, which was my due date. Peter came 9 days late so I easily reached my goal of having them off before he was born. I'm wearing a retainer now, but it's still so nice to be able to take it out to eat or brush. Flossing is so easy now! 

13. Brush up on my Spanish.

No. Yo no hice esto. I had to look up how to say "I didn't do this" because I don't even remember that much. 

14. Move out of our house.

I am very grateful that this one didn't happen. We spent Christmas 2014 in our home with our new baby and it was awesome! 

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Alright, so the final total I accomplished was 8 out of 14. That's over 50%, so I'm happy with it, particularly during a year where I grew a human being!! Because I consider him the best part of 2014 (obviously!), I can't finish this post without a picture of him.

2013 in Review

I really love all the end of the year reviews that happen in late December/early January. It's fun to remember how much has happened in just 365 days. Here are some of our 2013 highlights:

January

I'd had my braces on for just over a month and then started the new year by getting my wisdom teeth removed and another tooth pulled. On a related note, I dropped down to my college weight at this point as I spent the month of January eating almost no solids :)

February

We spent 10 days in Texas and New Mexico. Since we didn't get to be with family for the holidays, this was our belated trip to see them and also to attend our 5 year college reunion at Lubbock Christian University. Most importantly, we got to hang out with our niece, Lucy, for only the 2nd time in her life.

March

We discovered our home had major foundation problems in the month of March, and that radically changed the rest of the year for us. This news came exactly one year after we purchased our house.

April

Easter was a big weekend for us. Kory preached at all 4 services at Redeemer's Fellowship and I cooked my first Easter Feaster, which is sure to become a Mereness holiday tradition, complete with breaking our 40 day soda fast for the 40 Days of Water.

May

We celebrated 2 years of marriage with a weekend at Seven Feathers Hotel and Casino. The weekend included swimming, sleeping in/naps, The Office on Netflix, and ice cream. Perfection!

June

We participated in the Run for Ohm 5k for the first time. Our times weren't particularly note-worthy, but we did finish before the 10k winners came in, and called that a win.

July

We flew to Angel Fire, NM to spend an extended weekend with Kory's family to celebrate a 60th birthday, 80th birthday, and 60th wedding anniversary. After only seeing Lucy once in the first 18 months of her life, it was awesome to see her again, just 5 months later.

August

After talking about it for 2 years, we finally climbed South Sister with our best friends, Abby and Jeremy. We camped, hiked, and spent the weekend on Oregon's 3rd tallest mountain.

September

After over a year of planning and preparing, Kory helped put together a Parenting Conference this Fall. His parents flew up and taught at the conference and we enjoyed a wonderful extended weekend together.

October

We hosted a Halloween party and ended up with about 45 people at our house at some point in the evening. Kory was dressed as Zombie Steve Jobs and I was a green M&M.

November

I graduated from Launching Your Leadership, which is a leadership training program through the State of Oregon. I spent most of the Fall driving back and forth to Salem for this program.

December

As anyone who is Facebook friends with me knows, we just flew back to Texas to surprise family on Christmas morning. A detailed post about this trip will soon follow, but I'll leave you with a picture of the newest additions to the Mereness family, Molly and Jude.