Weekly Report: Progress Not Perfection

 

As an extrovert, public accountability is a strong motivator for me, so I'm now listing and tracking my daily, weekly, and monthly goal results here on my blog each Monday. Having and achieving goals makes my life feel immeasurable richer, so much thanks to those of you that read along here.

Last Update for JANUARY:

Daily Goals

• Exercise (Run, walk, hike, bicycle, kayak, do yoga, or lift weights).  Achieved 3 out of 7 days. All three days involved meeting up with other people, either my hiking club or my spouse. The days I didn't do anything were when I was on my own, so I need to work on finding the motivation to be active without other people being involved. 
• Tue:  Six mile hike
• Sat:   Eight mile hike
• Sun:    Six mile hike
• Practice guitar.  Achieved all 7 days. 
• Practice 15 min Spanish.  Achieved 6 of 7 days. 
• Limit processed sugar intake to Sat & Sun only.  Almost. I had a small piece of freshly made banana bread on Tuesday evening, but otherwise adhered to my goal. On Saturday night I had two cookies, and on Sunday night I had just one cookie. Sunday night was an easy stop, so I think I'm past the worst of the sugar weaning process. If I am good to go over the next five days, my plan is to reduce my processed sugar intake to just one day a week, and not worry about what day that occurs.
• Consume eight cups of water.  Averaged 4 cups a day. Even though I'm not yet hitting my goal of eight cups a day, this is the most water I've consumed on a regular basis, pretty much ever. So I'm very pleased with my progress thus far, and will continue working to get to eight cups a day. 
• Complete a unique household chore.  Achieved 5 of 7 days.  
• Cleaned the screen door tracks for all three of our sliding patio doors.
• Sorted and stored the leftover paint from our recent bathroom painting project.
• Dusted behind the piano
• Laid snail-deterrent copper meshing along rear wall of backyard.
• Did some minor grout touch ups in upstairs guest bathroom.

Progress not perfection is my mantra for all of my goals.

Weekly Goals

• Read and finish one book.  Achieved, I read two.  I read Evicted: Poverty And Profit In The American City by Matthew Desmond. I started this book not expecting to get too excited by it, because it was an assigned read for my spiritual congregation book club. But dang, it was so compelling I had a hard time putting it down, and read the entire 330 page book in four days. Way more to this book than I can possibly unpack here, but if you are interested in trying to better understand the issue of the cycle of poverty in our country, this is the book.

I also read The Island by Elin Hilderbrand, an easy to read and pleasant offset to above.

• Lose 20 pounds by summer, at a rate of 1-2 pounds per week.  Achieved.  I lost 1 pound this week. For me, there is an extremely strong correlation between processed sugar and overeating, so by working to keep sugar at bay, everything else fell into place and my total number of calories consumed dropped. 
• As of 2/1/2021:  2.5 pounds lost, 17.5 to go
• Menu plan and grocery shop, including at least one new recipe  Achieved. Here was my menu for the week, with the new recipe's in bold, and links to recipes as I'm able to find them online:
1. Pioneer Woman Meatloaf, baked sweet potato, sauteed broccoli. I left off the bacon from the meatloaf, but it was still terrific. And enough leftovers for at least two additional meals.
2. Leftover Huevos Rancheros from last week, fresh fruit.
3. Chicken Stew with Carrots, Parsnips Red Potatoes and Celery, from Cook's Country One Pan Wonders cookbook, Pillsbury biscuits. I like parsnips, but I decided to swap them out for some red potatoes I already had on hand and needed to use up.
4. Above leftovers
5. Mustard & Panko Crusted Salmon With Roasted Red Potatoes And Broccoli. Also from Cook's Country One Pan Wonders cookbook. It really is a great cookbook!
   
6. Chinese take out
7. Wine Club Dineout (and I do mean dineout . . . it was brisk!)
• One game night in lieu of TV  Achieved. We had fun putting together this Clue mystery puzzle, working to solve the mystery as we did so. I found the key to making this happen was to pull out the game ahead of time, setting it out on our dining room table so it remained nice and visible during dinner.  BTW- I saw this game on sale on EBay for $45, wow! Pretty sure I paid less than $10 even though it was 20 years ago, when my daughters lived at home.

• One reading night in lieu of TV  Achieved.  Since entering post-menopause I find that I struggle to stay awake in the evening, due to waking up between 3 and 4 AM most mornings - not on purpose, trust me.  But to my surprise, not only did the time fly, but I felt nice and alert as I read.  

Monthly Goal Updates

• January Goal Focus:  Home  This final week in January we had the glass shower walls and doors installed to finish off our recent bathrooms remodeling project. 

I also did another round of dusting to get rid of any residual dust still left from the project. We also enjoyed lots of YouTube fireplace music, mostly jazz saxaphone, on the TV in our family room as we went about our chores and various activities each day. I embraced my kitchen again now that we no longer had to depart our home while workers were present, and made a loaf of fragrant banana-chocolate chip-bread on a rainy afternoon. And as a result of our home feeling very finished and cozy, I spent a rainy afternoon huddled up reading on a sofa in front our family room TV, which was 'playing' a faux crackling fireplace. It felt sooo good to be done.

• February Goal Focus:  Romance  It's February, it's Valentine's Day soon, and with so much stress now lifted (2020 election, COVID vaccine rollouts, our home remodel project, and delivery and set up of our new travel trailer) I feel lighter and brighter than I have in some time, and I want to spend this month focused on the relationship between me and my husband. He is such a wonderful person, and I appreciate him more with each passing year, so I look forward to lavishing him with love this month. My intention is to pick one item each day from a book I purchased years and years ago, called 2,002 Romantic Ideas. 

I have lots of grandiose ideas, but I'm going to start off small and make a batch of his favorite cookies today, Oatmeal Raisin. I haven't made them in years because I don't care for them at all, of which he is well aware, so I'm hopeful he'll interpret my making them just for him as a small romantic gesture. 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How about you? Any goal updates to share?