Happy New Year!

Guess what I did to ring in the New Year! I went to bed around 10pm and then wanted to kill myself as every neighbor in a mile radius was blowing off ridiculously loud fireworks between then and roughly 12:15am. You could say I'm lame. Or that I really enjoy sleeping. Either way I don't regret the evening.

The New Year always makes me think of the things I did the year before, what I accomplished, how much things changed, etc. The cool thing is I could just look over my blog entries for reminders. But, for a quick recap I'll pick one thing for each month:

Jan: Chris threw me an epic fail of a surprise party, but the party turned out great!

Feb: Attempted to give up sugar for lent

Mar: Decided to move to Hawaii

Apr: Visited my family in Georgia, spent my first (and hopefully only) week away from Chris

May: Moved to Hawaii

June: Started work at The Tram at Hanauma Bay

July: Redid my dresser

Aug: Started my internship at Hawaii News Now

Sept: Celebrated three years of knowing my husband and got to see pictures of our BFFs new baby

Oct: Had a blast making a haunted house with the young women and looked awesome as Barbie

Nov: Got to work election night at Hawaii News Now

Dec: Finished my internship and had a hot, quiet Hawaiian Christmas


At the very start of last year, I made a huge long list of resolutions that I wanted to work on completing by the end of the year. I was so set on it, that I started a whole separate blog in hopes that I would update it on a daily basis and keep up with my goals. Well I stopped updating that blog regularly right around March. But I did work hard all year to try and stick to my goals.

Here they are, let's see how many I accomplished:

Physical

• Lose 15 lbs
• Exercise 5 days a week
• Take advantage of all opportunities to exercise
• Stick to my meal plan
• >1250 Calories a day
• Increase my flexibility
• All 3 splits
• Complete a 5k
• Complete a 10k
• Complete a half marathon
• Give up refined sugar for lent
• February 22- April 5

Educational

• Turn in my assignments on time
• Stay organized with when assignments are due
• Start on big assignments early
• Schedule time for homework
• Don’t procrastinate
• Develop a desire to learn the things I’m studying
• Study on a regular basis instead of cramming for exams

Spiritual

• Have Family Home Evening every week
• Have personal scripture study every day
• Have family scripture study every day
• Have personal prayer every morning and night
• Have family prayer every morning  and night
• Go to church every Sunday
• Be on time to church
• Exception: sickness or travel
• Start planning Sunday School lessons the week before
• Read Relief Society lessons beforehand
• Do visiting teaching every month

Temporal

• Always keep house clean
• One big cleaning task a day
• Clean upstairs once a week when my landlady is in town
• Update ‘Resolutions’ blog daily
• Write in journal weekly
• Don’t watch Netflix during the week.
• Only watch my normal 7 shows each week
• Stop biting nails
• Stick to a budget

I told you it was a big list. And honestly, I didn't master ANY of the things on it. Except biting my nails. I stopped doing that. But I don't feel especially bad about not mastering any of the things on it. For a good long while I developed the habit of reading my scriptures and praying every night. But somewhere along the way I fell out of practice. 

I was exercising almost 5 days a week probably up until August. But I didn't lose 15 lbs or always stick to my meal plan or calorie goal. But you know what, the whole year I had these goals on my mind and I worked at doing them. I think the biggest problem with New Year's Resolutions is that people give them up by January or February. But I didn't. I didn't expect to master any of them, but I worked hard to try the whole year and for that, I'm proud of myself.

For the same reason, I don't think I'm going to make New Year's Resolutions this year. mainly because the goals I had last year are still goals I want to accomplish. Sure, some things have changed, but the basic things I would still like to instill in my everyday habits.

I wish everyone a Happy New Year and good luck on your own resolutions. But remember, sometimes if you call them goals and make a plan on how to do them, it makes them more doable.