Looking Forward: 2012*

 **I actually wrote this post yesterday, but wordpress decided to be a jerk and delete half of it when I tried to submit it. I just didn’t have it in me to write it all out again last night, so you’ll get double the post love from me today! :)

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a fabulous evening celebrating the end of 2011 last night, and that you’re all enjoying the first bit of 2012 so far. The Hubster and I actually did make it to midnight (much to my own surprise) and spent a perfectly lovely evening ringing in the new year with Hockey Night in Canada… even though the Leafs lost.

*sigh*

As has been tradition for the last several years, I love to begin each new year by reviewing my goals for the previous ones, and setting new goals for the year to come. So, let’s have a look at my plan for 2011:

1) Run. (As often as I can. I’d like to try for 3 times a week.)
Well, I had such good intentions for this one–I ran sporadically through March and April and was ready to hit the pavement hard in May / June as the weather got a little nicer. Annnnd then I found out that I was pregnant. I know that it can be safe to run during pregnancy if you’re already an experienced runner, but as I didn’t feel I fit into that category and I already had so many anxieties about the pregnancy I decided to forgo my running season this year.

2) Eat well.
I actually have done considerably well with this, and knowing that someone else is depending on me to eat well has helped me a lot. I couldn’t even look at sweets for the first trimester, so my diet adapted to include many lovely fruits and vegetables that I would normally avoid due to laziness. As a result I feel great, and I’ve only gained 23 pounds through my pregnancy so far (I lost a pound this week… I’ll find it again. haha).

3) Finish writing my book.
Yeaaah… no. This didn’t happen. With everything that happened this year I just couldn’t commit myself to the project. It’s something I hope to keep picking at though!

4) Revive my blog. (Write every day until the end of January… then try for Feb!)
I DID do this… for a while. I was so proud of myself for writing every day for months… then the house and pregnancy happened and it all went to pot. It’s so hard to balance everything, but I miss writing so much when I let it slip.

5) Have at least one girl’s night a month.
Success! Our lovely book club meets every month, and when we can we’ll meet up in between for dinners or hangouts. In fact, I think we’re well overdue for another…

6) Have a date night with my Hubster every week.
I wouldn’t say that we have had official “date nights” each week, but we do try to set aside time to spend together when we can. For a while we declared Home Depot our date night store, as every spare penny we had was poured into improving our home. In any case, we always find time to be together. :)

7) Run a 5km or 10km race. (Anyone want to do this with me????)
Ugh. No. I had my race picked out but couldn’t do it. Next year!

8) Feel good in my clothes (aka– drop a few.)
…I DO feel good in my clothes, but only because I heart my baby bump! haha!

9) Be brave.
Yes and no. There were certain things I had in mind when I chose this as a goal, and in some respects I feel it was successful, but there is still definitely room for improvement.

10) Find a full-time teaching job. (or at least an LTO)
WIN! It didn’t happen in the way I expected, or when I thought it would, but I found my job at my favorite school. Life is good.

11) Take at least one more AQ course.
Done! I took a course about teaching students with communication needs (focusing on Autism) from January – May of this year, and while the timing of the course was terrible for me, I loved the material. It was just hard trying to balance school, work and moving all at once!

12) Be grateful.
For a while I was writing out lists of what I was grateful for each week, and it definitely helped me keep things in perspective. I am definitely grateful for everything I have in my life, and I continue to work hard at making sure I am expressing that!

13) Travel somewhere.
Well, traveling didn’t happen this year… hopefully we’ll be able to take the wee-bean on her first family vacation some time in the next 12 months!

14) Watch less TV. (Get rid of at least two TV shows)
DONE! By March of last year I had cut out nearly half of the TV shows I was watching. Now I’m down to roughly 5 or 6 shows that I follow each week, which works out to maybe an hour a day. I can live with that.

15) Read 100 books.
Fail. Again, I just didn’t have the time. I set this goal before my course, the move, the pregnancy and then work and I just couldn’t keep up the rigorous reading schedule it would have required. I made it to 45, which I am still proud of!

So, I didn’t complete all my goals for 2011, but overall I’m quite happy with what I did accomplish, considering the year I had.

Sometimes you just can’t predict what life will throw your way.

That being said, I still love making goals, and wanted to set some new ones for 2012. Here we go!

1) Take care of myself. (If I learned anything from the last year, it’s that I tend to take on WAY too much, stress out and overwhelm myself, then forget to find the balance I need to be healthy and happy. With the wee-bean’s imminent arrival, I need to take care of myself in order to properly take care of her and the Hubster and enjoy the life I want. I know this will mean learning how to say “no” in certain situations, something I’ve never been good at.)
2) Express Gratitude.
3) Eat well.
4) Exercise regularly & feel good in my clothes.
5) Run a race.
6) Read often.
7) Write often.
8) Set aside time to spend with my Hubster, that doesn’t involve working on our house.
9) Read the Book of Mormon.
10) Be a good mom.

I have a billion other goals that tie into some of these, but this is what I’d  like to focus on for 2010. I know that our lives are about to change completely (for the better) and I want the focus for this year to be on the happiness and health of my family. I know deep down that that begins with me–so my goal for this year is to become a more balanced, healthier version of my past self.

I don’t really know that this next year holds for me, but if contains even a smidgen of the awesomeness that was 2011, bring it on.