Well, it's my birthday and as I take another trip around the sun, it felt like a good time to share where I'm at and update people on life.
I like structure in my blog posts though so I'm going to do some general bullet points that kind of follow my resolution check-ins.
Spartan Trifecta / Stick to a Regular Fitness Schedule
This one has been going great. I already have two of the three races done. The third is in about 3 weeks and I'm getting very excited and anxious about it. It's crazy to work on a goal for so long and have it creep up on you.
In terms of training - it's definitely crunch time now. I've been trying to get as many workouts in as possible and I feel like I'm finally at a place with my fitness that I can do two workouts a day and give both my full effort. I try to listen to my body and take rest days when I can as well but I love the workouts I'm doing and it can be hard to bench myself when I see something fun at bootcamp or new climbs being set up.
It's been really cool to track my progress. I'm lifting heavier, I'm moving faster, I'm climbing better - and sometimes all in the same day. I love workouts that can be quantified and it's great to do things that make it easy to see progress.My biggest set back has been getting sick. I got the flu 3 times and 2 colds since winter. That's 5 weeks that I was set back from training. Pair that with every day stresses and obstacles to getting to the gym and that's a lot of missed training time. It can also be mentally difficult to want to do something but be physically unable to. It's hard to get back into a routine when it's thrown off like that.
That Getting Sick Thing
After the last flu, I was pretty frustrated. I can't keep getting sick so I started thinking of ways to stop it. I'm obviously getting a flu shot next year. I make sure to wash my hands before leaving the gym and any time I get home from a store. I've been taking vitamins and probiotics. I make Dan do this obsessive hand washing too. I bought anti-bacterial gel to keep in all my bags and wipes to clean my phone frequently. I'm hoping all of this will severely cut back how much I get sick!
One New Etsy Item a Week
This goal has been going so well. I follow a blogger who always says that doing creative things inspires more creativity. It's a self propagating circle. That's really how I feel about these cross stitch patterns. I haven't actually been doing one pattern a week - it's always been at least two and sometimes more. Making one pattern for me has led to other pattern inspirations. I would come up with themes or patterns that fit together as a package.
In the past four months, I've added about 40 new listings to my shop. That's definitely FAR exceeding the one pattern a week goal. I have a huge list of ideas still. For March I made many patterns around Women's History Month. I loved the idea of monthly themes but there were SO MANY great inspirational nerdy women to make into patterns, I carried it through to April. I could probably do it all year but I have a great theme idea for May (May the Force Be With You to finish out my Star Wars Poster series!!!). I love that it inspired so many ideas that I can come back to through out the year.
I still want to find ways to expand my shop to other sites and also include more than just patterns. I've been thinking that selling materials and tools to help with the stitching would be a good next step. Selling physical items will be more work but I feel like people will be more inspired to buy a pattern if some of the harder to find fabrics are in the same spot.
I also made a more Cross Stitch focused name, email account, and Instagram. It's been really cool watching my work translate to more sales. Right now my revenue is also about the same amount that I send to savings through a site called Acorns so it's cool to see that lined up. (Also, Acorns is amazing - let me know if you want to know more or get an invite link!)
Waste Less / Buy Less Stuff
It's definitely much harder to track a goal like this. I hope that I am wasting less but I don't have a good way to measure. I know that I've made a big effort to really plan out the perishables that I'm buying at the store so I'm not throwing away as much food. It definitely pangs a little when I still have to.
A big thing that has helped with the mentality has also been cleaning house. When we moved in, we piled a bunch of things in the garage. Many of those boxes have not been touched since - some not even since we moved from San Francisco! On those rare free weekends, Dan and I have been trying to go through and pare it down. There's a lot of work left to do but at the end of the day, we feel buried under our junk and don't want to add to it. It's helped us spend more money on experiences and less on "stuff."
Another thing that has helped has been letting items sit in my cart. I started doing this just to push off items to the next credit card cycle to make sure my monthly spending was in line. Having a few days or weeks to think about purchases has helped me decide if I want them. Generally, I've ended up only buying things that feel really necessary. The internet is great, but when it's so easy to buy something, it's also easy to get carried away.
Do One Chore a Day
I basically dropped this about one week in. Doing one thing every day can end up being much more stressful than helpful. I found myself putting off doing extra chores on days I wasn't as busy so I had something to do the next day. I would get really overwhelmed on days I was busy or traveling to "fit one more thing in." I often didn't know if something was big enough to qualify as a chore for the day.I decided a better way to handle it was to help out as much as I could when I could. I liked that mindset a lot better than feeling overwhelmed by a well intentioned goal. If I have a free Saturday, I can knock out a bunch of chores and projects and that feels better than one a day.
I've also used a couple of vacation days to match with some of Dan's comped days off. It's nice to both have a week day to just tackle projects. As nice as it is to take a day off for a vacation, sometimes that just builds the stress of maintaining a house. On one of these days, we did a nice landscaping project and added a bunch of fruit trees to our yard. Technically, the end result has been one more chore for me to do, but I find checking the plants each day and the watering schedule to be really therapeutic.
Take an Annual Trip with My Husband
It's just after tax season which means we have money for a vacation!!! Like the rest of our lives, the vacation is planned around our Spartan Race! It's the week after our race and I've begun referring to it as our SpartanMoon. We are doing a relaxing cruise in the Caribbean. Unlike our cruise last year, we're going to be lighter on the sightseeing (just one little excursion or beach time in each port) and enjoy the activities on the boat more. We obviously did as much as we could on the boat last time but a summer Caribbean cruise just offers so many more activities and I know it will be the right kind of fun, relaxing trip we'll want as our reward for reaching our goals.
Weekly Doggy Walk/Hike/Run
We've been really good about this! I'm sure we've missed some weeks but even when we can't do it as a family, I try to take Harley for a run or walk on my own.
In general, hikes are our favorite. In the lead up to our race, we've been trying to do some that are more challenging, including multiple hikes at a time. There's always the worry that it might be too much for the dog (and we would definitely quit and carry her back to the car if it was), but usually she's in better shape at the end of a hike than we are.
Weekly Date
Me Time
It's also always been important to focus on myself. I'm going to roll this together with my reading goals because I realized last year that reading really is "me time." A lot of times I'm just trying to grab a few pages when I can but I love when I have an afternoon off and good book and I can just read for a few hours.I've also been using more of my free time to complete my own cross stitching. In the past, it's taken me almost a year to complete a page of stitching. Now it's more like 1-3 months and I'm learning more tricks to speed it up and increase my quality.
I also just love taking care of my house and going on walks with Harley. It's amazing how my appreciation for the simple things in life increases as I get older. I've been enjoying going out less and less. Really, my ideal time is a some wine with a small group, Dan, or even just myself.
And Everything Else
In general, life is just really good. 2017 was a really hard year for me and in hindsight, I was probably depressed from the loss of my mom and a couple of friendships. I'm in such a better place now and even though I still get sad or lonely sometimes, I have the tools to work through it better. I've made more friends and joined a gym that feels like it's becoming a real community for me. I pushed through a lot of my issues last year by pushing myself to do things that challenged me and gave me a sense of accomplishment. That helped me be better with other people as well.
It's also put me in a place where I just don't have any room for negativity or meanness. Just because I'm in a good place now, doesn't mean I'm not hurt by people, frustrated by negative experiences, and set back by bad days. Instead I try to cut out the crap and look over the road block to continue to focus on what I can do to grow.
I often have people ask how I do so much or tell me I'm lucky or wonder how I stay motivated. Personally, I'm very goal oriented. This blog is a part of that. I started sharing my new years resolutions about 10 years ago (WOW WHERE DOES THE TIME GO??!?!!) as a way to feel accountable and stick to my goals. Generally, I accomplish maybe 70-80% of what I set out to do. To me, that's room to grow, but I also know that I'm 70-80% better than how I started out the year. The best thing I can say is to find the thing that motivates you, keep yourself accountable, make lists, tell people what your goals are so they can cheer you on and keep you on track. Join groups or meet ups that align with your goals. Follow motivating people on social media. Lean into friendships that support you and have like minded views. Lean away from people who bring you down and drain you.
So that's all for now. Just a collection of thoughts about where I am right now. If you're a reader I don't see often, I hope you appreciated the update and if you're a reader who just likes my blog and what I'm doing, I hope you continue to find my stuff interesting! I definitely have some ideas for posts but it's been so hard to find time to write with the work and and all these things I'm trying to do.
Side note: After writing this, I went back and read some of my other Resolution posts. It's funny how so many things I wanted to work on over time (and didn't always get right) are such an integral part of my life now (One was to workout twice a week. I'm working out twice day no! I laughed a little at that one). Some of it is through concentrated effort but a lot of it is just being in the right place and the right time with the right support. It's got me thinking of another post idea that gets at the heart of it. Food for thought!!
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| Nailed it! |
