2018 New Year Resolutions Revisted

So this post is delayed! Normally I work on these throughout the year but for some reason I didn't last year. In fact, last year may have been my lightest for blogging ever. I'm planning on fixing that! I have a lot of drafts and ideas I've been playing with. Some are about a topic we'll touch on later on this post and others I've just been putting off.

Basically, I just haven't been as motivated to write lately. Like most artists, I tend to create more in times of high emotion and things have been pretty smooth sailing lately. I do think of a lot of blog posts but I've also just been really tired lately. Sometimes, just getting through work and life can be a lot and adding blog posts on top can be overwhelming.

But! I must do my yearly resolutions. I have so much to say about last year... and it's a good place to start on getting my blog posts going again.

Spartan Trifecta

I did it!!! It's crazy that this has been on my resolution list several times and now it's done! It was done by mid last year so it feels so long ago now. I saw a friend a few weeks ago and they asked how it went. "HARD" I said. "But do you feel really amazing about it now that's done?" they replied. "No, I feel like it was really hard" I said.

... and that sums it up! I definitely feel like it was a big accomplishment but the Beast race was very challenging. I thought the 12+ mile race would take me about 4 hours. It took almost 6. The elevation and inclines really hurt me. I don't think my nutrition was enough for that extreme of a race. I had a late start time. Most of all, I needed to train a lot more for those conditions. I did it though! I would just want to do a lot better next time.

So would I do it again? Yea, I think I would. I definitely want to do the shorter Spartan Races again - the Sprints and Supers, but I'd want to approach a Beast a lot differently. I'd want an earlier start time, I'd want to train more with hill running, and I'd want to pick a race that was not at elevation.

However, it's going to be a while before I do any Spartan race again. I need a little bit of a break for sure.

One New Etsy Item a Week

I did really well at this at first! I was adding things weekly... and then I realized it made more sense to add a bunch of items at once. There's some economies of scale for me to do a few items at the same time and this made more sense to me. I would still post things on my Instagram once or twice a week to spread out the marketing of it a little but there was no reason to hold back items I'd already made just because of a resolution.

Later in the year, I hit some speed bumps though. The computer that had the software stopped being able to connect to the internet so I had to constantly transfer files back and forth. Eventually, this became too annoying and I just stopped making listings the last few months of the year. I still came close to 52 new listings because I did so many earlier in the year, but I'm disappointed I didn't find a better work around to my computer issue... like buying new software for a better computer.

Grow My Etsy Business to Amazon

This didn't happen at all. I didn't even try. I DID, however, start building a good following for my Etsy shop on Instagram. I still have a lot I can do here but I've gotten a bunch of followers a several sales through my Instagram posts so that's exciting.

I'm not sure Amazon makes sense for my product but a good way to expand would be through selling items that help with cross stitch. I know mailing actual items is a lot more work so it would be interesting to see how it goes. I recently got a question asking if I sold one of the products I was thinking of for my shop which just shows that this idea is on the right track.

Change My Name

I came really close!!! I started the process... I just never made my way to the SS office. But soon! It doesn't make sense to do it right this second since it will mess up our tax return but it's on the short list for things to do earlier this year.

Waste Less

This isn't something measurable but I think we did a good job! In general, this goal was just about acquiring fewer items. We have so much junk in our house and I wanted to scale down, not keep getting things. The side effect - you spend less money as well and it feels really, really good. I want to keep on this path for sure and shift away from buying a lot of stuff to getting a few quality products that we'll really use.

Re-Coop Real Estate Expenses

This also went no where and it showed me that maybe it's time to leave this one aside. It's hard when you've invested a lot of money and time into something that just wasn't a good fit for you. I thought the referral program would be a good way for me get at least some of the cost back. However, this ended up being a dead end.

Do One Chore a Day

I feel like we're doing a lot of fails here? Anyways, I dropped this one about 4 days in. I realized, doing one little thing a day didn't really make sense. Chores go faster when you knock out a few things at once. I'm sure I might do one chore a day depending on how you define a chore (which also was a problem point for me) but I'd rather just say, I tried to be more helpful in keeping the house in good shape overall. I also feel like Dan and I do a great job of dividing a conquering. There are some things he always does, some things I also do, and some bigger cleaning days where we each just dive into a bunch of tasks to get something done.

Weekly Doggy Walk/Hike/Run

This is another one that's hard to quantify but I'm sure I did it. I made a point, especially later in the year, to take Harley out as much as I could. Generally this was more than once a week. Dan and I also love taking the dog out once or twice over the weekend. I wish more of these were hikes but just getting all of us out to walk around the neighborhood is better than nothing.

Weekly Date

This one definitely fell off near the end of the year but I know that, in general, Dan and I are great about spending time together. Sometimes it just not always feasible to go somewhere and spend extra money. With that said, we still went to a lot of shows of beer tasting and festivals. We definitely don't just sit at home all the time.

Secret Goal

So, writing this all up, it feels like I punted on a lot of the goals I had for last year.... but there's a good reason for it! Most of my energy went into this goal... which was to get pregnant. Being in my 30s, and spending so much of my life trying NOT to get pregnant, made me a little worried that this would be difficult. I got a pile of books on lifestyle changes to help this happen and I put a lot of effort into researching everything... and it worked! It took a few months but I got pregnant in October and we're expecting a baby this summer!!

In relation to all of the goals above though (except the Spartan Race, we didn't start trying until AFTER because I knew pregnancy would affect my racing) - they all took a back seat to this. Hormones are crazy yo. Going off birth control was jarring to my system and it was difficult to adjust to all the normal hormones flowing back into my system. It was nothing compared to pregnancy though - morning sickness and fatigue definitely plagued my first trimester and it can be really hard to plan a date night or go on a hike or make Etsy listings when you don't feel good. I think anyone who is pregnant and already has little kids is a saint. I don't know how you balance it all. I was fortunate that working from home and not having other humans to take care of meant that I could focus on resting and feeling ok. 

This sounds like a lot of complaining but what I really want to say is that I'm very excited! I have always wanted to be a mom and when it seemed like our lives were in a place where we could support a child, I was anxious to get started. I have so many ideas and plans for this little one and definitely some blog posts to go along with it. 

As long as I'm feeling ok, you can expect a lot more blogging this year as we get ready for this big life change!