Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Monthly Review of Goals for August

I really got a lot accomplished this month. We did a lot of camping but we also spent a lot of time at home in between camping trips.

Yearly goals:

1.     Reach my target weight by the end of the year. –  I did not eat sensibly this month but mainly because when I got home from work I was so hungry that I binge ate. I did try to walk to counteract my eating.

2.     Finish knitting my Fair Isle vest. – I finished my vest and I love it!

3.     Spin 4 lbs. of fiber for the year.  
a.     January – spun 4 oz. of Into the Whirled “Rhinebeck”, 4 oz. Hobbledehoy Gemmy Bats
b.     February – spun 4 oz. of Fiber Optic “Turquoise to Tangerine Gradient”; started on 4 oz. of Pumpkin Queen.
c.     March – spun 4 oz. of Miss Bab’s “Blackwatch” that I bought in 2011.
d.     April – spun 5.4 oz. of Loop’s Bullseye Bump in the “Somewhere” colorway and 4 oz. of Highland Handmades Masham fiber in the  “Talbot” colorway.
e.     May – spun 4 oz. of Brown Alpaca from a fleece that I bought from my friend Lisa.
f.      June – plied the Loop bump and the Masham fiber.
g.     July – spun 4 oz. of Leading Men Fiber Arts  in the “Steve and Andy” colorway.; 4 oz. Fiber Addiction “Freak Like Me” colorway.; started on a Loop Batt
h.     August – spun 4.8 oz. of a Loop batt (Raindance colorway)
Total: 46.2 oz.

4.     Use at least 4 skeins of my handspun this year. –
a.     January - Basket Weave scarf
b.     February – Summer Shadows shawl by Angelea McGarrah
c.     March – working on the Oaklet Shawl by Megan Goodacre
d.     April – Finished my Oaklet Shawl by Megan Goodacre
e.     May – started on the Belle Greene Shawl by Nina Machlin Dayton
f.      June – still working on my Belle Greene shawl.
g.     July – Finished my Belle Greene shawl
h.     August – finished Don’s ribbed hat.

5.     Dye my own yarn or fiber – dyed some KnitPicks fingering yarn in indigo

6.     Walk at least 1200 miles this year.
a.     January - 157.71 miles (avg. 5.1 miles per day)
b.     February - 148.34 miles (avg. 5.3 miles per day)
c.     March - 182.63 miles (5.9 miles per day) I’m really happy with the mileage I got this month!
d.     April - 181.6 miles (6.1 miles per day) I really rocked on my mileage and my daily average this month!
e.     May - 165.82 miles (5.3 miles per day). I didn’t do as well as last month but I still did pretty well. I spent the last 3 days in bed with food poisoning, which really messed up my daily average.
f.      June - 151 miles (5 miles per day). This was a struggle this month but I was happy to see that I still did better in total miles than in February (I know! There were less days but the total miles was still better!)
g.     July -  172.03 miles (5.5 miles per day). I struggled with this because I like to walk early in the morning and it was hard to do this and get ready for work. Sometimes I walked half the time in the morning and half in the evening. It was also hard to walk when I got home because the heat this month has been horrendous.
h.     August - 177.82 miles (5.7 miles per day). I went over 1200 miles for the year already and I’m so proud of myself. On August 15, I had the highest mileage ever in one day (15.74 miles).
Total: 1337.01

Daily/Weekly/Monthly goals: Last year, I only had a 60% successful completion rate so I am aiming to do better than that this year.

1.     Daily – Name 3 things that I’m grateful for each morning. – I do this every morning before I get out of bed.

2.     Daily – A Photo A Day project – I’ve kept up with this and really enjoy the comments and suggestions I have gotten. I enjoy looking at other people’s pictures too.

3.     Weekly – Contact a friend and tell them something nice. – I really like doing this.
a.     January - I went out to lunch with my friend Sandy one week and I’ve contacted others through Facebook.  
b.     February - Contacted long distance friends on Facebook and wished them happy birthday!
c.      March – kept up with friends on social networking and tried to schedule lunch with my friends Sandy and Sylvia but they were either going out of town or having to work.
d.     April - Contacted some friends but couldn’t ever work out a day we could meet for lunch.
e.     May – tried to meet up with a former student but she ended up getting sick on the day we were going to meet for lunch.
f.      June – Met a lot of nice new friends at the knitting retreat and connected with some known friends too.
g.     July – Went out to lunch with Sandy once, Dyanna once, and Kathy once. I tried to meet up with Femessia, and Sherry but they were out of town. We also had dinner with David a couple of times.

4.     Weekly – Work in my yard/garden at least once a week.
a.     January - It has been too cold in January to do too much but I’ve blown the leaves out of the driveway, raked leaves in the back yard, and fed my worms.
b.     February – raked leaves out of the backyard, removed branches that have littered the yard.
c.     March – weeded, cut dead stuff from winter, fertilized the lawn
d.     April – weeded and edged my flower beds., set up 2 new rain barrels, dug out rusty pole in concrete which was in the middle of the lawn.
e.     May – Did a lot of weeding when I was home but it was hot and humid outside!
f.      June – Did some weeding.
g.     July – I did some weeding but it was so hot! I also planted some elephant ears that I bought at the flea market. We bought a lawn mower since my lawn man moved.
h.     August – I didn’t do as much as I should have but I made sure the front yard stayed weeded.  

5.     Monthly – Knit 10 squares on my Mitered Square Sock Yarn blanket. (Total 120 for the year)
a.     January – completed 10 squares
b.     February – completed 15 squares
c.     March – completed 11 squares
d.     April – completed 11 squares
e.     May – completed 13 square
f.      June – completed 10 squares
g.     July – completed 10 squares
h.     August – 8 completed (fell short this month because I didn't realize until the last day of the month that I hadn't gotten finished. I will start on these earlier in the month so I'm sure to get it finished.)
Total - 88

6.     Monthly - Read one non-fiction book every month. I really enjoyed doing this last year and it forced me to read books out of my comfort zone.
a.     January – The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
b.     February - The Roosevelts: An Intimate History by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns
c.     March – Publish on Amazon Kindle by Kindle Direct Publishing
d.     April – The History of Hand Knitting by Richard Rudd
e.     May – Becoming Unique by James Charles
f.      June – A Country Year: Living the Questions by Sue Hubbell
g.     July – Pioneer Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder (an annotated autobiography)
h.     August – Knitting Rules!: The Yarn Harlot's Bag of Knitting Tricks by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

How are you doing so far with your goals? Join me in the monthly review and let me know how you are doing!
Image: 'Goals' 
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Found on 
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2 comments:

Clix said...

I like the way you have your goals broken down! What gave you the idea to do this?

loonyhiker said...

@Clix For years I would make resolutions and not stick with them. I finally decided I needed to be more specific. That helped me take things in smaller bites to accomplish what I wanted. But then I realized I wasn't doing as much as I liked if I only reviewed them at the end of the year. Reviewing them monthly helps me stick to my goals and I feel much better about how much I am actually achieving.