Goal Reaching in 2014

I take my yearly goals seriously, I do... 

I  love New Year's resolutions!  

I love this time of year when the whole year is opened up before me with possibility and growth and change.  I love to reflect on how I can make my life more fruitful and to plan accordingly.  And I love, at this time of year, to reflect on how well I did on the previous year's commitments.  I know that not all of them will have been successful- I am not that naive- but it always encourages me to look back and see some progress.

So- let's see how I stacked up to last years' goals.

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My hopes for 2014:

 Personal Goals:

• Have all homeschool arts in place by the first of each month.  (Composer, Artist, Poet of the month.) (stunk at this.)
• Mail Opa and Aunt Mate notes or pictures at least TWICE a month.  (Once a week is a goal that I can never seem to reach, unfortunately.) (not even close- I think I mailed each of them two packages.  Opa got a note or two extra but that was IT.)
• Write five other letters each month. (Too bad I can't HALF check it off- I did well at this for probably half the months- toward the end of the year, I was lucky to get 3 out.  Two months I did not write letters at all.)
• Exercise at least three times a week. (did great for about half the year then my arm began bothering me and I gave up.  It took over 6 months to finally figure out what was wrong with my arm- a displaced rib- so I don't feel bad about not meeting this goal.  I was in too much pain for too long.)
• Begin writing a book. (does two paragraphs and a lacking outline count?)
• Get up to send Matt off to work each morning.  
• Personal Bible reading- 15 minutes each day. (hardly ever.  This is the thing I am most disappointed about.)
• Decorate the children's rooms, thriftily and handmade.  The childrens' rooms are in tough shape and need to be gutted and repaired with new electrical work and insulation so we didn't do anything cosmetic that cost money.  We did, however, move furniture to make it more inviting and add pictures to the walls and such.
• Read more fiction.  Not fluffy fiction.   (The reason I got out of fiction in the first place.)Worthwhile fiction.  (Any suggestions?)  Read Wodehouse, Father Brown, and another book about a country woman who moves to the city-but I forget that title.  That's SOMETHING.  I still read a boatload more non-fiction.
• Begin a new afghan project. 
• Clear out the bottom of the granary this year.  Matt said it could be "MY SPACE" and that is a lovely thought.  Huge project.  So glad it is done! 
• Downsize and work to get rid of more clutter.  Specifically, craft supplies I do not use.  Clothing bins in storage we do not need.  Books we do not have room for.  Etc.
• Finish a sheepskin.
• Make 1st year albums for Adele' and Judah (Just squeaked that in as a Christmas present for Adele!)

Financial Goals:

• Save $5,000 for a replacement van.
• Put our whole tax return toward that cause.
• Save $1,000 for savings.
• Put $1,200 toward principle of mortgage (in addition to mortgage payments.) 
• Matt to add to a bandmill fund as he is able.  (money from logs, etc.)  I don't know whether to check this off or not- We did put money in a bandmill fund- but for some reason- the money for the bandmill always eventually found different homes.
• replace our dinosaur of a computer before April and Windows XP expires (or whatever that whole hubbub is about.) We did it with a used computer but we did it!

Homestead Goals:

• Plant two fruit trees.  (Likely, cherry and pear?) I actually planted five!
• Plant two more blueberry bushes.  I planted four more.
• Plant a few more rhubarb plants.  (I am doubtful the ones I planted last year made it.)  
• Plant grapes and make grape trellis.  Okay- the trellis bit is more of my goal for MATT  ;-) Planted two grapes.  We need more.  And no trellis.
• Divide filbert trees to double (triple?) them.
• Prune apple trees, roses and lilacs.  I decided against the lilacs.
• Propogate hydrangeas.
• Make maple syrup ourselves without the fancy sugar shack.  The redneck way.  :-( (Matt's parents got rid of their syrup house and boiler. *sniff*) Made 2 1/2 gallons.
• Become an expert cheesemaker. (Okay, maybe EXPERT is pushing it  But GOOD, anyway.)  I can't even tell you how many pounds of cheese I have made.  It is probably almost a hundred by now.  I kid you not.
• Learn how to milk a cow.  I'll be needing to know that.  HA!  Know this pretty well too.  ;-)
•  Research and make plans for a root cellar.  (Though the actual making of one will probably be a 2015 thing.)
• Fence off pasture.
• Get a new batch of piggle wiggles.  (I miss bacon!)  I still miss bacon!

On Monday, I'll share with you my goals for 2015.  That will give me another day to think about it.

Did you set goals for yourself last year?  How'd you do?