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Top Ten Tuesday -- 2014 Goals and Resolutions

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.Each week we will post a new Top Ten list complete with one of our bloggers’ answers. Everyone is welcome to join.  If you can’t come up with ten, don’t worry about it—post as many as you can!

Blog and Reading Resolutions:

  1. Read over 50,000 pages -- Dropped it a bit from last year.  I like having a fairly manageable page goal instead of a book number goal.
  2. Get rid of at least one box of books -- Again, same as last year.  Really want to free up space in the office closet.
  3. Add in my new features/update weekly schedule -- Really this is adding in more of my Project Life spreads and my monthly goals posts.
  4. Focus on reading my own books -- Not necessarily a library ban, but limiting my visits.  I have way too many books sitting in the closet to constantly be picking up outside books.  I'm setting a goal of 80% of my 2014 reads to be ones I own.
  5. Focus on my perpetual lists -- In fact, I am using my perpetual challenges for a majority of my year's reading challenges.

Life Resolutions:

  1. 30 Day Challenges --- Instead of yearly goals, I need to focus on smaller and shorter goals.  So, I will be posting monthly goals containing a mix of one time activities and 30 day challenges.  As an added bonus, many of the 30 day challenges I am scheduling will knock off a few Day Zero Project goals.
  2. Documentation through Project Life -- I started in October and am absolutely loving the process.  I hope to keep my momentum through 2014.  I purchased a January PL class through Studio Calico to start the year off right.  Hopefully I will get some good tips and inspiration to sustain me.  I will be sharing our spread monthly.
  3. New food adventures -- I don't really like to cook, but I love new recipes.  I want to focus on trying at least one new recipe a week.  I have many cookbooks and multitudes of recipes saved online.  I need to start weeding out the crap and the ones we love.  Maybe I'll create theme months... or weeks... or quarters.  This is one of the new features that I'm still thinking about starting on the blog.
  4. Losing the baby weight -- I gained 30 pounds with Arthur on top of the extra 15 I had been carrying around since my miscarriage in August 2012.  I want to make 2014 the year of getting back to being comfortable.  I want to get down to my prepregnancy weight.  I'm starting this off with a January month goal of losing a pants size.  I'm eating better, I just need to exercise more.
  5. Exploring the Bay Area -- I feel like we've only seen a fraction of things in our area. Since we won't be taking a big out of area vacation this year, I want to spend the year exploring our local region.  I've already got a few ideas of fun with the boys during the summer.  I'm also kicking around a possible weekend trip to Yosemite...  In fact, my word of the year is EXPLORE!  I don't really follow through with all the One Little Word hoopla, but I am going to attempt to use my word and feature it in my Project Life pages.

Revisiting the 2013 blog and reading resolutions:

  1. Read over 60,000 pages -- Nope...  Got pretty close with 53,622 pages.
  2. Get rid of at least one box of books — Definitely accomplished this one.  However, I think we only got rid of one box.  I hope to make a bigger dent in 2014.
  3. Finish any series started — I did a fairly good job on this one.  I joined the Seriously Series Reading Challenge to help me focus.  With that, I finished 10 series.  I'm hoping to repeat my success next year.
  4. Finish 75% or more of the reading challenges I join —Woohoo!  This is the first time that I met this goal.  So excited!
  5. Read more on the iPad — Read more than I have ever have before on the iPad. But I still need to decrease our physical book inventory.  I'm sure I'll keep reading ebooks in 2014.
  6. Be stricter about DNFs — I DNF'd 3 books this year.  I probably could have added about 2 more to that total, but I'm okay with not.  I am getting better at putting books aside if they don't interest me at all.
  7. Read the book before seeing the movie — Fairly decent job at this.  I read a ton of books that I had already seen the movie years ago.  I also read a few in anticipation of their movie release.  Continuing this in 2014.
  8. Do at least six readathons — I did 10 throughout the year.  Great accomplishment.  I'll probably do most of these for 2014.
  9. Focus on my perpetual lists -- Failed at this goal.  I read maybe 6 books off my perpetual lists.  My failure is the reason I decided to change up my reading challenges for 2014.
  10. Limit by book buying — I think I only bought 7 or 8 books throughout the entirety of 2013.  I call that a success!  Unfortunately, I probably added about 30 free ebooks to the iPad.  I really need to work on resisting those free deals.  Just because it's free, doesn't mean that I have to download it...